This will be my first journey into knitting lace charts. I love how lacy shawls look and drape, but the charts seriously terrify me. Luckily, this pattern has a whopping 12 pages for the absolute beginner. It takes you from beginning to end and it feels like someone is holding my hand and telling me it will be okay.

4/1/14: Have completed Chart 1 and first two repeats of Chart 2. Am really enjoying this so far! Have made a few mistakes, but they were easy to correct. Should really start using a lifeline as the stitch count is getting up there quickly!

4/2/14: Progress was short-lived. My cake of yarn pooped out a huge knot and I spent over 2 hours trying to untangle it--to no avail. Had to cut a huge chunk out. Got discouraged. Subsequently made a mistake somewhere along the way, couldn’t figure out where. Frogged the whole thing in a fit of rage.

4/3/14: Added lifeline on last row of Chart 1 (WS purl row). Reached the end of the first repeat of Chart 2 and was one stitch off. Must have forgotten to YO somewhere along the way. Grrrrr. Frogged to lifeline. At this rate, I will be so proud if I ever finish this.

4/4/14: Added a lifeline after first repeat of Chart 2. Second repeat completed.

4/5/14: All 5 repeats of Chart 2 completed. Noticed that I may have knitted over a YO incorrectly and now there’s a pretty big hole on one side of the middle stitch. But it’s a few sections down and I refuse to frog any more.

4/8/14: Have moved on to Chart 3. Have decided to confirm stitch counts every 4 rows and move my lifeline up accordingly (Row 7). This chart is getting more difficult but it is relatively easy to see if a mistake has been made. Almost there!

4/11/14: FINISHED. Had a really close call at the end where I thought I wouldn’t have enough yarn (due to the giant knot at the start), but just made it. Whew! Still needs to be washed and blocked, but I laid it out and love how it looks so far!