Lace Knitting - Onward

Went to the KFOG KaBOOM this weekend which was, again, the best fireworks show EVER. The main artist this year was Melissa Etheridge so that was really awesome as she's one of my favorite singers. I, of course, took my son. Since he's graduating high school this year I don't know if he'll be able to come or not next year as he's going off to college. Tamara couldn't come since she's taking summer classes and stayed at college this year.

During the weekend, I asked him about his graduation (he lives with his dad) and it's a mystery to him. He doesn't know the date, the time or the location. I asked him if he was planning on being there, to which he answered "Yes!"  However, I guess he's just going to arrive magically. So, I'm thinking if I want to go to the ceremony, I'll have to figure it out for myself.

In current knitting news, after quite some time fighting with the laceweight yarn that I'm using for Muir it's being much nicer to me. I'm able to get some sort of tension and progress with the pattern. I did switch out SSK to SKP, as that seems a lot easier to complete for some reason. I've actually managed to complete 2 entire repeats and I'm in the middle of repeat 3 which I would have said was unlikely two weeks ago, but what a difference practice can make! Just gotta have a pic to document actual progress...

I find this quite cool since this is the first lace I've ever really attempted.

Lace Knitting

Man, I'm struggling on the lace knitting. I just can't seem to HOLD ON to the laceweight yarn. It keeps escaping my grasp. I've got to figure out a different way to hold it so that I can be somewhat successful in knitting with it.

I'm on row 12 of Muir and it has taken me at least 4 hours to get that far. I had to cast-on twice. I tried the provisional cast-on but I kept losing stitches the first row with all the yarn over's and SSK's. I'd be trying to get it and all of a sudden I'd have a big loop of yarn instead of stitches. So, re-did the cast on as a crochet cast-on which took approximately ummm... forever but did work better.

Then the stitch markers. Since this is my first major lace pattern I thought stitch markers would be a really good idea to mark the repeats. But, but, but since the increases/decreases move in diagonal sort've waves I have to keep moving them every few rows. The first couple of times it happened, I obsessively undid and recounted to make sure all stitches were there and they were - just that there was one more dec than inc BEFORE the stitch marker.  Kinda driving me crazy.

I thought that not needing to have this done until June 26 (friend's wedding) was plenty of time but... maybe not.

Why am I a teacher again?

This week was crazy at school because it's nice weather plus multi-cultural week which means all of the kids are bouncing off the walls and not thinking they have to do anything like learn, and especially not something hard, like learning math. Which is a problem cause I'm there to teach them. And, it looks like we're going to be under some re-structuring plan (which when it has been implemented at other sites, has not shown any IMPROVEMENT in test scores - so... why is it something that must be done to RAISE the scores?? I wonder.)

Also, started the next class towards my Master's which is Educational Law. Sounds like fun right? Not. I couldn't get the book for cheaper either, cause the edition that I need is a special edition only created for National University. But hey, they'll "give" me 50% if I want to sell it back to them. Sounds like a deal to me.

So, in the spirit of procrastination that I have down to a fine science I decided that working on various knitting projects was much more important.

I swatched for Heroine. I ended up with quite a large swatch because my stitch and row gauge is off. I think the Lamb's Pride Bulky is heavier than two strands of Cascade 220. I don't want to knit more tightly because in order to get a good felt, there needs to be space in between the fibers for the agitation needed, and the fabric I've got right now feels good. I also wanted to test out 1x1 rib because I don't know if I want those folded back sections in the front. This swatch ended up taking most of a skein. Good thing I've got a LOT of this yarn to play with!

I also spent quite a bit of time winding up a skein of laceweight that I'm going to use to make a wedding shawl for a good friend of mine. I'm planning to knit Muir. Winding this yarn turned into a challenge though. What is with the little bits? No, I didn't break it. So, apparently I have 1.60 ounces of laceweight and 0.15 ounces of random ends that they added into the skein to make weight. To add insult to injury, they didn't connect the ends in any way. Suddenly the end would appear, and then I'd have to hunt around in the skein for another end to start winding again. It might not have been so bad, but I managed to start from the crap end, so for a while there I was really wondering if I was going to end up with 50 little tiny balls of yarn. Finally, though  I hit the major portion and then I was much happier.

I also worked quite a bit on this basic shrug I'm putting together. I've got a diagonal V lace pattern going on. I have now found out that no matter how basic the lace pattern is I still have to pay attention, cause otherwise I end up with a lacy effect, but not necessarily the one I was going for. My autopilot brain has a different idea of where the holes should go apparently. I've done quite a bit of fixing along with knitting on this project.

So, I flatten it out and look at it this morning... (cue ominous music) and there is a hole where there's not supposed to be one. And not one row down or anything easy like that. No. It's 1/2 way down the fabric. HOW did it get there without me noticing? It's not like I haven't been checking and fixing errors along the way. I am looking at this nearly every row to make sure that I haven't yet again put a hole where it's not supposed to be.

So... what to do, what to do. I completely refuse to rip the whole thing back. That's at least 20 rows. No way.

So, I pull out the stitches until I can get to the hole and fix it. The thing is with a lace pattern, you can't just drop one stitch and then bring it back up. No. You have to get all of the associated k2togethers and Slip Knit Pass stitches too. I ended up with this messy looking stuff. Now I've got a diagonal ripped out section that I have to now recreate row by row.

I couldn't have done it if I didn't have the center back stitch as an anchor. Otherwise, I think I might have really had to take out the whole thing. It was a bit fiddly but finally..

Success!

And - I swear, I will check EVERY row to make sure that I haven't somehow messed up the pattern again.

Ripping...

Today I took a big breath and faced what had to be done with Angie's Aran Sweater.

Going...

Going... 

Gone.

I still love this yarn (cashmere mmmm...) and the pattern, (except I'm editing out all of those bobbles.) I just need to relax, relax, relax when I'm knitting with it. I start stressing that it's going to be too big, tighten up my knitting, and end up with something approximately doll sized. My sister is slender, but not THAT slender. Now at least I can move forward instead of feeling lame-o every time I looked at it. Especially since this is the SECOND time I've done the exact same thing. At least it was a different pattern the first time.