I’m working on a lace project. It’s supposed to be a simple lace project judging by the pictures. It’s a pair of stockinette arm warmers with a bit of lace up the side. The pattern is a little on the vague side, filled with references I didn’t understand. Like “work 7 rows even”. I surmised that I should continue this same row for seven more rows. I wrote out the entire pattern including the extra 7 rows for most of the rows listed in the pattern.
I picked this project back up after letting in languish in my WIP pile for over a year. I immediately started to struggle with the pattern and here is what I found when I checked the notes I kept last year:
5/31 – I got gauge when I swatched. Yay.
This is weird for me. I’m suspicious. And the arm length already looks too long.
The pattern is already stressing me out.
6/1 – My daughter changed her mind on the color :/

The thing hit the frog pond and I’ll cast on with a really dark blue or purple. I get to decide.

Oh my gosh, I just had to learn a SPP, which is like the weirdest thing ever.
I’m reading between printed instructions and charts and then back again on one row.
Yarn over from the purl side? Holy cow.
I’m barely a couple of rows in and some how I’m missing a stitch.
6/3 frogged again
6/4 -and again.
Despite reading the entire pattern, I missed the part that said “red the last 2 rows 3 more times”. I’m feeling really clueless here.

I used highlighter tape because it seemed really important
and again. I was short two stitches at the end of the last repeat. But hey, I got one row farther than I did before!

This isn’t champagne. But it should be. Or at least wine. Sadly, I don’t drink.
6/6 – I wrote down all the rows in a notebook and checked them off as I did them.
I finally got through the edging. I also wound the yarn into a yarn cake hoping I could convince the yarn that it was now something else and that perhaps it wouldn’t mind being this project.

My project jumped out of my bag and landed in a pile of tree pollen. I didn’t have to frog but it took me a while to get all the vegetable matter out of it.


8/7/2018 – I picked this back up again. I’ve done another couple of lace projects since then and it should be easier.
Purl 3 together. Who does that?
I missed the little bit that still has the highlighter tape on it again. It was still important.
I just figured out what “work 7 rows even” means. (Thanks Kit!) I hadn’t been doing it.
The whole damn thing hit the frog pond. Where is the magic, tell-all book that explains all the details that patterns like these leave out?

I may or may not have stomped on the the few stitches that wouldn’t unravel. In public, at knit night.
No wonder I haven’t worked on this thing for a year two years.
8/8/18 – This is an excellent project to keep a mother’s mind distracted while her son is getting his wisdom teeth out.