Knitting Math or the Intrepid Knitter

I sat and looked at my shawl.
I recounted stitches.
I weighed the ball again,
I read the pattern over.

Nothing changed.

The math doesn't lie. There isn't enough yarn to finish.

So what's an intrepid knitter to do? I'm altering the pattern. If I dismiss knitting rows 1-8 of Chart Four the feathers may line up close enough to make it work. This requires some tweeking with increases but it should leave me enough yarn. I've used just over a gram per row in the last few rows.

So instead of 24+ rows remaining I'd have 16+ rows. I also have a swatch that weighs 2 grams. If it comes down to the last row - I can frog the swatch.

Hopefully I'll have pictures up of the shawl soon. We're having technical issues with the digital camera.

Reallity strikes a low blow...

Chart Three is complete.
24 grams of yarn remain.
24 rows plus finishing remain.

Deep breathes....

Chart Two is finished, finally. Halfway through the chart I encountered a rough patch, even on the so-called rest rows. I unknitted and reknitted on almost every row after row eight. Sometimes more than once. It wasn't fun and it wasn't pretty.
Finally I broke the pattern into sequences and began tallying each repeat of each sequence so I could stay on track.
The details - Chart Two ended with 356 stitches, the top measures approx. 62 inches and just over 40 grams remain.

Breathe....Breathe...
If 14 rows of Chart Two used 12 grams of yarn and I have 40 rows remaining...

I'll use approximately 34 grams to complete Chart Three and Four. Then there are the last rows and the bind off.

It's going to be very very close.

Fancy Socks I want to make

The socks in the new Vogue Knitting are so fun that I want to learn to knit with multiple colors at once. The level is stated as difficult....

The embroidered socks are simply toe up stockinette. What's so difficult about that I wonder?

On the needles

Ahh my first post on a knitting blog.
Currently on the needles is the Icarus Shawl from IK. (the photo was taken a week or so ago) The yarn is a hand spun, hand painted wool that I purchased from the spinner (Hummingbird Hill Farm) at the Herbal Affair, a large plant and herb festival held every spring in Sand Springs, OK. It's an odd place to purchase yarn but everything they had was sumptuous. The colors are soft blues and purples.
I weighed the skein after balling it and got 125 grams. I was using my soap making scale so I'm not sure about exactly how many yards per skein. The ten yard test was between one and two grams. My scale doesn't measure half grams. The skein could be 600+ yards or 800. Crazy. The skein wrapper was of no help since it said there were 300+ yards. I just finished the end of Chart One and have 52 grams left. I feel like I owe the spinner another $30.
Now I'm sort of shaky worrying whether I'll have enough yarn to complete the shawl. This is way too much work to not finish it or to short change the project with somthing "close" to the original yarn. It's really more of a panic than the shakes.
I thought I had finished chart one earlier this week. Then I reread the pattern. Repeat rows 19-34 before beginning Chart Two. A real let down. Then the let down moved into crankiness. Knitting angry isn't pretty - it can also be downright dangerous. Needles can fly without reference to the pattern. Stitches can be dropped. Projects can be stuffed into the bottom of the knitting bag to be forgotten after countless hours of work.
As my boyfriend said, "Don't knit angry."