More knitting commentary

The Hat pictures are below. This was a fun project; my first time to follow a pattern, and possibly my last. I'm not good at following patterns. LOL

Now, I am knitting a shawl to wear here at home (guess I could wear it out) that will tuck into my pants and not get in my way like the sleeves of my flannel shirts do. So, it's grey alpaca grande - a nice thick yarn that is silky soft and slides right off the metal needles I am using. I've have developed more fine motor skills this time in grabbing the stitches as they slide off the needle and before they sink into the previous row of stitches. That would be problematic with this silky alpaca. Very hard to correct dropped stitches.

Anyway, I don't much care for repetitive work - too many knit stitches and not enough purl stitches or other variation. And, shawls take a lot of stitches. You knit from the tip of the shawl up to the shoulder. So, you start out with two stitches and increase every other row by two stitches. I got up to about 83 stitches and decided it was surely big enough and I was tired of doing the same old thing. So I bound it off, but I was smart enough not to cut the yarn.

I grandly flipped it over my back and, alas, it barely covered the tops of my shoulders. Ugh. I could either give it to a very small person or I could try to get it back on the needles - those same metal needles (called circular turbo needles). I opted for getting it back on the needles.

Other than having every stitch turned backwards (not a real problem to change but tedious), the re-needling went smoothly. And, I now have about five more rows of it knitted. I suspect I have many rows to go before it is the right size and many more knit stitches than I have any desire to do. But, I shall persevere, and we will eventually have pictures of my grey alpaca grande shawl. Of course, the weather is going to be 70 degrees here today; so I may never need it again.