A little progress March 17, 2008
Most of my knitting this weekend felt like I was taking two steps back for every one forward. I even managed to get quite the knot in my yarn. Dave was a little startled when I suddenly tossed my needles and lace knitting onto his lap, and ordered than he not let anything happen to it. I was up to my proverbial armpits in loose yarn at the time, and the yarn was winning.
I had gotten to the point in the knitting where I needed to make a transition from the motif I was knitting to the one I was going to be knitting. I knit it the way I’d planned, and didn’t like it at all. I put my needles aside for a while, picked up some different ones, some different lace yarn for swatching, and cast on. I swatched a few rows, then played with a complicated transition of four rows, decided to do that, frogged the two rows I’d knit already on the main stole, and reknit them with the transition rows.
Ugh.
It was awful. 
I ripped back the cast off edge of my swatch, picked up the stitches as I went, and started on a completely different, and much simpler track. This is much better. It flows better. Okay.
By now, though, I had knit way too many rows to simply tink back. This is when I frogged about ten rows, put the knitting back on the needles, got a yarn tangle, and threw the knitting on Dave’s lap.
It took a while, but I did manage to get it all sorted out, the yarn untangled. The knitting resumed.
I still wasn’t too sure about it, not until this morning, actually, when I laid the piece out on the floor in the sun to take a picture of it. Holding it out at arm’s length helped me to see it better. I realized how well the new transition worked after all, and decided then and there not to rip it out again—an action I’d been seriously considering.
At the bottom of this closeup is the first motif, and you can see how it morphs into the second one from the center to the top. Woot! Now that’s what I’d envisioned. I love it when things work out. Even if it does include a bunch of time and frogging to get it that way.
Anne’s making great progress with her latest creation. If you haven’t been following along, she’s been working on a snow-tree thing knit up as a large, lovely square shawl. She’s finally gotten to the edging, and it’s delicate and beautiful.
Another short post today. I need to get my notes written up before I forget what I did when, and have to rip back all that perfectly good knitting just to figure out what I did. I hope you all have a safe, sane, and very fun St. Patrick’s Day. We’ll be having corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight, along with some lovely Guinness to wash it down. The local library is showing Twelve Angry Men tonight, so we’ll head over there after dinner.
Robin March 17
Wow, it’s amazing how two photos of the same thing can look so different in color. I really like how it transitions, don’t rip it, ‘k? Enjoy your Irish dinner.
KarenJoSeattle March 17
How much corned beef do you think is sold in the US for today? We may be the only ones not having CB&C tonight.
That transition does work beautifully - well worth the effort.
keri March 17
What a pretty transition - I really like it (and then color too, very holiday appropriate! =))
Angelika March 17
Oooh, the headaches that come with lace knitting. It’s bad enough to make mistakes knitting from a pattern, but you have that pattern in your head and try to work it out for us. Respect. Keep it up.
anne March 19
oooh i love the yarn you’re using; what is it?
~Kristie March 19
Aren’t hubby’s great to have around to babysit the knitting when it gets the best of you? I would have loved to see the look on Dave’s face when you put your knitting in his lap.
The transition looks perfect.