Purlescence was having a don’t-make-us-count-inventory sale New Year’s Eve, and Sam and I did that errand, too, before she left. We walked in and people jumped up and offered us seats; have I ever mentioned it’s a nice place? (Oh, never…) Thanks, but I was there with a specific purpose in mind.
I wanted fingering weight, but color and feel rated highest. Sam picked out this one.
Venezia merino and silk, in a shade of green she pointed out just about anybody with any coloring could wear, with a nice sheen to it. Spun quite finely into many plies then cabled together–Cascade did a very nice job with the spinning. This one shouldn’t pill. This one kept its softness despite the rate of twist. Well done!
Worsted weight. (Oh well, can’t win’em all.)Â The Rooster Rock shawl proved to me I could work with that, so, okay.
I started to knit a variation on my Water Turtles shawl, and the slip knot at the beginning of my traditional long-tail cast-on stopped me right there. In that yarn, it was just too thick. I didn’t like it. I started again.
No.
Huh.
Hey. What if…
Now, I once explained to someone that there is almost never a good use in knitting for an e-wrap. If you cast on via e-wraps, ie simply twisting the yarn into a loop like the cursive letter e and putting that loop straight onto the needle, when you go to knit the first row, there will be a length of yarn hanging down between those e-wraps that will get longer and looonger and looooonger as you go across the row, like a dog on a retractable leash running after a squirrel.
And yet. I tried it. One e-wrap, just on that first stitch only, just there at the start, just that very first stitch.
I had to do several rows to see how it would really play out in context. And when I did, it was, WOW.
I have knitted over a hundred of these top-down shawls by now. Not so many on the heavier weight ones, so I guess I didn’t have quite the motivation to go looking before, but still–a hundred shawls! And I only just now get it. This is how they all should have started. This is how all the ones I’ll do after this will.
I guess my surprise New Year’s present to myself and the whole wide world arrived e-wrapped after all.