06-25-2020

Sweet baby dragons, the beginning is fiddly. Follow other projects and do m1L and m1R to have nice seams.

06-27-2020

So, I’m working from the book, “What to Knit When You’re Expecting.” The honeycomb pattern section isn’t clear. If you don’t read down to where it talks about the pattern repeat, you’ll miss avoiding the spine stitch - even that isn’t clear and assumes a bit more familiarly with being able to “know” and “read” your knitting than the beginner knitter might have.

The free pattern (where I went for clarification), only uses one pm before the M1, so here are its clarifying directions:

IN THIS SECTION, MAKE DOUBLY SURE TO KEEP THE MARKERS IN PLACE, AND DO NOT WORK THE FIRST STITCH AFTER THE MARKER INTO THE CABLE PATTERN. WORK THAT STITCH IN STOCKINETTE, AND WORK INCREASED STITCHES IN STOCKINETTE UNTIL YOU HAVE ENOUGH TO INCORPORATE THEM INTO THE CABLE PATTERN.

So, don’t work the stitch between M1L and M1R into the cabling.

From the book, “Also, work increased stitches in stockinette stitch until you have two unincorporated stitches. Then, on the following cable round, work them either as CRB or C2F as appropriate.”

Thus, the very very first cable round, you’ll have 23 stitches between end of needle (if using DPNs) and first marker. So, the increase stitches, the ones right before and right after the markers, are st St.

06-27-2020

So, first cabling row of honeycomb repeat with an odd number of stitches between start of row/needle - start with C2B after the three middle st sts.

06-27-2020

Omg, I really dislike how the honeycomb section was written.

It’s easy to gloss over the fact it ends when there are 252 sts/63 sts per set.

THEN the stockinette section begins again.

07-21-2020

Didn’t have enough yarn to finish as written. Based on my knitting, 856 yards is enough to get you to the final garter section, but not enough to finish exactly.

I ended up with 121 stitches between markers (60 + 1 + 60).

Chose to do an Icelandic bindoff. Used the same size needle (9) instead of going up one as suggested in the pattern. The Icelandic bindoff was stretchy enough. I also picked up the first stitch of the bindoff round to prevent some gaping/pull between the start and end of the bindoff round.

Honeycomb section notes, continued/rethought
So, any honeycomb stitch section with an odd number of stitches before the spine stitch with be K before the spine stitch and K after the spine stitch. The honeycomb stitch will continue in pattern after that, but if you’re in doubt, go to the marker between needles/sections and count backwards to make sure you’re starting on the right stitch.

Honeycomb thoughts
I really like how the honeycomb stitch looks. Lots of other projects said they didn’t like it (and I haven’t tried to block it yet), but on the needles it’s lovely and squishy and fun looking.

If you think you’ll be short on yarn, use a scale. I averaged 7 - 8g per stockinette row and 9 - 10g per purl row. I had exactly 10g left after binding off, so definitely made the right choice to bind off after getting to 60 | 1 | 60 between markers.