Has it been this long? The last time I took a picture of the orange Pi Shawl it was the size of a dinner plate- now it's big enough to blanket a pony. So, let's be clear- Banjo is a large pony- he is not the size of a racehorse. I was trying to find a good surface to spread out this unblocked work for an in-progress photo and discovered that the round darkness of the pony and the slight prickle to his hide does a great job at holding the shawl spread out... I am NOT knitting a fly sheet! (Don't even joke about that!)

The border of this shawl, ("perfection leaf lace" from knitting-and.com) is knit around the edge so that there is no casting off. The pattern of the border is about 30 stitches wide- so it will add a lot of width and gobble up a lot of yarn. I have plenty of yarn left- so that's fine... it is just some real slow going to get all the way around the shawl. I just started on the border yesterday- so that's about a days worth of knitting there. It' looks like this project may take me through the summer. I did block a sample of the border and I love how this slubby yarn blocks- after wetting it really melts into place and the designs become much more distinct. I'm still trying to figure out a strategy for the big block... and will have lots of time to dwell on that.

In mulling over the mathematics of thePI shawl- I'm now understanding that I really didn't need to do a doubling row- or rather- since I didn't need to make this round 98 rows deep- I didn't need the fullness that would require doubling. I am only needing about half of that radial distance- so I probably could have gotten by with a 50% increase rather than a 100%. What does that mean? It means that my giant border is going to be a lot longer than it needs to be- but that also means that it will block wider and with less tension- and in the end- I think that will be fine.