Knitting FAIL! ;-(
I’m rather upset. I’ve learned something about my knitting skills tonight. The main thing is this: don’t try to knit lace while watching the World Series of your favorite team possibly winning but in the rain, ‘cuz you’ll mess up your lace project. That’s what happened to me tonight.
I wasn’t even cheering or anything. This whole Mystic Waters pattern is not difficult to do exactly. It’s just hard to keep track of where you are in the pattern and where you are in your stitches. Somehow in the process of things, I slipped some stitches off and something got unraveled. Yikes! And now I’m trying to figure out how to recover it and have no clue what I’m looking at. There’s a big gaping hole there. Well, not so much, but I don’t think the “patch” job I did is correct. And I can’t tink back ALL those stitches– we’re talking about several rows’ worth, and I still wouldn’t know where to pick up to recover. This pattern is THAT hard for me. Bleh.
I’m kind of upset about this. Wanting to cry but can’t. It hasn’t been an easy project so far. It’s taken me weeks to get where I am, and here’s the prospect that I might have to start from scratch again. My smile is definitely upside down at the moment. Here’s the second project in the last month or so that I’ve goofed up royally enough that I can’t figure out how to fix it or tink back. I’m not really sure what to do.
I’m not sure if there were other factors not working for it. One is my brain, as I’ve said, that was trying so hard to keep up with this pattern. My eyes would constantly play tricks on me, so I’d lose count or where I was in the chart. I eliminated the problem of not having sharp enough needles to work with the fine yarn. This is the thinnest yarn I’ve ever used, and quite frankly, I’m not loving it, despite the fact it’s supposed to be a merino/silk combination. It’s rather fuzzy. And after seeing Becky’s work on this (and she’s much farther ahead on this), my doesn’t lay flat like hers or anything like that. Everything looks all scrunched up, even when you stretch it to get “the view”.
I may have to let Becky continue without me, and just nix this project. Or start over. I’m not sure yet. This isn’t an easy project, and it’s taken me so long to get to where I am. Perhaps I need to stick to easy stuff and do that well. You know? I will still challenge myself, but perhaps this was too much of a challenge for me, much like my failed Flames sweater. Maybe for now, I need to stick to easy stuff like hats and mittens and scarves and such.
I don’t know. I have to think about this. I’ll try to photograph my progress thusfar, but I have a feeling that I won’t be able to recover this without a miracle worker. It makes me sad, and knitting is supposed to make you feel happy.
Posted on October 27th, 2008 by Dani
Filed under: Projects
Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that! Were you using a lifeline? I tried to knit lace during the Super Bowl one year and discovered what a vital element to lace knitting a lifeline is.
Don’t worry too much about it being scrunched up. Lace is like that until you block it. Then you go from blob to beautiful, just like magic! If you think your yarn is too fuzzy, I suggest Knitpicks gloss lace. It is also merino/silk blend, but is very smooth with a lovely sheen and wonderful drape. It is what I’m using.
You are right that the charts are difficult to follow. They get worse later on, when the chart is spread over five or six pages. I hope you don’t give up completely. Maybe set it aside for a while and pick it back up. Maybe you can do a simpler lace pattern for practice. This is a hard one–not as in difficult, but as in complex.
Anyway, I hope you will stick with it. Please do take pictures of your shawl. I wish I were closer so I could help you out in person. I’ll do whatever I can online, though.
May I ask a dumb question? What’s a lifeline in this scenario? If you mean something like marking out on the chart where I was so I wouldn’t lose my place, then yes. But this was something where the stitches literally fell off my needle and pulled somehow, and in trying to rescue it (I can handle a simple unintentionally dropped stitch), I’ve probably messed it up. I agree that it’s more like complex than difficult. I took a photo so you can see my lame attempt at the rescue and the damage still done. Maybe I’ll just have to live with having a really bad section, and just try my best to recoup what I have and getting the right number of stitches going again, and pray for the best. I dunno. I think I may put it down for a while. Maybe I should try to recover the lace sock I put down…(what is it with lace and color knitting beyond stripes for me?)
A lifeline is literally a life saver! It is a piece of smooth yarn or string (I use dental floss) that you thread through your stitches periodically as you are knitting. That way, if you mess up, you can rip back to your lifeline and start from there, without having to go all the way back to the beginning. If you drop a stitch, it will not run all they way down to the beginning of your knitting. It will stop at the lifeline.
I will try to post more about them on my blog in the next day or two, including pictures. I was planning on doing a lace tips post anyway, just not tonight!