Knit Tip: Two Halves -- and a Scale

Last week I took this photo to document the halfway point of my newest Paper Lanterns shawlette.

Paper Lanterns WIP in Frabjous Fibers Mad Hatter

Paper Lanterns is a rather simple, sideways knit, shawlette.  For the first half of the project you have increase rows.  For the second half, decrease rows take their place.

If you think that you might not have enough yarn to knit a two-halves type of pattern as written, but you know that you probably have enough...

Or, if you are using a treasured skein of yarn, and you desire to use as much of the yarn as possible... by making the first half as long and as wide as you can with a minimal amount of wasted yarn...

You will need a scale.

A small kitchen scale like the one that I bought from Amazon in 2010 (still available here) will work quite well.

You should weigh your yarn before you start (as I mentioned in this post).  My yarn weighed 113g.  When I got to the halfway point of the shawlette last week, I weighed the remaining yarn and shot the photo above.  The remaining yarn weighed 58g.  Half of 113 would be 56.5.  This showed me that I did have enough yarn to finish because what remained was more than what was used.  It also showed me that for this particular project, there could be no extra pattern repeats to make a larger shawlette.

Your scale will come in handy whenever you knit a project that has two halves.

I use mine every time I make toe up socks.  Before I start, I take my initial ball of yarn and wind a ball off of it, weighing both, until I get two equal balls.  Mr K likes tall socks.  My scale allows me make them as tall as I like but no taller than the yarn allows.

Fingering Weight TATU Socks FO in Cascade Yarns Heritage Paints

This FO photo of a pair that I knit for him last spring, shows what remains of the two balls that I started out with.  These are the tallest socks that I ever knit.

I currently am knitting Mr K a new pair of TATU socks and I was also at the halfway point with these earlier this month.  Now I am quite far beyond that.

Fingering Weight TATU Socks WIP in Austermann Step 6

I use my scale to check how much yarn I have used (or how much yarn I have remaining) in many of my projects especially when I design new patterns.  It has been a very worthwhile tool in my knitting tool box.