I am still a little brain fried so this post is a somewhat random collection of thoughts and stories.
1. In response to msmaltesecross's comment last time. When I came home from the game and recounted the stitches I had 155 each side. I needed 165. That was 10 more rows. Somehow I started counted the knit rows and the purl rows as one pattern and I needed 10. So I get to 9 and start to count the stitches in case I miscounted the number of rows. I get to 176 stitches. That can't be right! I count again. 176. But I have done 9 rows that should only be 9 stitches increased. Then it hit me. If I had done 10 rows I would have increased 5 times 2 stitches. I had actually done 18 rows not 9 like my befuddled brain was coming to grips with. So now I go back to the pattern and there are instructions for customizing the size of the shawl. I need repeats of 12 stitches plus 9 each side. So if I do 14 repeats instead of the 13 I will need (12 x 14) + 9 =177. So I need one more right side and one more purl side before starting the lace chart.
I start the lace chart and get to the centre and I am 2 stitches short. What the ......? I count again. Yes I have 177 stitches. Repeats of 12 plus 9. Then I count the chart stitches each side of the 12 stitch pattern repeat. There are 11 stitches, not 9. I am not ripping back 177 stitches. I increase 2 stitches each side and carry on.
2. It takes me all week the last week in April to knit one row of the chart. It is not that long or complicated but that is all the time I have for knitting on it.
3. I get a call from Heidi at Pretty Skeins. My needle is in. It is Thursday April 21 and I won't be working back in the Windsor office until Monday. She is closed on Mondays. I want my needle. I want to finish Nouveau-ne. It is calling to me. I call Hubby. He is home from Pelee Island. Turns out he was in Tecumseh just finishing lunch and 20 minutes later he is at the store picking up my needle. Heidi and I agree he is a keeper. [Heidi told him he was a wonderful husband. He agreed - she added modest too.] Hubby says it is a lovely store and I should go there soon.
4. Over the course of the next few days I complete the sweater and the hat. I call it done even though the hat still needs to be seamed. Booties have yet to be cast on.
The sweater is still missing buttons and nothing has been blocked but indulge me. It is done!
5. I took the Luella shawl with me to all my appointments this past week. My doctor asked what I was knitting and in particular what all the coloured things were on the needle.
(They are hard to see in all the bunched up stitches.) I explained that I use markers to mark the pattern repeats. That way if I get to the next marker and I have stitches left over or I am short I know that I made a mistake in the pattern between the markers. It will be on the current row or 2 rows below. I can fix it without having to rip back rows. My doctor thought that was very clever. Then she said something that astounded me. She said she was not smart enough to do that. She is a doctor. She has studied very complicated medical stuff. She knows chemistry and physiology and lots of latin I can't begin to memorize yet she does not think she can knit or work out a method for cross checking whether the stitching is right? Should I question her credentials to be my doctor? I am going to assume for the time being she was trying to flatter me and carry on.
6. When it came time to bind off the shawl there were 1,132 stitches on the needle. The bind off called for picots so for every 8 stitches on the needle to begin with you cast on 2 and bind off 10. That is a lot of stitches.
7. It took me three days.
8. The shawl is done. Yes done. (I am deluding myself again. It is not washed or blocked so there is still a couple of hours to go. I think there is a trend here. It is done.)
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