I think I have it down pat now, but then so does my 3 3/4-year-old great-granddaughter. I'm working on this lace shawl, which has an eight-stitch repeat, so I'm counting to eight a lot. I started the shawl on Tuesday morning, using a fine (lace weight?) cotton and large (size 11) needles. That combination makes for rather fussy knitting. It is sort of my own thing, but heavily influenced by Elizabeth Zimmerman, the knitting doyenne of the twentieth century, and Alison Hyde, current lace shawl designer extraordinaire.
Then in Thursday morning, before going to have bloodwork done, I discovered that instead of the 329 stitches I was supposed to have, I only had about 220. I guess I was distracted (probably the phone rang - they are annoying devices sometimes, aren't they?) on an increase row, and didn't study the work well enough when I got back to it to realize where I was. I thought I'd remedy the problem that evening, but Lexi spent the night with me, so that was impossible. I spent much of Friday helping Alyssa, so it was Saturday morning before I was able to work on it. I laid it on the ironing board, and used the steamiron to press the area where I needed to pick up stitches on a smaller needle. Flattening it out made it easier to see the individual stitches. I didn't do a perfect job of picking up all stitches of a single row, but was close, and after unravelling to that point, was able to get everything right while transferring the stitches to the size 11 needle. Then I did the increase row and now have the 329 stitches - 40 repeats of the eight-stitch pattern, plus one extra to 'center' the work and four garter stitches at eash edge. So now I'm counting to eight forty times every other row; the wrong-side rows are all purl. I think it is going to be a lovely shawl - gossamer is an appropriate adjective for it.
On Wednesday morning, I decided that I needed an easier project to switch off to, so I started a shawl in worsted weight yarn on size 10.5 meedles in the Old Shale stitch pattern - very easy knitting.
Then in Thursday morning, before going to have bloodwork done, I discovered that instead of the 329 stitches I was supposed to have, I only had about 220. I guess I was distracted (probably the phone rang - they are annoying devices sometimes, aren't they?) on an increase row, and didn't study the work well enough when I got back to it to realize where I was. I thought I'd remedy the problem that evening, but Lexi spent the night with me, so that was impossible. I spent much of Friday helping Alyssa, so it was Saturday morning before I was able to work on it. I laid it on the ironing board, and used the steamiron to press the area where I needed to pick up stitches on a smaller needle. Flattening it out made it easier to see the individual stitches. I didn't do a perfect job of picking up all stitches of a single row, but was close, and after unravelling to that point, was able to get everything right while transferring the stitches to the size 11 needle. Then I did the increase row and now have the 329 stitches - 40 repeats of the eight-stitch pattern, plus one extra to 'center' the work and four garter stitches at eash edge. So now I'm counting to eight forty times every other row; the wrong-side rows are all purl. I think it is going to be a lovely shawl - gossamer is an appropriate adjective for it.
On Wednesday morning, I decided that I needed an easier project to switch off to, so I started a shawl in worsted weight yarn on size 10.5 meedles in the Old Shale stitch pattern - very easy knitting.
1 comment:
If it helps any, I had one shawl once that I couldn't believe how fast it worked up. It wasn't till I went to block it that I realized I had done that same thing: forgotten an increase row. The good part was, the original was a very generous-sized shawl, so this little one worked okay if you were of small build and didn't mind a small shawl. Um. Small. Definitely small.
Yours is turning out gorgeous!
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