Warning: Graphic Content

Those are the stitches that were violently wrenched off the needles in my toddler's attempt to "knit". I still cringe looking at them, even though I got them all back on and straightened out and I finished about 15 rounds this week. I got a lot a lot a lot of knitting done (like 5+ hours each night) because my Man was back in the States all week. I got so much done on the lace I feel comfortable giving some time to Isabella, which I've opted to add sleeves to. I might be able to get it done before summer is over -- though the weather has been so crappy here it feels like it's over already.

We had a lovely Stitch-n-Bitch last night at a new location. Despite warnings that it was too snooty for knitting, no one complained or even looked at us funny. We sat in a well lit corner and everyone left us alone. Literally. The service was horrible.

Data, something's got meeeeeeee!

Row 142. It's really getting big. It's bigger than it looks in the picture -- but I didn't really want to pull this stunt more than once! This really is all-consuming. I've dropped all other projects. Isabella is still without sleeves. I'm starting to get worried I won't finish it. I did a few more calculations a few days ago. At my current rate of progress I've got 100 more hours of work. I can get about 3 hours of work done per night (little more during the day), so that's about a month of work. So I might be done by the end of August, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Oh Noes

Problems... big problems in lace land. I got a snag last night. A huge snag. I managed to work some of it back in, but it's still a loop about 15 cm long. I'm hoping I'll be able to work it back in during blocking. In the meantime, I'm having a small heartattack.






I also dropped a stitch somewhere, and discovered it about 30 rows down when I was trying to work back in the snag. I managed to pull it up, but I had to get creative.


Third major issue: while I was downloading these pictures, my toddler gleefully exclaimed that she was knitting... the lace. I turned to see she'd pull a whole section off the needles and it took me about 45 minutes to get all the stitches back on properly.








Lastly, some dramatic numb3rs: 24 sections, 35 stitches each = 840 stitches per round. According to my calcuations (based on high-tech chart square counting), the inner chart equalled 7,936 stitches, and the outer section as far as I've gotten is 36,384, for a total of 44,320 stitches so far. Out of a goal of 110, 928. Shitzor. I'm not even 1/2 way done.

Izab3llz

Here's one side of Isabella from this summer's knitty. I just finished it, and was starting work at the other side. It was a satisfying piece of work, interesting but not too fiddly.

As usual, I made lots of little changes to the pattern. I always think this will make me feel more in control of the project, but instead I usually feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I put vents at the hemline, lengthened the hemline a bit, added short row shaping in the bust and I plan on adding sleeves. Maybe I'll finish it sometime this summer...

It's cotton "Heklegarn" -- crochet yarn, fingering weight, using 2.00 mm needles.