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FFFO
I have a Finally Fucking Finished Object (FFFO), a version of Branching Out by Susan Pierce Lawrence on the Knitty web site.
I've had it on the needles since August or so.
I wasn't actively knitting it that whole time, but I had a very difficult time with it and probably knit about twice as many pattern repeats as ended up in my finished scarf. If this is "easy lace" (as billed on Knitty) then I'm not cut out to be a lace knitter.
(I haven't given up on knitted lace yet though.)
It's made out of some mystery yarn on a cone that I got in a Newton's Yarn Country sale. The yarn is soft, light and fluffy. It's not very elastic (and therefore not the smartest yarn to use for a first lace project. Oh well). My swatch was completely unaffected by the washer and dryer so I don't think the scarf is going to be "blockable" per se.
There are still a lot of mistakes—but most of them are relatively invisible, even to me. The one that isn't invisible (but I'm too lazy to fix) is that the first 1/4 of the scarf is "inside out." I noticed quite a while later that I had switched the right side and wrong side rows. It's still probably not noticeable to anyone but another knitter.
Design decisions as a result of mistakes department:
I hopelessly fouled things up around 1/3 of the way into the scarf and "fixed" it by knitting some rows of garter stitch and starting over. So then I knit another chunk of garter stitch 2/3 of the way along.
branching-out_03-04-07
Originally uploaded by firecatstef.
branching-out-full
Originally uploaded by firecatstef.
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I'm a Particular Sort of Geek....
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FWIW, I tend to very rarely have total-pattern-screup events since I discovered the joys of stitch markers to indicate pattern repeats or segments. If the beginning and end of each pattern segment is clearly marked, then no matter how much one screws up one segment, it is easy to do the next segment exactly correct (rather than have the error run across the rest of that row). It really makes a huge difference in knitting lace. Do you use stitch markers?
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I do use stitch markers, but I didn't figure out until fairly late in the game how to helpfully position the markers for this pattern. There are no repeats within a single row, and if a mistake is made in one row, that means too many or too few stitches for the next RS row. I finally figured out that I could put a marker on either side of the center stitch. That was a hassle when doing the last two rows, where the center stitch gets incorporated into a decrease and I had to juggle markers. But it helped.
I also got a lot better at tinking the various kinds of decreases, so I was able to tink back to a mistake within a row without dropping stitches all over the place.
And after the big foul-up resulting in the garter stitch rows, I began using a lifeline religiously.
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I do lace knitting by swatching till I can make it through one repeat and remember it. Sometimes I have to write out the stitch pattern (even if it's provided, just to get it into my brain).
I like lace, however; I like how it looks and the "magic" of how it's created. But I also have to be careful not to attack something too complicated, because I'll just give up. So good for you for finishing!
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I am able to read knitting charts but I have to frequently remind myself what the symbols mean and look at the chart to reorient myself after every small section of a row.
I was only able to memorize one row of this pattern, because the other rows were vaguely similar to each other but different so I kept getting them mixed up.
Making a lacy fabric using crochet is a lot easier for me and I should probably just stick to that. (Thanks.)
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One of the other things I do for lace is type up the lace pattern with boxes on the left to check off the row as I start it. Especially these days, I don't have much time to knit, and am unlikely to be able to do a whole repeat before I have to stop. Once I have the pattern down (which may take over a foot of knitting), then I just put a stitch marker through a hole in my needle-sizer to mark the rows.
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I like the use of garterstitch. It looks deliberate, and changes it from something old fashioned into something modern.
I find I have to be in exactly the right environment and headspace to knit lace. I haven't been in that headspace for, gasp, 20 years. I once in a while miss it, and would like to get back into it, but I have no idea how to find my way back to it these days.
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http://www.cosmicpluto.com/blog/?p=585
I used this technique on a sweater I'm working on:
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/PATT
(yes, I know it's lace, but I've only done the back, which had a few eyelets. The front is yet to come!)
Knitty is the best.
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I've also heard people call Branching Out a good beginner's lace, and I think they're insane. I consider myself a lace knitter and that pattern intimidates me a bit. Sure, it's a big rectangle, and that makes it sort of conceptually easier than, say, a triangular or circular shawl...but I'd rather do any shape with a lace pattern that's predictable enough that I can eventually put away the chart.
That's what I so loved about Knitty's Ella pattern (in the triangular, not the v-shaped version) -- once I put stitch markers at the center of each repeat, the pattern made lots of sense and I could figure out the next row from the previous row. I guess in general that's why I like geometric lace instead of viny stuff.
I did my first lace project (also a scaref, but in the feather-and-fan lace pattern, which *is* an easy one) from a cone of mystery yarn.
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I'm already planning my next lace project and it won't be viney.
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