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March 15, 2005
spiderweb capelet
Lace knitting takes too much concentration. Shockingly, I actually did it mostly right. Pattern from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation. The main deviation from the pattern is the yarn, Patons Divine in chantilly rose. Using size 13 needles, the width gauge matched the pattern, but not the row gauge, so I had to do an extra 3 of the spiderweb repeats (the pattern should only need 4). I probably should've done another one, even. This yarn is also fuzzier than the called for yarn, which really obscures the lace pattern. It still looks pretty good, though. Where in the world am I going to wear it?
Practical things I figured out, which other newish knitters may find helpful:
- First, fix the mistake. This helps a LOT.
- YO just means loop the yarn over the right needle like when you are knitting a stitch, but you don't actually knit it. Like, normally you would insert the right needle into the stitch on the left needle, make a loop, pull it through, then drop the stitch off the left needle. YO is just the make a loop part and nothing else. All the other complicated ways I read seem to lead to the same result. Unlike the totally misleading stitch instruction page in the book, YO does not include a knit stitch.
- In the purl drop rows (3/7), you drop all the YOs. The knits have little loops around the base where they attach to the stitch below, and the YOs seem unattached.
- After the purl drop rows (3/7), the all purl rows (5/9), and the complicated rows (4/8), you should have 92 stitches on the needle.
- When you sl2 pwise, keep the yarn in the back. If you bring it forward (like you normally would when you purl), you get a little extra loop that makes it harder to do the slipping bit.
- Pass slipped stitches over means use your left needle to take the two slipped stitches (stitches 2 and 3 from the point of the right needle) and pull them over the k2tog stitch and off the needle, as though you were binding them off. You can do them one at a time or both together.
Hope this helps someone out there strugging with this pattern. Would've saved me an evening of watching knitting movies on the web while repeatedly frogging fuzzy yarn. Once I got it, it went pretty well, though.
Posted under Knitting at March 15, 2005 10:42 PM
Comments
cool stuff! funny, i started knitting last december. i think you'd like this scarf pattern: dna scarf. i'm making one for oakie out of green (chartreuse?) blue sky 100% alpaca, on sale at purlsoho.com.
i think the yarn is teeny tiny, but your skills seem to be further along than mine when i started ;)
Posted by: clunymph at March 17, 2005 03:26 PM
that is lovely!
Posted by: laura r. at March 18, 2005 11:13 PM
awesome! looks so warm and fluffy in that yarn!
Posted by: erin at March 19, 2005 09:33 PM
Oh my goodness! Thanks for all your helpful comments. I was half way through and notice I had made two very crucial errors. First, when I saw the pass two slipped stitches over, I didn't know you were supposed to actually drop them off the needle once they were passed. Secondly, I didn't see the posted corrections on the website. Now I must frog the entire project. Frustrating, but thanks for helping me understand why the heck I had so many stitches on the needle so that they wouldn't fit.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 6, 2005 11:05 PM
Just wanted to say: you're a life-saver! Just found this after nearly reaching the end of my tether with the pattern - and you've clarified all my queries.... looks like i need to unwind the whole thing and start again!
Posted by: katie at October 26, 2005 10:18 AM
Finding this at the top of my google search has been the biggest relief ever (two years later, even!). I have been trying to figure out this dang pattern off-and-on for the past month, and just about gave up until I did a search. Most useful, thanks. :)
Posted by: PyeRat at May 23, 2007 03:15 PM