Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Oh Fer the Love of Gawd!!!

I'm telling you...dragon's are dangerous and this one is about to put me over the edge. Unfortunately for the dragon, I've turned it into a puddle of ramon noodles. Yep, that's right. Don't mess with me cause I'll tear you apart, stitch by little stitch, you wee dirty beggar.

So now I'm off to start again...and this time the dragon better co-operate or else I'll toss it into the shredder.

Ahem, Keep On Knitting...

Edit: Okay, my mental stability is slowly returning, so I'm going to explain what happened with the shawl.

It seems that I didn't comprehend a certain instruction in the pattern. It's a little bit my fault [should have checked it out sooner] and a little bit the designer's fault for not being precise about the instruction.

It has to do with the floating twist stitches [the blue symbol in the chart]. To work these stitches properly and to get the necessary defined outline of the wings, you need to always use the same two stitches. So, for example, you create the twisting stitch on row one...slip those same two stitches on your return [wrong side] row, then the following row, if you come to those same two stitches, yet in the pattern they are off by a stitch, then you need to use a cable needle to hold either the floating twist stitches in front to work the number of stitches needed, or vise versa, slip the stitches that come before the floating twist to a cable needle, hold to back, work twist, replace and work stitches from cable needle...geez, if you think my explaination is confusing, just try working it.

Here is how far I had come in the shawl. Six rows away from starting the head. [sob]



Here, I've circled in black why it is important to use the same two floating twist stitches. If you don't do it properly, you get this...just a jumble of stitches...not a defined line.

Click to enlarge


There is enough of them to matter to me, hence ripping it all out and restarting it.

I so hope this is the last time.

Have a good one.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And this is supposed to be encouraging me to start it?!? ;)

Unknown said...

Errrr....good grief...blame it on the designers, you're too fabulous a knitter!

Michelle said...

Donna: Don't let my idiocy deter you. Look at it this way...I'm making the mistakes so you don't have to. LOL

Kim: You make me blush girl! LOL

Unknown said...

I appreciate you jumping in harms way and taking the bruising for me Michelle!!! I will certainly learn from those who have gone before me.

Note to self: Don't forget this lesson by the time you get around to knitting this.

Michelle said...

Wannietta: LOL You're so welcome. Very generous of me, isn't it? Painful, but generous. ROTFL!

Deb said...

Well, I am sort of glad I haven't started this one yet-I have the pattern, but got a bit green when it ccame to a couple of the instructions (to be precise- that twisted stitch thing you are talking about) Thanks for , um, clearing it up?

Kimberly said...

So sorry this happened to you. It looked so good!

I admire your tenacity!