There’s one tricky bit about knitting—knowing when to stop when its time to bind off.

No matter how long I’ve been knitting or crocheting, I will forever worry and kvetch about this. I never know if I’m right. I’m always guessing.
Good metaphor for life, no?
My current idiot knitting project is no different. I love having a project like this on hand. It’s easy. It’s mindless. It ends in a great finished product. I can knit it in a movie (and do. Frequently).

My younger son actually picked this scarf/shawl pattern out at Dixie’s
Yellow Dog in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on our road trip this past summer. He saw it done in Fabel in an orangey-red colorway (not my first choice) that looked kind of manly, so I knit it up for him. I was so taken with the pattern, its simplicity and its good looks, that I started another with some lovely bluish sock-ish yarn I had on hand.

It.
Is.
Gorgeous.

It also calls for a crochet border that makes no sense. Or at least it makes no sense to me.

CROCHET BORDER: Crochet a border with Fabel and crochet hook size 3 mm / C round the whole shawl as follows: 1 sc, * ch 3, skip 2.5 cm / 7/8”, 1 sc, ch 4, 1 dc in first ch, 1 sc in the same ch, skip 1 cm / 3/8”, 1 sc *, repeat from *-* and finish with 1 sl st in the first sc on round. Cut and fasten thread.

Now, first off, it tells you to bind off, then crochet this border around everything. Well, I don’t feel like being redundant so I think I’ll be casting off with the picot bind off Erica used on her Jane’s Ubiquitous Shawl from our What Would Madame Defarge Knit? (because, seriously, I should put my mouth where my money’s at, y’know?).

I love this border.

It’s pretty and it’s easy and it looks how I want the crocheted edge to look.

Now, let’s go back to the crochet instructions

CROCHET BORDER: Crochet a border with Fabel and crochet hook size 3 mm / C round the whole shawl as follows: 1 sc, * ch 3, skip 2.5 cm / 7/8”, 1 sc, ch 4, 1 dc in first ch, 1 sc in the same ch, skip 1 cm / 3/8”, 1 sc *, repeat from *-* and finish with 1 sl st in the first sc on round. Cut and fasten thread.

Breaking it down:
single crochet (I’m good with that).
Chain three on a small hook–I’ve got an E that seems PLENTY small for my yarn, so I’m using that–but here’s where I start to wonder… chain 3 and skip nearly a whole inch?! My small hook’s 3 chain stitches do not equal an inch (2-1/2 cm in the Norwegian instructions, so it’s not a translation glitch).
But let’s continue.
Chain 4. That’s fine.
Double crochet in the first chain stitch.
I’m good with that. Clearly that’s the picot bump.
Single crochet then skip a cm–I’m a little nervous about that. Feels like I’ll be making more of a hump or loop rather than a picot bump and my single crochet won’t reach a cm!
Repeat…chain three, skip nearly an inch again…So I fiddle.

Then I found this edging from GwenAnne on Ravelry: Use 2.5mm crochet hook:

sc,(ch 4, skip 3 or 4 sts, sc in next st, ch4, dc in 1st ch of ch4, sc in same sc) – repeat!

I know the difference isn’t much, but this doesn’t pull my edge the way the other one did.

And, so… now the big question is (as always): will I have enough yarn.

I think that by binding off in picot, rather than binding off THEN adding picot all the way around I’m saving myself some hassle.
Or at least some yarn.

At least I hope so.