Well, that might be a slight exaggeration but there are a lot of folks making this shawl. I'm not officially in the KAL. I'm just using my friend L's copy of the pattern clues. If you read very many blogs you will no doubt have seen other, and far better, photos of this shawl. This is my first ever genuine lace knitting. I've made things that use lace-type stitches, but never anything that uses laceweight yarn. It's trickier than I thought it would be. There's nothing in the pattern that I haven't done before. Yarn overs, SSKs, K2tog. All very familiar. Somehow though I'm finding it a bit intimidating.
Just as a general rule I'd say that knitting lace is not something you'd want to do while you're whiling away the afternoon at Starbucks. I met L(of L&H fame) at one of the many nearby Starbucks yesterday afternoon for a little catch-up time and some joint knitting effort. I will say we had a good time, even though the results of the knitting weren't all that terrific.
I was at row 85 of the first 100 rows. L was still trying to get to where I was and I was dawdling along, thinking I'd be finished with this set of instructions by the time we left. When L pointed out a mistake in her own knitting I began checking mine. I knew there were a couple of places where I'd fudged a bit to get back on track. Then I got a really good look at my knitting and realized that I had some other more serious problems. I ripped the whole thing out when I got home. I'm back up to row 50 now. I'll try to finish today because the next set of clues comes out tomorrow.
I stayed home last night to keep the cat company. He's just as frightened by sudden loud noises as you would expect a cat to be. Fortunately there weren't as many sudden loud noices as I was expecting. Just a couple. I think I jumped higher than he did, but I didn't drop any stitches. Hope you all had as nice a Fourth as I did.
5 comments:
You have until this Friday (tomorrow) to join the KAL and then you can look at photos from other participants and see what questions pop up.
Yours looks lovely. Mine doesn't seem to have the definition that others are getting. Maybe I just need to photograph it to see it clearly.
Isn't it funny how chart A/rows 1-50 fly, and then you feel like you're crawling along like a snail when you hit charts b? Those increases creep up on you, and at row 75, I realized I've completed the equivalent to chart A already. Gotta go work on mine now.
Mine is looking a little looser than others' do. Maybe it's the merino lace yarn. I had to fudge a bit--dropped some stitches when I had to stop the cat from wiping his mouth on my ball of yarn! Now I've got to go check to see how it looks, and whether or not ripping is called for. I *was* up to row 75...
I've only dabbled a tiny bit in lace-like knitting, as you have, Larry. But it didn't take long to learn that the lifeline is your friend. I repeat....lifeline! As often as you need it to keep your sanity.
Ooops! Yeah, i am the lifeline queen. When i get all cocky and don't use one is when i'm sure to make a whopper of a mistake and have to rip back. Ugh!
I'm not making the shawl. ;) Yours looks good from here, Larry. Keep at it.
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