Black Widow Spider King Inner Border--Complete!

Sorry the pin-out is so sloppy--it's a strain to show anything without risking the stitches sliding off the needle. It's a looooooooong way around each row, especially as I am being exceptionally careful not to make a mistake. Each row takes about an hour, and that's when I am feeling particularly coordinated.

I was flabbergasted that my stitch count came out perfectly--I didn't have to fudge a single stitch to begin the extremely complex outer border.

Alas, BWSK isn't going to Japan with me. I don't want to risk losing it in my checked luggage or having it confiscated from my carry-on by a surly TSA person. And the lighting in my room over there is, um, subtle--a bit too subtle to work with fine black yarn. On the positive side, I look thirty years younger, assuming I can find a mirror in all that subtleness.

Instead, I will begin the Unst shawl and knit up to the beginning of the pattern. That way, if something happens on the ride over I won't be heartbroken. Well, overly heartbroken.

As usual, I have already made some adjustments to the Unst shawl pattern. I preferred the original center shown in Heirloom Knitting, so even though I paid for the standalone pattern, I am just mutating the stole into a shawl, as (sort of) decribed in the book. I know that books don't mumble, but if they did, the paragraph for the conversion would be an excellent candidate for literary mumblehood.

The arithmetic made my head spin, but I finally worked out both the vertical and horizontal repeats for a square center. I figured the author ran into the same problems I did trying to shoehorn the original center into 165 border stitches, so she went with a central pattern that didn't require so much modulo arithmetic.

I'll finish the center while I am there and then begin the border when I get back in July. And, while I am there, you guys will be treated to lots of Japanese yarn and books.