Sunday, July 27, 2008

First of Four


First of Four
Originally uploaded by Strings 'n Things
Because I'm following the pattern exactly as written, I'll have to make four edge strips, which are started and finished with waste yarn. When the dress is ready to be seamed, the edge pieces are grafted together and the waste yarn removed. The first of the four edge strips is completed (but not blocked). It has 15 repeats of the lace pattern. The next three strips will go much more quickly, now that I have the pattern almost memorized.

While browsing through Ravelry to see how others have made this dress, I found that a lot of the knitters had converted the pattern to knitting in the round. I was tempted to do that, but I have a feeling that the side seams offer a little stability to the dress; I could be wrong, but I don't think so. For that reason, I've chosen to work the pattern as written.

I also read a few comments from others that the lace edging was intimidating. I'm not finding that to be the case at all. That said, I don't like knitting lace from written instructions and have charted out the pattern. It doesn't look like a regular chart as I have each pattern line charted on it's own, independent of the rest. There's such a rapid increase in stitches (from 14 - 21 in the first row alone) that it was difficult to chart, so, as I said, I charted each row on it's own. It sure makes the pattern easier to follow. It also helped me to discover a minor error in the pattern. One row (row 7) has a mistake: where it says k11, it should be k10, for a finished stitch count of 23. I've looked online for pattern errata, but was unable to find anything for this particular pattern, either on the Rowan website or the Martingale site (the publisher of Romantic Style).

It's one piece. It's a good start.

Incidentally, this morning I updated the Strings 'n Things website (see my sidebar). At least, I think I did. Could one of you check to see that there are more patterns listed there than just the baby stuff? It looks fine on my machine, but I've had knitters email me to say that only the baby stuff shows on the home page. As well, is the header showing up at all? Thanks so much (in advance) for your help!

Back to knitting.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Ev, there are all kinds of patterns there,babies & kids, socks, hats, scarves & shawls. The header does not show but that annoying little box is in the upper left corner. Couldn't get it to show the header even by right clicking on it.
    Hope this helps. The dress is going to be awesome!!!

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  2. Beautiful lace, Ev :) For what it's worth, I agree with you about the side seams though the temptation to make it in the round would be great!

    I found all your patterns - baby, shawl, hat, etc... There's no picture at the top (but there's a frame that indicates there should be. But the patterns are all there :) I'm going to go back later and have a closer look at the Butterflies sock pattern...

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  3. Oh it looks beautiful, Ev!! Thanks for posting this on the blog. I love being able to see it come to life.

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