of course

I've spent 2 years knitting a very large shawl. It's taken a lot of patience because it involves beading. I am not patient, and more often than not the project was stuffed in a bag and ignored. But I am determined to finish it this summer for Stash Dash, and so I have been working on it with a vengeance this past spring.

And of course, I am now ~13 rounds from the end of it, and I really, really, reallyreallyreally don't think I'm going to have enough yarn.

So, a shawl like this, a circular or pi-shawl, is created by doubling the number of stitches every time the radius doubles. Because the circumference of a circle = 2pir. The pattern, Shipwreck Shawl from Knitty, requires me to knit 12 rows, do an increase round where the number of stitches is doubled (yo, k1, essentially, all the way around), and then bind off loosely. My question is--if I trim the number of rows I do (down to say, three, because that might be all the yarn I've got), do I still need to increase before I bind off? or because I haven't hit the important radius yet, will it not matter?

Part of me says "if the number of rows has doubled (the radius), then increase. since I won't be quite doubled the number of rows, then I shouldn't increase."

The other part of me says that the radius has certainly increased a great deal since the last time I doubled the stitches, and that it's really *close* to having been doubled, so I should increase.

....
now that I type it out, though, I begin to think of it a bit more. when you do this type of shawl, there's a sort of jog or jump on the increase rows. If you spread it out in a half circle, you'll see that jog. that comes from adding a whole bunch of fabric at once to your garment/object/whatever you wanna call it. Adding those stitches *prepares* the project for the knitting that comes *after* it. It doesn't have an influence on the knitting that came before it. In that case, since I'm not prepping for anything to come after the doubled radius, but am instead just working on the stuff that came after the last doubling, still, even if I end it early--then I shouldn't increase.

and I don't think I will. thanks blog. Now I just need to figure out how many more rounds I can get through before I need to save the rest of the yarn for binding off.