Still writing a book, still knitting a shawl although the former seems to be messing with my ability to count on the latter. I cannot count to 42. Simply cannot. I’ve discovered that my simple plan is wickedly complex due to a changing number of stitches per row in the lace pattern. (I have no idea at all how I could have knit this much of it and never noticed.) The row I want to stop on, the row where the pointiness of the lace will best marry the bridge leading to the border has only 26 stitches. (???!!!) Trying to figure out which (if any) of the lace rows has the promised 40 stitches per repeat has rendered me some sort of bizarre knitting recluse, sitting in a corner for the few minutes of knitting time allotted to me per day while I mumble and fume with graph paper, a calculator, seven thousand stitch markers and a round of foul language that would render even the expletive queen herself senseless with stunned apprciation. I need a new plan. This counting thing is not going to work out.

Dollface wrote with a question about my theory:

Disclaimer: I have never knit lace, nor have I ever designed a pattern.

Is it necessary for there to be the same number of repeats of border as there are repeats in the shawl? I ask because it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, you could divide your total number of stitches by 42, work out how many repeats that is, and how many stitches are leftover. Then, instead of increasing 2 for every repeat, you would just increase a total of…10, or whatever.

You don’t need a disclaimer, it’s a really good question. No. It is not necessary for there to be the same number, unless you are an obsessive compulsive sort of a knitter, which I happen to be. I have this idea in my head that there will be a “swoop” in the border for each diamond of the lace. This means that it’s important, should you be interested in in being all matchy matchy with the lace, that there (eventually) are the same number of border stitches to lace stitches per repeat. If, however, that doesn’t matter to you (because you care NOTHING for the natural order of things and mathematical symmetry) then you just need the total number per side to work.

Back to the salt mines for me. The end draws near for the book (You have no idea what a relief it will be) and as is traditional, That Laurie is stepping in with some guest blogs while I lay on the cool kitchen floor thinking of amusing knitting things. She’s explaining some of her modular knit design stuff (using some of the yarns she explained how to dye on a previous guest session) and it’s all totally interesting. I’ll be here too. Though as I finish this book, mostly I look like this.

(Leaning back in my chair like that really does help. As does chocolate.) Soon. It will be over soon.