Working on Chart 8

I was able to get a little knitting done this week in between the craziness of my dissertation. I'm now working on Chart 8 having finally knit my last diamond motif. One of the things I like best about this shawl is that the design changes to something completely new and different right at that point when you are weary of knitting the current motif but haven't gotten so bored you don't want to finish the project.

Early into the 3rd section I have had a few insights into my lace knitting experience. First is how important it is to knit on needles that give you enough room to spread out your work so you can really see what you're doing (translation=reduces need for frogging). This is especially important when one is PhD student brain-dead. I was feeling very frustrated yesterday at how crowded the stitches were on my Addis and I didn't have a 40" needle to move up to. This afternoon I realized I was still working on a 24" circular and not the 32" needles I thought I was using. Duh! After a little digging through my baskets of UFOs I found the longer needles on my Shetland Tea Shawl. At least I was able to get a nice shot of my Hidcote spread out while transitioning between needles :-)

The lace in the 3rd section calls for a lot of k3tog and sssk stitches. While the k3tog sts. aren't too difficult, I found it challenging at times to scoop up all the sts after slipping the 3 sts for the sssk. That's when I remembered that I could always knit the 1st 2 sts tog tbl and then pass the 3rd st over the top next and get the same effect without the fight. This was especially helpful on row 1 of chart 8. You can do a similar maneuver with the k3tog if that helps you out. Although I haven't explained this very well, I just thought some folks might like to know there are alternatives :-)

Congrats to everyone who has finished. Your shawls look amazing! I don't know how much progress I'll make this week as my schedule is suffocating, but I'll let you know. As always, I have more pictures and details on my blog.

Knit on! beadntat