I chose poorly. Not the yarn, not the pattern. Both are heavenly. But I’m trying to modify a 5-color shawl to 3 colors and it’s not going as well as I wanted. I’m talking about my Dotted Rays shawl with the gorgeous Zen Yarn Gardens Serenity 20.

Somehow I missed where the pattern suggested approximately 1400 yards for the Large size. I just saw the yardage for the Super Large and thought 1200 yards would be plenty for the Large. (Note to self: read patterns carefully!) So I knit with color A until I had about 40 grams left and did one wedge alternating colors A and B. I didn’t want too much of the cream at the expense of the green and purple, and since I was at wedge 10 of 15, I thought surely I’d have plenty of yarn. But those later wedges get BIG, guys. Long rows, even doing short rows. After one wedge of all green, I’m down to less than 40 grams, which makes me think there’s no way I can make it through the remaining four wedges with just a bit of green and one full skein of yarn left.

There are a lot of options. I could just end it when I run out of yarn, but I really really want the chevrons at the end. I could frog back to where I stopped alternating the cream and green, and add in the rest of the cream. But I’m not sure it’s worth having to frog and reknit. (It’s definitely not.) The best option in my mind is to add another color. Currently, it’s Speckle/Solid/Speckle, so I should be able to end with a coordinating solid purple and it will be perfect. I have a couple of choices in my stash (purple yarn? Of course I do!) but I’m going to wait until I get close to running out of the purple speckle to pick. It might depend on how much I need.

I don’t think I’m a “wing it” kind of knitter. I think I like having all the information to work with up front!