victory...

Got ‘er done! and I could have made another couple of armbands! Although you could see the cone through the final strands. It was close, but final weight, 186g.
Just to change it up a bit, the next shell I’m making with Mini Dina (used to be a dress weight Silk City yarn, cotton/rayon blend), for Sarah - another tall, slim girl, same size as Shannon. I have this full cone of a raspberry shade (it’s labelled ‘wine’) that isn’t my colour and I can easily get at least two tops from a full cone – sister Janet may get the other one.
Cheating again, I’m not swatching, just looking back in the old issues of KNITWORDS (always fun!) to find where I knit stockinette Mini Dina and sure enough, found one that I used T6 with a gauge of 34 sts and 50 rows to 10 cm which is the same as the WCD gauge on the navy one!
Been thinking about that wonky neckline and I realized, duh…that one stitch – the centre of the lace pattern is throwing me off! I forgot about having that extra stitch at one side to balance it off and like, this is such a fine gauge you wouldn’t think you’d really notice it but, because this particular stitch pattern has so many holes, it all shows up, to the discerning eye!
I’m using basically the same lace motif as the navy one but adding an extra line of holes on the bottom vee line. Watching, in particular, the transfers of having 3 sts on one needle every other row alternating, which creates the vertical lines. I found that if I pulled the 3 sts slightly forward across the piece, check they’re the correct ones and then do the transfers, there is less likelihood of errors.

At the neckline, when shortrowing, do the transfers first, except on the inside end needle – don’t transfer that one (it’s the one you’re wrapping for the shortrow) but it’s okay to have empty needles on the shortrowed line, because you’ll be knitting a final row at the end to take care of that. Otherwise the neck edge gets too full of plain stitches if you know what I mean…