Another good day, yesterday. The Neap Tide shawl was just
what I needed – the difference between knitting to pick up when I happened to
have a chance to sit down; and knitting to contrive opportunities to get back
to.
I calculated, very roughly, how many more stitches I needed
to achieve the width specified in the pattern, given my gauge and given its,
and I decided that two additional pattern repeats in the first Increase Section
would about do it, 14 extra stitches. Obviously, two more repeats add length as well as width.
I have done that, and have now advanced to the second Increase Section, where
the increases don’t come as fast.
Towards the end of this section, I should be able to get a better idea how
things are going. I can add more repeats in the Centre section to increase the length, if need be. And if I decide that more width is needed, I can incorporate more stitches
into the latter parts of the second Increase Section, without increasing length and at some damage to the
slope of the curve.
It’s a super pattern. The yarn is wonderful too.
I often marvel at smart newspaper columnists who say that
later life never involves any mathematics, so why learn all that stuff? This particular problem was pretty elementary
– I figured that I needed 25% more stitches than I had, and two pattern
repeats, with increases on every pattern row, seemed to do the trick.
(And, knitting aside, what about the question, which often
arises these days, of what a 1.5% tax free interest rate is worth to a basic
rate? a higher rate? tax payer. That one involves elementary algebra. I can do
it if I apply myself, and would feel a bit uncomfortable, I think, if I
couldn’t.)