After weeks of mostly rain, we have a gorgeous sunshiney day, two antsy dogs and a tank full of gas. We're off to the ocean (can't say "beach" or the dogs will go crazy pants.) Before I go, I wanted to give you a sneak peek of my most recent finished object. I'll have better pictures in the near future, over in ravelry.
This project is Mary-Heather Cogar's Simple Things Shawlette. It was exactly what I needed to work on while I wait for yarn to arrive for my next deadline project. I followed the pattern, almost to the letter, except that I omitted one repeat of the garter ridge. I used this bind off to get a good loose edge and it worked a charm.
As a side note, for no real reason whatsoever, except that I have a slightly geeky side, I created a little spreadsheet that can be used to plan out yardage for any triangular shawl that increases 4 sts every other row. You would have to expand the number of rows for longer shawls (like my La Cumparsita) or delete rows for shorter shawls.
Why would you use this? Well, let's say the pattern called for 400 yards of yarn and you have 350. You could use this to determine approximately how many rows you could actually work, without running out of yarn mid-row. Alternately, you might simply like to know when you are actually at the halfway point, or how far through the project you've gotten. Anyway, if you want to play around with it, you can download the file here.
Note: this does not have any information about the shawlette or any other pattern in it, it's simply a tool for calculating stitch counts and yardage in triangular shawl pattern. I am offering this for free for your own use, personal or commercial, but I cannot offer you technical support for this file. It is yours to play with but you will need to understand excel or open office to edit it and I cannot train you to use those programs. If you wish to modify it to be more functional, I would love it if you'd share it with others, and pass along your expertise.
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Comments (9)
Dear Author www.marniemaclean.com !
Absolutely with you it agree. It seems to me it is very excellent idea. Completely with you I will agree.
Posted by bobomarinov | December 3, 2009 11:29 PM
Posted on December 3, 2009 23:29
Beautiful shawlette!
Adorable pups as per usual. Do you really get people asking you how to use excel... nevermind. :)
Posted by Alicia | December 1, 2009 10:41 AM
Posted on December 1, 2009 10:41
You have a slightly geeky side, really? :D
Thanks for the spreadsheet - I always find the perfect yarn and the perfect pattern and then learn that I am short by 11 yards or something. This will be useful!!!
Posted by June | November 30, 2009 2:31 PM
Posted on November 30, 2009 14:31
What a great idea - I've had this problem a couple times in the past, and inevitably ripped back...
Posted by Heather | November 30, 2009 5:32 AM
Posted on November 30, 2009 05:32
Thank you Marnie!!
I have big plans for using this as a jumping off point (probably going to play around with the number of increases per row).
I love geeky knitting stuff!!!!
Posted by Diana Troldahl | November 28, 2009 1:18 PM
Posted on November 28, 2009 13:18
BTW - if anyone's interested - I just opened and saved the .xls file in Numbers (Mac) and it worked a charm :)
Posted by jillian | November 28, 2009 8:04 AM
Posted on November 28, 2009 08:04
This spreadsheet is excellent! Thank you!!
Posted by jillian | November 28, 2009 8:01 AM
Posted on November 28, 2009 08:01
Wow! Thanks for sharing this! I have 348 yards of handspun that I'd like to use for the Ishbel shawlette and now I'll be able to go into it much more confidently.
You rock!
Posted by Tami | November 27, 2009 10:36 PM
Posted on November 27, 2009 22:36
You rock! That spreadsheet is so handy. I love your geekiness almost as much as I do your dogs. (And that's a LOT.)
Posted by Mary-Heather | November 27, 2009 3:14 PM
Posted on November 27, 2009 15:14