Pass yarn forward as if for purling. Insert point of the right needle into the next 2 sts on the left needle and carrying the wool over and round the point of the right hand needle knit the 2 sts together. The wool is now at the back ready for a knit stitch.
My problem is that I don’t have enough sts left to finish the first row … I understand that WI.fwd does in fact knit two together and create another stitch simultaneously … any ideas?
How many stitches short are you? The 1st row came out right for me, I cast on the 14 sts and worked as instructed. For row 2, where it says [B] WI.fwd. K4. [/B] are you supposed to WI.fwd. and then just knit 4 as normal or do the WI.fwd. before each of the 4 knits?
I think the problem is the explanation was over helpful.
The “Pass yarn forward as if for purling” is the instruction for the Wl.fwd, but the “Insert point of the right needle …” is the instruction for the K2tog. So it’s easy to think, from those instructions, that one should do a K2tog as part of the Wl.fwd and then do another K2tog.
I presume you are working from a very vintage pattern because it refers to wool, not yarn, and what looks like an upper case ‘I’ is a lower case ‘L’ originally done on a manual typewriter.
to answer Salmonmac’s question, it’s a free (that is copyright free) pattern from www.antiquepatternlibrary.org - and it’s the one called Beehive Shawls, if you click on “catalog” (along the top of the web page, then navigate down to the Bs).
The Beehive Shawls pattern book has the gorgeous spinning wheel on the front page with the fingering yarn lace work hanging decoratively over it.