Thursday, July 9, 2009

A Very Scary Question

The Ancient Woodlands Shawl is off the needles and ready to block. I bound off this morning while drinking coffee and watching the Tour de France. Even unblocked, I must say it’s a rather impressive piece of work, and I’m so excited to get it on the blocking wires this evening I can barely sit still.

My husband asked me a very scary question the other night while I was working on it.

“How many stitches are in that?”

I explained that the shawl is 114 stitches wide, that it was the cables in the middle portions that pulled it in, not any increase in the counts.

“No, I want to know how many stitches are in the whole thing!”

I boggled at him. The whole thing? He wants to do the math and come up with the number of stitches in the whole thing?!? Do I really need to know that?

Quite frankly, I don’t think I do. It's one of those numbers that might haunt my thoughts and keep me up at night.

Although now he’s got me curious…

7 comments:

Anna said...

I saw someone post recently that they had calculated the number of stitches in a shawl. Can't remember the pattern, or the knitter, but I'm pretty sure the number was something crazy like 677,000!

marycatharine said...

That is a scary question. If I knew how many stitches were in any given project starting would be really hard. Can't wait to see your shawl.

Rose Red said...

I sometimes wonder about that too, but I'm never game to work it out. Also I don't trust my maths. Best not to know, really...

Can't wait to see it!!

Donna Lee said...

I can't wait to see it! The thought of all the stitches (not to mention all the ones I've ripped out)boggles my mind. Thousands and thousands of the same movement......

MadMad said...

Do it! Wouldn't it be an amazing feat to brag about? And it's much scarier if you're ripping them out, right?

Chandler said...

The Tailor asks me questions like that, too! (And he's a knitter! You'd think he knew better!) Also, every time I do a complex letterpress project, with multiple print runs, etc., he says things like, "So how many times did you crank the press for this project?" and then calculate it to himself, and then go off and tell everyone the absurd number. Sheesh. Some questions just shouldn't be asked!

Nora said...

I think it's safe to say that it's a lot. Knitting is not for sissies!