This post is going to be very brief, and in effort to simplify I am going to write about one thing, and only one thing and that is the DAMSON.
The damson is a fabulous little shawlette created by Ysolda.
(775 in the works on Raverly, woops, 776-I haven't added mine yet). If you aren't familiar with Ysolda, then you obviously aren't spending near enough time on Raverly. She is everywhere. On knit night, there are usually at least 3 people with a ysolda pattern in front of them. The liesl that I just finished is one of her patterns.
Woops, digressing again and I promised I wouldn't. I am not even going to bother to turn the photo around because that would also be digressing.
Okay, the Damson.
When I first saw the pattern I was thrilled because it was stylish, and it was reminiscent of Grandma's dishcloth. I love Grandma's dishcloth, and when I first started knitting I made about 50 of them. Garter stitch, yo's- what's not to love. Whenever, I teach someone to knit, I start them with Grandma. Well, when I started the Damson, I was dead certain I would burn through the pattern. In my arrogance, I quickly scanned the pattern and cast on. I also only worked on the pattern when I was in route to somewhere. It became my subway, trip to the grocery store, sitting in a meeting pattern.
I would check the row count from time to time, and more often than not, I lost a stitch somewhere.WTF.
It didn't help that every other knitting project I touched last week, was also screwed up. At the end of the day (at least for me), it's pretty simple, IF I have 4 projects on the needles, 3 projects on the wheel, 2 that I am carding, and one that I am dyeing, I have taken the art of multi tasking to a horrible extreme, and I need to CUT IT OUT. My brain was overloading all over the place, and it wasn't even overloading about real life crap, it was overloading because of my knitting.
So last weekend I stopped knitting everything but the Damson, and I still made a couple mistakes, but instead of mindless ripping back, I actually re-read and paid attention to the pattern. Overall, the pattern is pretty well written, and from reading comments from other Ravelry users I realize I am not the only one who overestimated the simplicity of it. There are a few other "smarty pants" knitters out there (thank God).
Thankfully, Ysolda does two things that I really like:
1. She give stitch counts for every row, so you always know where you are.
2. She notes, that the number of stitches between the markers in the garter stitch section on the right side row equals the number of the row. What this means is if I am on row 46, there will be 46 stitches between my 2 markers.
Okay, here is where the pattern is a little sloppy. She doesn't tell you where you are on the row. Are you at the beginning or at the end, and what about the YO's, aren't they stitches?
Here are my notes, and how I cleaned it up a bit:
1. Using row 54 as an example, prior to starting row 54 (pre-yo's) your stitch count will be the same between the two markers as the row you are just starting. So when I finish row 53, and turn it over to work row 54, prior to working row 54, I will have 53 stitches between the two markers. Or you can complete the row, and then count, but if you do that exclude the YO's you just worked.
2. The other thing to note, is that both the right side and the left side are symmetrical (at least mine are). To make my life easy, once I hit row 36 (or thereabouts), I put a stitch marker after the first four stitches, counted out 50, and then placed another one. This way I could easily check my row count. I knew that if I made a mistake it would most likely at the beginning or at the end of the row, and this way I can quickly count both sides to make sure they are still symmetrical. I also now keep a calculator in my bag for quick adding.
Using row 53 this time as the example.
Row 53 has 215 stitches
first check: Are there 53 between the middle markers: yes
second check: Pattern says row 53 has 215 stitches. Okay, I know I have 53 in between so I subtract 53. 215-53= 162 -100 (that are already accounted for by my markers = 62 divided by the two (each side)= 31. I quickly check that I have 31 on left side and 31 on right side, and it matches up. Yay!
Please note: Although, this math keeps working out for me, I would really like to do this pattern over again from start to finish. Obviously, using the stitch markers to count works, but I wish I had done this technique from the very start. If you see anything wrong with my math, please give a shout out.
Since I have done these two quick checks, I haven't made any mistakes, and I have saved a LOT OF TIME. Prior to this I was re-counting the row every so often. STUPID (and it was making my eyes bleed).
One other quick note, is I am using locking stitch markers for the middle section pre YO, and Post YO, I move up as needed but I find these easier to use when dealing with YO's. I lock the stitch and never have to worry about the stitch marker moving or getting stuck on the wrong side of the YO.
stitch marker near beginning of row
stitch marker near middle section, and locking stitch marker. Okay, 50 is the number I am using now, but when I get up to row 65 (which incidentally, I was at two days ago!), I will switch the markers so that there are 100 in between. I might even do it sooner, the idea is that I want to be able to count quickly and count often, and I don't want to count out 150 stitches every time I need to check my row count.
In a perfect world, I should be able to see my stitches, and most of the time I can, but this yarn is a bit of a horror. "black variegated yarn= bleeding eyes, and as you tell from the pictures lighting in my apartment stinks, especially at night. I think there are intuitive knitters and there are clever knitters. My knitting intuition tells me that this is an easy pattern, and why not knit black. Hah, after tinking back 3 times the clever knitter kicked in, like she so often does, and she ripped me a new a--hole.
"Use your tools, and stop being so lazy." She also forbade me to cast anything else on for awhile.
Now, what the f--k, how did a picture of Frankie end up in this entry! This post is suppose to only be about the Damson- I give up.
