This lace is really putting me through my paces. Here's how today went.
I had gotten about two rows past the point where I kept screwing up, with no problems.
This morning I decided to do some relaxing Sunday knitting. Hah.
The first thing I noticed was that you're not supposed to run your life-line through your stitch markers.
Which I did ...
... but fortunately not all the way across, just on the two end markers, and the two smack-dab in the middle. This was going to cause a problem because as I knit past them, the markers would continue to pull the life-line along with them.
So I decided to do some surgery. Since I had plenty of life-line left on the ends, I pulled some out by the markers, cut it, pulled it out of the markers, and tied a knot.
This mostly worked - the knot wouldn't slide through the stitches, but since it was a small area with no increases, I didn't think it was going to be too big a deal. The two on the ends I just left - I figured I could pull the life-line up along with the markers, being right on the edge that way.
I intended to put another life-line in every section repeat, and the sections are only 20 rows high, so I wouldn't have to carry it far.
Ah, but it was not to be.
After awhile I decided to move out to the back porch, and took my knitting with me. I did a few things outside, and then when I sat down to knit, I discovered to my horror that my needle had pulled out of about 2" worth of stitches. There they were, just unraveling and dangling and no where near any needle.
I had gotten about two rows past the point where I kept screwing up, with no problems.
This morning I decided to do some relaxing Sunday knitting. Hah.
The first thing I noticed was that you're not supposed to run your life-line through your stitch markers.
Which I did ...
... but fortunately not all the way across, just on the two end markers, and the two smack-dab in the middle. This was going to cause a problem because as I knit past them, the markers would continue to pull the life-line along with them.
So I decided to do some surgery. Since I had plenty of life-line left on the ends, I pulled some out by the markers, cut it, pulled it out of the markers, and tied a knot.
This mostly worked - the knot wouldn't slide through the stitches, but since it was a small area with no increases, I didn't think it was going to be too big a deal. The two on the ends I just left - I figured I could pull the life-line up along with the markers, being right on the edge that way.
I intended to put another life-line in every section repeat, and the sections are only 20 rows high, so I wouldn't have to carry it far.
Ah, but it was not to be.
After awhile I decided to move out to the back porch, and took my knitting with me. I did a few things outside, and then when I sat down to knit, I discovered to my horror that my needle had pulled out of about 2" worth of stitches. There they were, just unraveling and dangling and no where near any needle.
I eyed it sadly for a few minutes, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to put it back together. If it was just straight knitting, I could do it - even with dropped stitches, I can fix that. But not in lace.
I took a deep breath and made use of the life-line. I ripped back to that, which was back to the beginning of this section, about 3 or 4 rows. Not a terribly long way to go, so it wasn't too painful. Putting the stitches back on was kind of a pain - Addi Turbos are nice needles, but the ends, while tapered, are not pointy enough for this.
But I got it done. Meanwhile,I discovered the down side of making sure your life-line doesn't run through your markers. When you rip back, all of your markers fall off, and you have nothing to keep track with. I decided to go ahead and knit the first row, then put the markers back on on my way across the back on the purl row. (Why there? I have no freaking idea; and no, it didn't work).
I re-knit across the row, and having no markers to keep track of my progress, got clear to the end of the row before I realized that I was about 4 stitches short.
Back to the frong pond. Ripped back again (just one row, not that dire). The next time across I put the markers in as I went, and double checked each section again on my way across. And got it right.
So then I had just a purl row - piece of cake right? Huh. I managed to drop a stitch on my way across. It should have been easy, but in my flustered state after the downhill slide of the morning, it took me several minutes to find it. It was a dropped yarn-over. Fixed, and moved on.
Next row, knitting along, suddenly noticed I had lost my place on the chart and was knitting the wrong section. Okay, no problem - I can unknit 8 or 10 stitches and get back on track. Sure I can. Somewhere along there I - AGAIN - got screwed up, and ... I don't know exactly what happened there, all I can tell you is when I unknit the section I had 12 stitches instead of 14. But I couldn't see any homeless and unraveling stitches. I believe that I screwed up unknitting a couple of knit-two-togethers, only taking off one of them instead of both. But in my flustered state, again, I couldn't figure it out.
Eventually I did fix this, too. Not exactly right. I did get my 14 stitches back, without just faking it and making any. But when I looked at it at the end of the row, it was obvious something wasn't quite right ... there was a marked lack of solidity in that section, as if I'd unknit several rows down, then just used those loops for my current row. Like slipping several rows instead of actually knitting them. So it will be a glitch in the pattern, but hopefully it won't be too noticeable down the road. (Because I wasn't ripping back for that).
So it was a rough, rough lace-knitting day. But ... I did get it all fixed, and I'm back on track. I've completed that section, and I'm ready to put my next life-line in. The last time I put it in at the beginning of the most complicated row of the pattern. I learned my lesson from that - knitting that first row after the life-line is tricky, with the life-line kind of in your way. Doing it on a complicated row just makes it that much harder. The last row of the section is the simplest, having only a couple yarn-overs and center double decreases, and the rest all straight knitting. This time I'm putting the life-line in at the end of that row, before a purl row. That way the only thing I have to do along that first row with the life-line in my way is purl stitches.
Now things are going to get interesting. Because I'm up to where I have to start making multiple repeats of a center panel of this section. In this last bit I only had to make one repeat, and although it was mostly easy, that was - toward the end - where I kept screwing up and losing my place. Now I'll have more than one to keep track of, and I've got to figure out a better way to do it than by memory, if I want to try to avoid more mistakes.
And I'm still loving knitting this lace. It' s a freaking addiction. Well, I guess I've learned some things about lace. You definitely have to be a 'process knitter' to do lace - at least the way I do it (one step forward, two steps back). If I didn't love the process, I'd have given up 5 tries ago. I can live with the ripping out and re-knitting (if I must), but what really frustrates me is when I make a mistake (like knowing I dropped a stitch but not being sure where) or need to unknit a section, and I can't read the knitting to tell what I'm doing. I hope that with more experience and practice, I'll learn this skill as well.
I took a deep breath and made use of the life-line. I ripped back to that, which was back to the beginning of this section, about 3 or 4 rows. Not a terribly long way to go, so it wasn't too painful. Putting the stitches back on was kind of a pain - Addi Turbos are nice needles, but the ends, while tapered, are not pointy enough for this.
But I got it done. Meanwhile,I discovered the down side of making sure your life-line doesn't run through your markers. When you rip back, all of your markers fall off, and you have nothing to keep track with. I decided to go ahead and knit the first row, then put the markers back on on my way across the back on the purl row. (Why there? I have no freaking idea; and no, it didn't work).
I re-knit across the row, and having no markers to keep track of my progress, got clear to the end of the row before I realized that I was about 4 stitches short.
Back to the frong pond. Ripped back again (just one row, not that dire). The next time across I put the markers in as I went, and double checked each section again on my way across. And got it right.
So then I had just a purl row - piece of cake right? Huh. I managed to drop a stitch on my way across. It should have been easy, but in my flustered state after the downhill slide of the morning, it took me several minutes to find it. It was a dropped yarn-over. Fixed, and moved on.
Next row, knitting along, suddenly noticed I had lost my place on the chart and was knitting the wrong section. Okay, no problem - I can unknit 8 or 10 stitches and get back on track. Sure I can. Somewhere along there I - AGAIN - got screwed up, and ... I don't know exactly what happened there, all I can tell you is when I unknit the section I had 12 stitches instead of 14. But I couldn't see any homeless and unraveling stitches. I believe that I screwed up unknitting a couple of knit-two-togethers, only taking off one of them instead of both. But in my flustered state, again, I couldn't figure it out.
Eventually I did fix this, too. Not exactly right. I did get my 14 stitches back, without just faking it and making any. But when I looked at it at the end of the row, it was obvious something wasn't quite right ... there was a marked lack of solidity in that section, as if I'd unknit several rows down, then just used those loops for my current row. Like slipping several rows instead of actually knitting them. So it will be a glitch in the pattern, but hopefully it won't be too noticeable down the road. (Because I wasn't ripping back for that).
So it was a rough, rough lace-knitting day. But ... I did get it all fixed, and I'm back on track. I've completed that section, and I'm ready to put my next life-line in. The last time I put it in at the beginning of the most complicated row of the pattern. I learned my lesson from that - knitting that first row after the life-line is tricky, with the life-line kind of in your way. Doing it on a complicated row just makes it that much harder. The last row of the section is the simplest, having only a couple yarn-overs and center double decreases, and the rest all straight knitting. This time I'm putting the life-line in at the end of that row, before a purl row. That way the only thing I have to do along that first row with the life-line in my way is purl stitches.
Now things are going to get interesting. Because I'm up to where I have to start making multiple repeats of a center panel of this section. In this last bit I only had to make one repeat, and although it was mostly easy, that was - toward the end - where I kept screwing up and losing my place. Now I'll have more than one to keep track of, and I've got to figure out a better way to do it than by memory, if I want to try to avoid more mistakes.
And I'm still loving knitting this lace. It' s a freaking addiction. Well, I guess I've learned some things about lace. You definitely have to be a 'process knitter' to do lace - at least the way I do it (one step forward, two steps back). If I didn't love the process, I'd have given up 5 tries ago. I can live with the ripping out and re-knitting (if I must), but what really frustrates me is when I make a mistake (like knowing I dropped a stitch but not being sure where) or need to unknit a section, and I can't read the knitting to tell what I'm doing. I hope that with more experience and practice, I'll learn this skill as well.
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