Friday, April 16, 2010

{Frustration}

What you see here is the beginning of my Haruni, only with a stockinette body instead of a lace one.  I saw a project like this on Ravelry and really liked it, so decided I would do it this way.  But, after hours of knitting I've got about 100 stitches on the needles and it's still MINISCULE.  How many stitches is this going to be by the time it gets to be the right size???


Should I frog it and try with bigger yarn?  The pattern calls for fingering and technically this Malabrigo is Light Fingers, but still.  Maybe use larger needles? I'm on 4's and I like how it looks.  I have no idea.  What do you guys think?

8 comments:

  1. I guess i think you should just hang in there and knit away. I LOVE how it looks, the yarn is really pretty and works perfectly with the stockinette body, so I think you'll be more than happy with the finished one.

    I do know what you mean with the lots and lots of stitches though. I'm almost up to 300 on my orange one, and each row takes forever! But that's sort of what shawls are like, at least the ones that start from the neck middle. I'll soon get to work on my Haruni too, and then we can whine about it together, ok?

    Hugs / Jenny

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  2. I love the color...sorry I can't help you--but I'm sure many of your readers can!

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  3. As Jenny said, the shawls that start at the center back end up with really long rows. I knit a big Ishbel and towards the end, each row took me about half an hour to knit! The question is, do you like the fabric on those needles? If it's not too tight or too loose, keep going :) I think it looks lovely and the color is very pretty!

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  4. I agree with Alexandra...the most important thing is are you happy with the fabric. I'm working on Multnomah right now and have about 120 stitches and it looks only a little larger than yours. It seems like yours is about the right size for that number of stitches and the needle size.

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  5. oh my, that is going to be quite a few sts per row by the time you get to the last few rows. but you're a speedy gonzales knitter so i bet you'll get it done in no time. i say stick with it if it's something you really want to make, and in the end it will be one of those "wow look what i accomplished" projects.

    good luck :)

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  6. Just keep going. Shawls take forever to knit because the rows just keep getting longer and longer. I've knitted Haruni too (in the normal way) and in the end I think I had more than 550 stitches. Anyway. I think your shawl will be really pretty when it's finished! I've seen pictures of Haruni with stockinette body and the result is probably more beautiful this way than the normal way with lace.

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  7. Thanks SO much to everyone for commenting! You've been the inspiration I needed! I'm going to keep going so I guess it'll be a long term project. lol

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  8. I think it looks great. Malabrigo always looks fantastic, and feels even better (can you guess it's my favourite yarn?!).

    Shawls always take ages to look substantial, as they are almost always knitted in laceweight. You get the same result in a heavier yarn knitted on bigger needles, but it is much quicker.

    If my opinion counts, I think it looks fantastic, but it all comes down to whether you can stick it out for the whole shawl. One of the best things about knitting a shawl is that you can stop whenever you think it's big enough for your needs (it's even easier to do that in stockinette because you don't have to worry about lace repeats).

    When I did my Swallowtail and Aeolian shawls, my interest was kept going by the changing lace pattern. Howevere, when I did the Simple yet Effective Shawl, it was plain stockinette stripes and there were many, many times when I wanted to give up.

    Hope that helps, but do what you think is best.

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