Knitting another Dotted Rays

This is some of the yarn my Aunt Betty shared with me. I really like the effect a striping or ombre yarn will give to the Dotted Rays shawl by Stephen West so I decided to cast on another one.

Bulky knits are fun. I rarely knit to gauge with shawls. I pick the yarn, knit fabric I like with the size needles I like, and just go until I'm almost out of yarn. I don't think shawls need precision when it comes to knitting. I'm not going to overthink it or become a slave to the pattern. This pattern is one that works well when you think about shawl construction as an adventure. Once you have the basic idea down, you can just go with it.

I was only 50 grams in for this photo, so it isn't a small shawl. I had a total of 300 grams of this yarn to work with. I worked until I had less than one 50 gram ball left and bound off. The I-cord bind off uses way more yarn than you think it will, particularly when you bind off loosely. As the wedges become bigger, I used two balls of yarn at a time, alternating rows between the balls, to get the stripes to stay a little wider.

I've stopped trimming the ends of the yarns when I mend them in until after blocking. It seems they always poke out just a bit after blocking so I just wait until the finished piece is blocked and then trim those little ends off.

I love pulling the points on this shawl to open up the holes in the work. Why knit that detail if you aren't going to see?

Working with a heavy-worsted weight yarn makes this knit up quickly and you still get a great finished piece.