Ok, for background, I am a fairly seasoned knitter. I have made many items including shawls and socks, but I don’t have experience with lace patterns. This will be my first. It read simple enough, or so I thought! Please help! This pattern I just bought is gonna be the death of me!! I have literally started and frogged the first 8 rows about 30 times now. I want to make this for my wedding in October.
Would any of you be willing to help see if it is the way the pattern is written? I make it to row 7 and 8 and then somehow I end up with 14 stitches again?! If any of you can knit to row 10 with no issues, then I know that I have to figure out where I’m going wrong, or choose a different pattern. Thanks in advance.
Hello
Congrats on your upcoming wedding, how exciting.
It’s always frustrating frogging but I think you’ll get past this tricky bit and not have to find a different pattern. Often the early part is the most tricky.
The stitches add up when I count them so perhaps you’re losing a yo here or there?
Is it row 9 then that’s causing the poblem each time? There is a double yarn over in the square brackets, are you getting this in as a double, not a single? If you are on track on the rows up to 8 then you are getting the double yo in there correctly and working them as inividual stitches, so perhaps it’s not this.
Could it be the yo before the brackets and the one after that you’re accidentally skipping?
With row 9 worked on the needles try going back to the instruction and point to each stitch on your needle and say aloud the instruction, look at each stitch, is it as it should be? This should help to identify where the problem is so you can rectify it before moving on.
You could also spread your stitches out and take a photo and we can try to have a look at it.
What is the name of the pattern and designer? Or a link to where you got the pattern?
Very best wishes on the upcoming wedding!
Naming the sts as you finish a row as Creations suggested is a good way to keep lace on track, also counting sts each row especially at the beginning.
It helps too to have “marker stitch patterns” to keep on track. That means that a double yarn over is (p1-k1) on the next row. Make sure that that’s what you’re up to on that next row.
I worked the first 10 rows and found that the last yo at the end of row was easy to mistakenly skip. You can just about see the beginning of the circles appear.
Maybe it doesn’t look the same because it’s only 6 rows instead of 10? I just did through Row 6 and it looks like yours on the purl side. My left edge is also loose like yours, while @salmonmac got a much neater edge.
@ColoCro I think you’re right, I can see it now. This is the yarn I was planning on using and I have a bunch extra. It’s only getting overworked at the first 2 feet only, and I will cut it off before starting the real shawl.
Work the next several rows to row 10 and the pattern begins to show up. Keep checking that stitch count too.
It’s such a lovely, light shawl. I wonder if you’ve tried it at a larger needle size?
(I was using scrap DK yarn on size 5 needles.)
I’m using Big Twist amigurumi yarn in Cream Cheese on number 4 needles. Yes, when I started to have trouble, I jumped to size 8 to see if that would help me out, but I think it made it harder for me to keep track of my stitches. It seemed I dropped more that way so I dropped back down to the size I’m going to use for the real shawl. After each row I count my stitches to make sure I’m on track. That’s why I’ve had so much frogging and re-starting.
Thanks for that information. Counting definitely is an interruption in your knitting but it’s so worthwhile. This will get easier as you work more rows but count ever other row or so just to be sure.
If you find that you’ve forgotten a yarn over there’s a simple recovery from that.
Also, lifelines are such a help especially in lace.
Something to check for–sometimes with yarn-overs, they like to hide under the stitches next to them, or swap places. Then it’s easy to knit them together. This can also make it hard to put markers to help keep your place, but a lifeline can be a huge time- and sanity-saver.
Here is the link to the pattern. I just love the beads added to it. When I figure it out and can consistently knit it correctly, I plan to use a natural yarn with a halo as suggested by the author and make a fancy one for the wedding.
I think now you’ve made it past this early part you’ll get into the swing of it and it will become easier.
There are times i get a particular yarn which i discover is not great for lace (but great for something else). Swatching with scrapnyarn whilst figuring out a pattern is a good idea but don’t skip a practise and gauge swatch with the real yarn so you get a good feel for how it will work up. Blocking a test piece will really help too.
Woo-hoo! Well done. Now get a lifeline through those sts even in a practice piece. You are on your way. We would love to see a photo of the finished shawl.
