On Becoming The Stoli Svengali

When we last left our intrepid heroine, she was have a slight difference of opinion with The Stoli. Never one to let something as inconsequential as string get the better of her, our heroine regrouped, formed a new plan of attack (very similar to Napoleon’s famed three pronged attack at Waterloo), and began her assault on Clue 3. I am happy to report it was a success. Sorry, the picture isn't better. We all know my camera woes.

I finally decided that I have to knit The Stoli my way. I still follow the pattern and all that, but I came to realized that like most things in my life, I process knitting charts differently. Working it row by row is a recipe for disaster tinking. I have to break it down into more reasonable mathematical components to make sense. This isn’t unusual for me. I’ve always been a whole to part thinker. Here’s what I did:

Divide each row into 5 parts. The two border sections have 21 stitches in them, leaving 57 stitches in the middle portion. Generally, this wouldn’t be a problem, except this particular portion of the pattern is symmetrical. That means you knit 28 stitches, hit the middle stitch, then knit the remaining 28 stitches in the reverse of the pattern for the first 28. Are you totally confused yet? Yeah, it was having that effect on me as well, and I decided that trying to think in 57 stitches, much less a whole row of 99 stitches, was beyond what my logical sequential brain could handle. So, I broke it up into 5 portions. The two 21 stitch edges, the two 28 stitch ‘innards’ and the 1 middle stitch.

R21 + R28 + M1 + L28 + L21 = 99 Total

Works for me.

I put stitch markers on the needles in the appropriate places.

Yes, that means I do have one stitch with a stitch marker on either side in the middle of the work. And, yes, it means there’s some fiddling with the markers when I have to do a K2tog or S1 K2tog PSSO in the middle. But, the number of stitches stay consistent. I double check my numbers when I’m doing the wrong side purl stitches.

I also put in life lines (dental floss, in this case) every 25 rows. I leave them in until I complete the clue to ensure I’ve gotten the pattern correct.

Once I’m sure I’ve completed the clue correctly, I slide the life lines out, place a new one at the beginning of the new clue and as EZ would say, “Knit on”. The rest of chart 3 was completed with little bloodshed.

As for the chart, I’ve OCD’ed it as well. With 3 different colored highlight markers by my side, I color the bead stitches pink, the row to be knitted yellow, and as I complete it, I mark it off in green. I've used a red Sharpie to draw vertical lines for my 5 sections. You can also see my own writing where I write in the number of knit stitches. This may seem like a lot of work up front, but I'm knitting much faster and with fewer mistakes, so it can't be all bad.

I have to say, with this more OCD defined system, I’ve been less likely to make mistakes, and the ones I have made (usually a missed or dropped yarn over), I can pick up much more quickly. At this point, I’ve not had to tink back at all, but could correct my mistakes when knitting the WS row.

I also made some executive decisions about some things on the needles. I had an EZ Pi shawl I was almost ready to knit the edge on, and decided I didn’t like it. I had made a ton of mistakes while knitting it, and knitted with doubled yarn at first, only to decide about 1/3 of the way through I didn’t like that and abandoned it for single strand. The patterns were off, I’m not sure there were the right number of stitches, and I had no plan while I was knitting it. As a result, it was a truly fugly piece of work. The only thing I did like about it was the yarn and colorway, which was Ironstone flake cotton. I decided to start over.

The Pi Jellyfish and Pi, unblocked and waiting to be frogged

MUC assist with the frogging

And, Frog Pi.

And, now on to something completely different....Friday was my birthday. We'll not discuss the year. I'd just as soon not bother, but it's important to Things 1 and 2. Here are a few of the things I received, and yes, I'm that weird that these are all things that I enjoy. And, yeah, Dr. Lucy, I got my urine colored roses.