MODIFICATIONS/ PROS /CONS:
Going to try something really daring here, I don’t like the center of the Spire pattern … sooo …. I’m going to try to splice in another center. Going to go with the lace Dahlia pattern.

MILESTONES:
1/14 -- Practice yarn cast on, beginning chart confusion resolved!
1/14 -- Yarn is ordered!
3/14 -- Yarn is here and it’s beautiful! Going to go with the purple.
10/14 -- Added 2 YO per section on row 29 of Dahlia Chart B for total 288 stitches. Spliced into Spire Chart B(2), row 13. About half of Spire Chart B(2) to go.
11/14 -- 2nd skein of yarn started toward the end of Chart B (3) row 17.
11/17 - found the mistake I made in chart C row 27 that’s had me paralyzed for years on this project.
12/6/17 - working … on … row … 35 … argh!!!! It’s sloooooooooow ….
12/11/17 - row 41 … and 1/2 …. a l m o s t there …… arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
9/16/18 -- FINALLY finished with Chart C and marking corners! On to the edging.
10/14/18 - almost to first corner, checking a couple of things out with Brooklyn Tweed before I round the corner - see details below.
11/19 - I can’t believe I have FINALLY rounded the last corner of the edging - only 27 repeats to go and I get to close it up. This has been such a HUGE challenge, way over my knitting experience head, intimidating, fun, thrilling, frustrating, etc. I hope the end product is worth it. More to come.
12/13 - 21 more pattern repeats of the edging, then the join, then done!!! Yay!!!

NOTES:
12/13/20 - I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to get through this pattern, probably the longest marathon of my life. So frustrating at times, paralyzing when I’ve made mistakes I had no idea how to recover from without taking out thousands of stitches. But 21 more pattern repeats for the edging to be completed, that’s a thrill in itself. Gotta figure out how I’m going to block this thing too …

10/14/18 - OK, so I’m almost to the first corner of the border, but in counting up the on-needle stitches (left), there are only 5 in the last repeat before the first corner marker. I think this means that by knitting that set-up row in the very beginning before starting Chart D, I’ve actually started with a row 12. When I get to the corner marker, I will be on row 11 of Chart D and will have to consume one stitch in the ‘fenced off’ corner for the 12 row repeat. This also means that when I get to the very last row of the border and knit the row stated in the pattern (in the instructions, not the chart, and marked as a WS) that is the last row 11, and the grafting to the setup row makes the final repeat complete. Hope this makes sense. I have email out to BT to check this and will post their response.
Also, that very last row does not result in 13 stitches needed for the graft, it makes 16 stitches, and you’d need 19 stitches to knit it, so something in the end is wrong, as many people have pointed out. Will post their response to that as well.

9/16/18 - I’m both embarrassed and happy to say that I finally, Finally, FINALLY finished chart C. I was on Row 41 and realized I made another big mistake somewhere around Row 35, and was just terrified to try to fix it without taking out all those rows. I charted and planned my approach to isolate the stitches I thought were wrong, and when I finally got to work on fixing the error, I found a yarn-over I had missed that created the distortion. I didn’t really have to take many stitches out! I am now hopeful that I can finish this before my niece’s wedding in late October.
12/11/17 - I had to work out a spreadsheet for each row so I used symbol/color combinations to make it easier. I made an intro section, a repeat section, and a finish section and totaled the number of stitches in each section / row to make it easier to find any mistakes. If anyone is interested in having this information, I would be happy to email it to you, just send me a Ravelry message with your email. I started on row 25, I believe, that’s when things started to get challenging for me. The spreadsheets for each row REALLY HELPED.

This isn’t a terrible knit, just very tedious, you cannot drift, have to stay focused.

11/24/17 - Well, it’s been awhile. I got stalled on Row 29 of Chart C - I made a mistake somewhere, couldn’t find it, felt like I was paralyzed for a long time. Then I got my act together, went to my LYS for help, got some, it didn’t help as much as I thought, so I decided to back out to row 24 - ouch! But I didn’t have to, it turned out I found my mistake in row 27 - YAY!!! Just a note for anyone attempting this pattern, if you use stitch markers on the repeats you’re going to be moving them periodically. I didn’t realize this, and thought I had more mistakes than I actually did. Now I make myself review each repeat after it’s done so I don’t have this in the works for 2 more years.

2/5/15 - Still not through Chart C - beginning to wonder if I’ll ever finish this. I placed markers for each pattern repeat so I could count and spot mistakes easily but that also means I have to remove and replace markers where the k1s2p stitches are on the edge of the repeat … what a pain.

12/29/14 -- Finally started Chart C … whew! This is a hefty project.

11/30/14 -- Started the Chart B lace pattern on rows 12, 16, 20, and 24. Hope I don’t regret going up only one needle size, this is still looking pretty small.

10/10/14 -- Started this with a US 5 but I’m worried that it will be too small in this weight so I changed to a US 6 about midway through the Dahlia. Don’t think it will be noticeable.

OK - I think I figured out how to splice these two patterns together. The last 2 rows of chart B of Dahlia end in 70 stitches BUT that’s because there’s no 2 stitch increase on row 29. I’ll increase 8 stitches on row 29, giving me 72 stitches per section (288 total) when row 30 is done. Then I’ll pick up on Chart B (2nd repeat) on row 13 which will end up with 296 stitches. I’ve decided I’m not going to do the spines in the body that run to the border until the bottom of the very last repeat of Chart B, that will give the Dahlia a bit of a plain stockinette frame so it will stand out.

10/5/14 -- I can’t believe it’s already October. I started this while on vacation in May, then set it down when I returned and I haven’t picked it back up so I’d better get crackin’ if I plan to finish before Downton Abbey starts in January.

1/5/14 -- I’ve settled on the gorgeous Dazzle HT - a 100% BFL 4ply sock yarn from The Natural Dye Studio in Devon, England. I ordered both colors shown, will decide when they get here in about 4 weeks.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t figure out how to start Chart A. At the end of the second round, before starting Chart A, I had 4 DPNs with 4 stitches on each - and I had a heck of a time keeping the stitch markers in place so I decided to only use the round marker. So … how do I do the ‘YO, k3, YO’ on the first row of Chart A and not end up with an extra stitch?

I contacted Brooklyn Tweed and heard back yesterday (thank you Christine!). I wasn’t getting the picture because the chart doesn’t show the 4 ‘corner’ stitches and from my perspective, neither do the instructions. But it makes sense now, so for those of you who are confused like me, you’re going to knit the first stitch on each DPN as you go around even though it’s not on the chart or clearly expressed in the instructions. Once you do this you’ll see the diagonal ‘spine’ that’s created between the YOs at the beginning and end of each odd numbered row. When I switch to circulars I’ll add the stitch markers so I don’t miss the YOs. REMINDER - if you do decide to try the Dahlia / Spire combination, the DAHLIA pattern DOES have the extra knitted stitch in the chart at the end of each row. The SPIRE does not so be careful with that transition.

I’ve also been practicing with some inexpensive yarn which paid off, and instead of a crocheted circular cast on, I used this Lighter Circular Cast On which is really easy and turned out great in practice.