Pi Update: Adjusting the Recipe

I've just finished winding a new ball from a hank of lace weight yarn from KnitPicks. I'm not happy with my PiR2 shawl and have finally decided I am going to start again. I will leave the current one on the needles and do a side by side comparison at some point. Not the frog pond yet, but it's resting by a lily pad.

The stitch definition seems fuzzy, and I'd like a closer knit. I'm not happy with the way the Snowdrops look with this size needle. I'm planning to buy size 7 (US) circ when I go to the Knitting Shack for the Knitting Social this afternoon. I did swatch my yarn in several size needles, but wasn't familiar enough with lace weight yarn to know how to evaluate my samples. After a bit of knitting, I can say my preference is to have my lace a bit tighter, so I'll try the 7s and see how that goes.

Another problem is the stitch count on the PiR2. EZ starts the half-circle with 16 sts, then doubles to 32, 64, 128 and more. As I try to substitute lace patterns I find that many are based on multiples of 12, which means I need a multiple of 3 in the mix. One thing I can do is change my start to 18 rather than 16. By the time I get to the outer rows this is an extra 32 sts, and I don't know if this will be too many sts for the shawl.

I put holds on Barbara Walker's "The Craft of Lace Knitting" and "Charted Knitting Designs" through the local library. Lace Knitting should come soon, but Charted Designs is currently out. This gives me some time to knit another beginning on the PiR2 and then use the library books to make my own adventure.