Too big

I was complaining about how my Lucca shawl keeps coming out way too small, and I mean wayyyyy too small?  Here's the opposite problem:

I made another curtain, gah!  All that work and I can't really do anything with the finished item?

This was meant to be a shawl that's up to 100cm across. Instead it's a good 150cm diameter!
I can't wear that!?

Just look at my tippy-toes at the bottom edge of the photo, for size comparison (okay, you don't see much of my foot, you'll have to imagine it - each foam tile is about 50cm across).  I could have easily stretched this to even bigger, my constraint was the foam tiles. The area where the middle flowers are is a bit dense - I could have pulled this further on the outside points.

It is a pretty pattern though, I got lots of enjoyment out of knitting this.  Except when I ran out of yarn.  And that should have tipped me off about just how big this was going to get: I had two massive Fyberspates Scrumptous lace yarn skeins and got too close to running out - I used the dark blue yarn (also Fyberspates lace, this colour is called Midnight, my main light grey colour is called Water).

I wanted to switch to the contrast colour at a point in the pattern where it wouldn't look too horrible - this seemed as good a place as any.

I was glad to use up a stash yarn that I've had a number of years, so long in fact that I couldn't get more in the same dye lot and had to buy yet more in this dark blue. So I am left with the rest of that.

I was thinking that it might be nice to make a shawl like this in a few colours: different colorus for the centre and for portions of the outside.  Not in stripes or rings of the same width, perhaps one ring that's just an inch or so if it's a good spot between two other portions of the pattern?  It could look really good.

But that means that I would have to buy even more!  Yikes.

But I like the idea of a shawl in different colours: I would love to use this dark blue, a light pink, a small area in white and then some other colour for the rest.  I even saw a Niebling pattern that would be suitable.

But let's be honest: should I be buying yet more yarn?  I mean really?

The answer to that has to be no.

But I am still tempted now that I had the idea!

It's being able to see the finished product in front of my inner eyes, that's the problem.  I see something I like and I want it.

I am not a size queen, but...

This is an awkward project. 
Or is it me? Am I doing something wrong?

I loved the lace-weight Pi shawl pattern Lucca by Brooklyn Tweed so much that  I had to buy it.  Never mind that I have a huge amounts of patterns I could do instead.  Sometimes you just see something that grabs your attention and you have to go with it.

This is a pattern where you don't knit knit rows in between lace pattern rows, you do something in each row - at least in the lace pattern sections that look quite delicate.

I was very intrigued by the roundish looking pattern rows (you get to do alternate rows there!) – these turn out to be one and a half repeats of the tulle pattern common to many lace shawl or tablecloth patterns.  You know the patterns that make big doilies?

I am really taken with the fact that using only six rows of this pattern gives such a different effect to what this pattern usually looks like.  In ‘doily’ patterns it is very often used as background - typified by two yarn-overs that you have to purl and knit to in the alternative row above.  What I get when I knit this it tends to look a bit loose and rough so I am not that keen on it, I much prefer the diamond shape pattern for lace backgrounds.

This is a really awkward pattern for me because I started it three times now in three different yarns and with increasingly bigger needles.

First attempt: petrol yarn and needles sized 3mm
Second attempt: a Fyberspates Scrumptous yarn (in DK?) and 4mm needles
Third attempt: a bright pin/purplish BC Garn Silkbloom Extra Fino yarn and x needles

My first attempt resulted in a tiny size that’s less than half the desired size. I wasn’t keen on producing something the size of a handkerchief!

Pretty. But just too small.

Second one was even worse: despite the bigger needles, this thick yarn wasn't working at all:

Just look at it! Tiny, compact, not what I wanted...

And the third attempt that I am determined to go with:

I already increased the stocking stitch sections by a few rows

So I started again.  And again the size wasn’t what I wanted nor what it looks like in the instructions. So I started again. Yes, I know I said that already, but I did. Third yarn, even bigger needles!

I am still not terribly happy with the size I am getting – but at least it’s a lot closer.

Maybe I can repeat some rows or pattern sections to make it bigger?  But I don't understand why my attempts come out tiny whereas the original photos make this look like a very comfortable size.  It is downright weird.

A funny outcome of this would be if blocking it would eventually give me a bigger size. That has happened to me quite often: I knit and knit at this misshapen blob of a thing and as soon as I start to pin the wetted down shawl, it seems to grow and grow and grow!

But this project has lots of stocking stitch sections, I really don’t think this is capable of growing much!?  But if it came out just a little bit bigger I would be very pleased.

Let me keep my fingers crossed!