We're in a fight

I have a love/hate relationship with my ISE4 scarf. Being my first attempt at lace, I’ve had a few problems (see post below). It was a good thing that I was putting lifelines in because I had to frog a little bit. Everything was going fine up until Easter weekend. I traveled home to CT and thought it would be the perfect time to work on it being a quiet weekend at my parent’s house. Well….somehow I messed up again and ended up with one too many stitches yet again. I just had to put it down and didn’t pick it up again until Thursday when I finally got the courage to keep working. I frogged back to my lifeline and managed to get through 7 rows of the 8 row pattern when I realized that I was doing K2tog tbl instead of just K2tog!! Arggg!! I should’ve been paying better attention. After frogging to the lifeline and putting it back on the needles, I had one less stitch than I needed!! Where did it go?? I really have no idea; I seriously checked and checked but couldn’t find anything to make up that extra stitch. I ended up just doing an extra yo in the next row hoping that it would just blend in with the pattern (you can’t even really tell). Since we had such crummy/rainy weather this weekend in Boston, I spent a while working on my scarf. I was very careful to count my stitches at the end of each row. I keep having problems though…for some reason I think I keep skipping a yo every so often so I don’t end up with enough stitches. It’s really frustrating to keeping messing up like this. I really do love this pattern, and I want my pal to have a special scarf…but I’m beginning to think that I might be cursed on this pattern.

Lace love

Well, I finally have some pictures of my ISE4 scarf to share! After taking about a hundred pictures to find the right light and setting I think this is about the best its going to get. Here it is:

And here's an up close picture of the detail:

This is really my first attempt at knitting lace, so I was pretty nervous when I picked out the pattern but it was one that my secret had mentioned she liked. I really wanted to knit her something special that she's really going to like.

I've had a few troubles with it. I knit the border and was finishing the second repeat of the pattern when I realized that I had one too few stitches on the needle. I have no idea what happened but when I knit back and tried to start the row over, I had one too few stitches!!! Arggggg. Well, I just frogged and started over on it. This was for the best anyway because I realized that I was doing the psso wrong, so I'm actually glad I frogged it. When I had started I was dreading the rows with psso but now I love them! I don't know why but I just think there something fun about passing that slipped stitch...haha! I've gotten quite a few repeats on the pattern done now (even more than in the picture) and I've been putting in lifelines every two repeat in case I have to frog. I actually did have to frog again at one point but it made it soooooo much easier with the lifeline!

I think its coming along pretty well now and I'm really loving knitting the lace...I can't wait to be able to practice more lace patterns. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to have the scarf in time for my pal, but silly me I thought that the deadline to mail was in May. I just realized that its not until the end of June so I'll have plenty of time to work on it to make perfect for my pal!