Knitting Pattern Disobedience

This is the Tuch Potzblitz shawl. I kept seeing it on Pinterest and wondered how it was constructed. I could figure out the beginning, but then was stumped as it shifted from knitting vertical to simultaneously growing horizontal. I looked at the pictures of works in progress done by other knitters of this pattern on Ravelry, and that didn't help much. Finally I bit the bullet and did what I haven't done in 25 years. 

I bought the pattern. 

Argghh. I felt I let myself down. My pride was teetering. I had to admit to myself that I don't know everything. ha!

After examining the first few pages (of 24) my eyes glazed over and I invited my knitting pal, Patsy, an expert knitter who follows patterns regularly, to look it over and see if she could help me understand. She arrived at my house with a pefectly lovely knit sample of the start of the shawl and I saw to my surprise that the 'secret' ingredient was the icky-to-me I-cord. O geesh.

Well, I didn't wanna do the I-cord. But I could see the possibilities of doing it another way and I relaxed a bit. The pattern also had increases I don't like, M1L and M1R. Never do those. I prefer Kfb for my increases. ( I know this is inside baseball to many of you, but hey, this is my blog and I gotta tell it like it is).

Since Patsy had followed the directions, I could imagine how to achieve the same or similar results another way, and we agreed to try to make this pattern the right way for Patsy and my way for me. 

We spent some time in my yarn room choosing yarns for each of our projects and I tried to hold myself back from 'all color all the time' and chose these:

Of course I later changed my mind and only used three of those and added two others, so nevermind. What is important is that these are all really quality ($$$) yarns that I have been saving for something really special for YEARS. All are fingering weight which means smaller size needles and more time to make the project. No biggie. 

I began to make a sample to see if my disobedient idea would work and I was gratified that it did. Here's the sample:

The beginning and its increase. You don't need to remember this. it is merely for my records. 

 

Then I continued with this section in two colors:

Yes! My confidence surged and I was ready to use the real good yarn. 

OK so here's the deal. I could keep knitting the beginning part til I got to the part I disagreed with and do some testing of my alternate idea and see if it worked and so I sped along and got there that same day. After trying it out, I quickly decided my idea was way better (excellent imho) and I was on my way to success, never looking back.

 

This is what is so great with knitting. There are so many ways to skin a cat and one needn't be a slave to the original pattern. I know this to be true with all the patterns I have offered for free on Ravelry. In fact one time a knitter had a way better idea for one of my jacket patterns and I had to take a deep bow to her and change my pattern to make a better product. 

It's all good. 

So four days later, the shawl is finished and  has been washed, blocked and is waiting to dry. I am very pleased with the result and learned some good stuff in the process which I know will show up in future projects.

As for Patsy, after day one she was fed up with the pattern and I released her from having to make it. We can always find something else to knit together for our weekly Friendship Friday meetings. 

I love the final product which I will post tomorrow when it is dry, and offer it for sale to you. I cannot keep another knitted item, there just isn't room. In fact I really should post knits that are available while it is still winter, so I can make room in my closets.  Maybe I will have a separate blog of items that needs a home. We'll see.