Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Please wish me luck

Thanks for welcoming me into the group. I'm working away at the shawl. I started the shawl on the same day as Kate, I think. But I'm nowhere near done. (Kate, you were fast!) I've just finished the 8th repeat of those last 5 rows of Chart A. I think I can manage to finish the shawl in time but that "each row takes longer than the last" thing is making me very nervous. I'm making the shawl as a bridal gift so I need it finished before last time I see the bride before the wedding (which is at the end of this month) so I'm knitting as fast as I can.

But I find if I don't take the time to count stitches every row, something happens and I end up having to fix a mistake. I'm not sure why I keep making them, because it's actually a very straightforward pattern. Apparently, I can't walk and chew gum though. If I try to do anything else, except maybe listen to music, while knitting I invariably make a mistake. At least I'm catching them sooner now. Any suggestions for how to keep from making mistakes? I've gotten to the point where I won't even acknowledge an interruption until I've finished the 5 stitch repeat I'm on. Am I the only one who has to pay this close of attention this far in? Or, you know, at all? I'd hate to find out I'm lace-impaired. I love lace shawls and I have plans to make lots of them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You will finish it time, don't worry. My best wishes.

I had free from my work, so I could knit all day long(and I did), that's why I finished so fast, and it was very funny to knit too.

Anonymous said...

If you are not that used to knitting lace, it can take time to get really good at it without making too many mistakes. I do a lot of counting too and it helps a lot, but I do try to make sure the pattern is matching up with the rows below - usually I can see it if I've messed something up. If it helps to take it slow then do that! It saves a lot more time than tinking rows - lol.

Frieda said...

For some reason,the same thing was happening to me for the first bit of Chart A . However once I started "reading" the knitting it fell into place . I think I tinked more than I knit at the beginning.

Ronni said...

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm pretty sure I've been "reading my knitting" for at least the last three repeats of the chart. Which is how I'm catching the mistakes on the row I'm on but when I posted that I was frustrated because for the last day or so I was still sometimes forgetting where I was and yarn-overing where I was supposed to be "k1-ing" or vice versa. Today I think maybe the problem was that I was sick. My brain feels much more alive today. I'm going to test the theory by working on the shawl the rest of the afternoon.