Thing(s) not to do on a Friday

Number 1 thing not to do on a Friday is try to start (actually re-start) a lace top that flares at the bottom.

My take along project on last year's trip to TNNA (trade show for yarn retailers) in Columbus OH and to my cousin's in Evans, CO was a Butterfly Cotton Vine Lace top in a gorgeous slightly brick red (colour might be Paprika). I knit and knit and knit and made very little progress. It then sat and sat and sat until this evening when I decided to get it out of its dark corner and look at it to see why it was such a slow knit.

I knit off half a round and stretched it out to see how big it was and realized that I must have badly miscalculated when I figured out the flaring at the botton since it was wide enought to fit 2 of me (no mean feat!). So out it came

I hadn't like the way I had treated the flare anyway so just as well - I did a K1P1 and thought it might look better as either plain stocking stitch or even better reverse stocking stitch.

I did a swatch. I should probably say that again. I DID A SWATCH! I never do swatches (bad knitter bad!) but since I had screwed up the last version so badly thought I had better check again.

So pencil and paper in had, I re-figured placement of the lace panels and the flares and did the math and started the cast on (216 st - I am knitting this in the round). That seemed not too bad.

First round - not enough stitches to complete my 10 lace panel stitch and 7 flare stitch so I ripped out a couple at the end and fudged it to make it come out right.

Five rounds in and a double check to make sure I got it right this time.

WRONG! Goofed up the repeats and had only 6 each front and back and 1 each side

RIP

Pencil and paper again - forgot I was doing 10 repeats on each of the front and back and 1 for a panel at the sides - so recalculated and this time came up with a rather larger number - 3oo and something.

Cast on and on and on and on (BTW - a little tip - to avoid having to count and recount I put a marker at every 50 cast on stitches) and on and on

Whoops again - got the wrong number of flares in there

I must be tired - math is usually not this much of a challenge!

Rip

Bagged it up and put it all back in its dark corner to be worked on again with a less math challenged brain.

Let this be a lesson to me! Don't try to start something on a Friday evening after a long week!

On a good note though - my Diamand Fantasy Shawls are coming along nicely - almost finished 1 skein of the Silken and think I will definitely break out another one - this is going to be one gorgeous shawl! I am tag teaming the 2 versions but got a little further on the Silken one since it is so nice to work on - 4 repeats done on it and 3 on the BFL version.

More knitting on the weekend - maybe some dyeing on Sunday. Have a good one!