12-31-2024

This will be my first big lace project, but I think this will be a good one. The pattern seems straightforward, but I have noticed some comments about errors for this pattern. I’ll try to note them.

It took a bunch of tries to get the cast on technique and my first attempt at the first dozen rounds was riddled with mistakes. But my second try has been going a lot better!

01-08-2025

Just reached row 104 of 204, so ~25% done based on area, provided I remember how geometry works.

Notes so far:

• I had some confusion about how the “mmr” (move marker right) worked. Firstly, I didn’t see a specific mention of placing markers, so my initial confusion was mostly over trying to find if I had missed some instructions. Ultimately, I just placed marker according to the the noted number of repeats (i.e. 9 repeats for 72 stitches, so placing a marker every 8 stitches, with a unique marker for beginning of round). I was also unfamiliar with mmr, so I found a tutorial by Suzanne Bryan.
• The second point of confusion was from a discrepancy in the instructions and a chart. For the chevron & diamonds chart, the instructions state to work the chart for rounds 27-50, which would be 24 rows. The chart had 25 rows and the last two rows are knit plain. I believe that 25th row in the chart is an error, not the row count in the instructions. Note that the written out versions of the charts have 25 rows, but I believe it’s just from a direct translation of the chart, rather than a deliberate decision.

I also realized way to late that I misinterpreted the symbol for s2 k1 p2sso and have been doing s1 k2tog psso. I’m sticking with it for consistency, but I should have read the legend. Oops!

03-15-2025

Just finished up the last repeat of the “Willow Leaves” chart and added a lifeline. By rough stitch count, I’m about 70% of the way done.

As folks noted in the comments, this chart has an error on row 7. As noted by the designer in a ravelry comment:
“The row should read k1, yo, k2, sl2 k1 p2sso, k2, yo, ssk, yo, k1, sl2 k1 p2sso, k1, yo, k1, yo. “

At one point toward the end of the “Drooping Dayflowers” chart, I had to tink back about 3 rounds to fix a mistake. My closest life line was at the beginning of that section. I decided that even though it would take a lot of time, it would still be faster than redoing that whole section.

I will definitely be putting in a lifeline close to the cast off in case I mess it up and have to rip back.

03-30-2025

Before starting the last chart, I realized that I didn’t like the look of the final chart on the finished piece. Part of that is because I believe there is an error where the first two rows should resemble the first two rows of the willows chart, but instead it starts are the 3rd row of the willows chart. This creates at a weird discontinuity in the final result.
Besides that possible error, I generally didn’t like the way some of the leaves in the pattern looked. So I did a few swatches where I made some changes to the design. I have never done any lace designs before, so it was a lot of trial and error to find something I liked. I think I found something works, so I’ll give it ago. Worst case, I can rip back to the lifeline at the beginning of this section.

06-04-2025

I finished knitting about a month ago, but just finally pinned and blocked the shawl! I made one final chart adjustment after my 6 experiment swatches. My swatches were done on crochet thread, but for that last adjustment, I just went for it on the shawl. I had started feeling more comfortable understanding how chart adjustments would correspond to the knit item.

My pinning job was a bit messy, and I’ll be honest, I hadn’t looked at the pattern recently, so I’m only now realizing that I did the pinning differently, giving 3 points instead of 5. Oops, haha.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the project, minus the nupps. I just couldn’t quite figure those out, so those don’t look great. But otherwise I really enjoyed the project

06-06-2025

Nothing like finding dropped stitches after blocking a lace shawl. I’m just glad that I noticed the issue before it got too bad!
I left all of the pins in while I fixed the mistake. I used a tiny crochet hook to fix the section of stitches that unraveled from the dropped stitch. I then secured the dropped stitch with a stitch marker. I duplicate stitched over the area and then secured the dropped stitch. Hopefully I don’t find other issues down the line.

10-02-2025

I had hoped to wear this during the reception of my wedding, but it was a little too warm that day. But it was a little chilly by the lake during my honeymoon, so it still got plenty of use! I decided to rename the project my Honeymoon Shawl