Have Wires, Will Travel

Progress is moving forward with my Dover Castle Shawl.  I'm still optimistic that it will be finished for the weekend.  I've just started the border, but for the last couple repeats of the body, I was caught in a vicious cycle.  I would knit a couple of rows, weigh the ball of yarn. Knit, weigh.  Knit, weigh.  All the while my stitch count was increasing, making any kind of mathematical prediction even more tenuous. Could I squeeze in one more repeat and have enough yarn left for the border?  After several debates with myself, I called it quits on the body and moved on to the border.

Right now I'm confident I'll have enough yarn to finish, but that confidence will undoubtedly erode as the ball gets smaller and smaller. The border section is written for 16 rows, but the instructions say you can quit after any wrong side row.  I'm going for the full 16.  Since I made the body bigger, I don't want to cross the finish line with a skimpy border.

There's one slight snag in my Dover Castle master plan.  Later today I leave for KnitEast, and I'm doing the driving.  This time I'm traveling with my blocking wires.  I'm staying with a dear knitter friend who lives just this side of the Canadian border.  I have visions of one of our late night chats over a pile of wet wool and a couple beers.

If you want to follow along with the weekend adventures, I'll have live updates on Twitter.  I also have a booth this weekend at Vermont Sheep and Wool, and there will be tweets from that event.

Now I'm off to take care of last minute details . . . and make sure the wires and pins are packed.