Butterfly a-long (Rowan 37)

[sarahdotcom]

Looks wonderful, juniper!  There are a few little issues with mine and my photo looks bad unfortunately (freak hailstorm had me using the flash), but here's my progress so far:



I'm doing it in the round, it's working out ok, like the rest of you I'm sort of fudging the edges to make sure I have the right amount of stitches in each row.  I'm up to the first decreases now.

[juniperl13]

Alright, I'm to the point where I probably need to bind off my first frill and I'm starting to wonder...........wh at the hell is the point of knitting two frills and grafting them together? I can understand grafting the whole frill into a circle, but what is the point of making two short frills instead of one long one? The lace pattern runs the same direction all the way around, there aren't any selvage stitches that need to be accounted for, so.....wtf.

If I don't manage to wrap my poor disoriented mind around it soon I'll just make one long frill. Grafting more than is absolutely necessary is going to make me scream and break things.

[sarahdotcom]

Do the one long frill!  Go on, I dare you!  Are you doing the body in the round or flat?  I guess if you do it flat two pieces make sense - because you don't sew up the sides or graft the hem pieces until the end.  But I figured it would be easier to do one long frill, pick up ALL the stitches, and do it in the round.

[bee17779]

Yeah, that's what I am going to do too. Knit them in the round. I read through the whole pattern though. The only 'problem' I might have is when the yarn over occurred at the edge which will occurred consecutively now when I knit in the round.

By the way, I am very far behind for butterfly. I slip it off the needle by accident and just couldn't get the same number of stitches back on. So I rip them and is redoing it now. 

[sarahdotcom]

Oh no!  I hate it when that happens with lace.  If you're a bit accident-prone I'd suggest using a lifeline - thread a bit of cotton through the stitches on the needle after every pattern repeat, then you only have to rip back to that if you screw up.

There are a few little mistakes showing up in my lace where I forgot to do YOs, but instead of ripping back I'm just fixing as I go... ok so it doesn't look great but it's not *too* obvious.  I'm a bit of a sloppy knitter!  The only thing is, Margaret Stove (famous lace knitter) is in my knitting group, I don't think I'll be showing this to her!

I'm only on row 19 so far... wonder how long this will take me?

[xxLENORExx]

i've always wanted to make this...

but i daon't have time right now. maybe next...

[juniperl13]

Bugger. I was sort of planning to do this first Butterfly as the pattern wanted, but as my frill is already 24" long I'll apparently be doing it in the round. Oh, well. I have at least 2 more to make in different ways. Maybe I'll do the next one flat with a St st selvage (both frill and body) and then come up with some other variation for the third one.

[sarahdotcom]

Well, you know how everyone was having issues about what to do at the edges?  I read through the pattern again, and what the Rowan people said in their emails, and then all of a sudden it made sense.... look at what it tells you to do at the edges for size xl, and basically do that.  So it does actually have a st st selvedge.  Which would make it better to do flat than in the round, but as I said, I'm fudging it somewhat.  Hmm, I should probably also be doing the next size down to compensate for the lack of seams in mine.  Hopefully it'll work out!

[juniperl13]

Oh my god, I am fudging this first one so badly. >_<


It took me 10 rows, 3 of which were unknitted a few times, to figure out how the lace pattern is supposed to look and correct the aforementioned 3 rows accordingly. Unfortunately, I suspect I may have done some of the first rows not quite right and that I should have picked up 4 fewer stitches from the frill than I did, so what is supposed to be the seams is sort of.........not quite right. Considering that I'm only on row 9, I may just rip out what I've done of the body and redo it, armed with my epiphanies.







This is so my own fault for knitting lace while drunk on Dayquil.

[soapturtle]

Since it seems you prefer to knit from a chart, why don't you get graph paper and make yourself a chart?  If you are starting over anyway, then it's not that much of a setback and it will most likely help you.