Shawl Progress

I've been knitting away at the Godey's Ladies Book Shawl (Nov 1864 issue).  The border calls for 2 colours, contrasting to the main colour.   I've seen the whole shawl elegantly done in just 2 colours, but the original was described s the main part being violet and black varigated, with a gold and black border.   I wasn't sure I had enough blue to do the border and the fringe, which is tied on after the shawl is finished.   I have 600 g of the blue, 400 of which were used for the main body.   I had 250 g of the brown and I had 300 g of the white tweed that I could dye up for the third colour and 200 g of a grey marl, which I'd tried first and it was pretty wishy washy and unattractive.   I saw a photo using the deep blue, brown and gold, which was spectactular, so I chose that as a colour scheme.   To say the least, it is indeed a bold choice.  The gold was dyed with weak acid dyes, using warm yellow, black and a little bit of magenta.

Instructions state to use a safety pin to mark increase row 

I used 4 skeins for the blue.  It wasn't as long as I'd done the math for, but draping it on myself showed it was going to be long enough.   The border is 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 10 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A.   I almost stopped halfway through the border.  

Not only was it plenty big enough, but each 2 rows increase the total stitches by 4.   It is taking me about 1/2 hour to knit one row.   I'm quite ready to cast off.    However, by the time I'd finished the centre section of the border, I realized that I was now on the count down, so I kept going.   I have 14 rows left to knit.

The gold and brown border is  bright and hardly subtle.  I think it is a good choice for the time period and  it is well within the colour suggestions of the original pattern.

This baby is going to be warm.   It already weighs close to 600 g.  I'll need to use part of the second skein of both gold and brown for the rest of the border.  There are 2 skeins of the blue left, which will be used for the fringe.   I don't know how much I'll need for that.

When I start getting a bit overwhelmed with the knitting, I choose to knit 4 or 5 stitches.   Then another 4 or 5 and so on.   Usually it's just 4 stitches, and by doing that, in no time, I've completed a row.  I've only had to resort to that trick a couple of times though.

I am already thinking about my next project, which will likely be a) smaller and b) incorporate a stitch pattern other than garter stitch.  The only thing good about that much garter stitch, is that I don't have to look at it very often while I'm knitting, so I can talk, read, entertain the cat etc..