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Sunset Carousel: the shawl that never ends

Semi-circular shawls are a beautiful trap.  They start off with 8 or so stitches per row.  Not bad at all.  Very quick rows lead to a certain sense of accomplishment.  Then the number of stitches per row increase, of course, to create the half-circle shape.  But you think to yourself, "ahh, this is fine, I am a patient person, I am enjoying the knitting process!" 

And then the rows start taking five minutes to complete.  Perhaps even ten.  Then twelve...  I am currently up to a 25 minute row.  I am not going to count the number of stitches per row right now, as it would just make me sad.  And the stitch count will double at least once more before I'm done! 

On the bright side, I'm using quite a lot of yarn!  



This pattern is very good.  I like how the lace looks, and the charts are very reasonable (speaking as someone who previously did not enjoy working from charts). 

I was hesitant to start this pattern because I have never knit from a chart before.  I have literally sat down and hand-written instructions from a chart rather than read the chart as I knit.  But I decided this would be a good project to just learn to knit from a chart.  And it wasn't that bad!  

I have learned to love charts.  I am even adding an entirely extra section between the second and third charts to extend the shawl and use more yarn.  This chart was easy to visualize and adjust because it was a chart.  A written pattern would have been a nightmare to adapt. 

But now I am currently forty rows from the end, and I am suffering.  I should have been done knitting by now, but because I added another chart, I added quite a lot of knitting for myself.  

I'll have a completed shawl eventually. 

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