Oh, the Travelling Woman! Remember how I blogged about it a few weeks ago, saying "I'm certain I'm reading the pattern right"? Yeah, right. See, the pattern says "The charts do not contain the garter stitch border or the yo at the beginning and end of each row. Instructions are provided in the lace charts section. In the stocking stitch portion on right side rows, you increase four stitches. On wrong side rows, you increase two stitches." Guess who didn't make ANY yarn overs on the wrong side? Throughout the whole shawl (OK, except the last maybe 10 rows when I finally understood what the problem was)
Obviously I was missing stitches every single row. But I'm very creative, so I just kept making stitches here and there and managed to keep the pattern repeat just about right. At some point I started omitting the "slip one, k2tog, pass the slipped st overs" and did "slip one, knit one, pass the slipped st over" to keep myself in pattern. At some point I was very close to ripping the thing apart, it just seemed so wrong and I was sure it would be such an ugly shawl with all its mistakes.
But in the end I didn't rip it and finished the shawl anyway. The wonders of knitting - you can hardly see the tens or hundreds of mistake corrections and modifications I had to make! The body of the shawl looks just fine, and the edges where I made the most mistakes and corrections are not half bad either! The shawl is a good size, light, pretty and all in all a happy FO, even though the knitting was a struggle. I still can't believe myself for a) not reading the pattern correctly and b) not noticing what was wrong earlier! But hey, we knit and we learn, no? Here are the stats of the shawl:
Pattern: Travelling Woman by Liz Abinante
Needles: 4mm circulars
Yarn: sock yarn given to me by a friend, ca 80-90 grams
Modifications: read the story above!
The shawl is wide, maybe 170 cm, but not too long as you can see in the picture where I am wearing it. It's a great shape for wearing as a scarf but also as a spring shoulder shawl. Maybe I'll knit another one some day - and this time pay attention to the pattern!
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Good Job!
It looks beautiful!
I think it looks great. As
I think it looks great. As long as you like it that is all that matters
Your shawl looks lovely. I
Your shawl looks lovely. I recently knit my first shawl which was the Multnomah. I had to rip it down because the mistakes, if not fixed, would have completely distorted the pattern. It speaks to your knitting skill that you could save the pattern with your own fixes without having to rip it down. Good job!
Looks nice!
I've done that sort of thing many, many times, but I like to think it's the end product that really matters.
my admiration!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am light years away (but very tempted) from lace knitting and i think it looks beautiful!
I feel knitting is a Journey and part of our lifes and the mistakes are part of the pattern!
well done
it looks lovelely and makes me wonder if I could give lace ago!
That looks great, you did a
That looks great, you did a good job of fixing the stitch count as you went along. I'm knitting this shawl right now, its a fun pattern :D
I think it's very pretty. No
I think it's very pretty. No one but you will ever spot the mistakes.
Thank you for the comments!
Thank you for the comments!
pretty
I love the travelling woman - and just started it - using a yarn I do not like. I always realize, I do not like yarns that change colors because usually there are large patches in one color. I do not know whether you feel the same as I do about reading patterns in English: I think my English is pretty good, but I just started to learn knitting English. So reading a pattern in a foreign language is not the same as following it in your mother tongue. I remember reading this part at least three times to get it right. It is just a lot more tiressome to read it in English and nothing like subconscience.
Now I am thinking of starting it over because of the odd yarn color. Well, I will show you as soon as I am finished in a few? months. ;-)