Reading My Knitting

A couple of weeks ago, over on the Knitaway Ravelry Group, we started knitting the Birds Nest Shawl.  As I started the lace pattern on mine on Friday, I remarked at how easily this particular lace pattern was to knit, the kind of lace pattern where a fairly unexperienced lace knitter could perhaps even knit it while watching t.v. or at a knit night.  Thing #1 I learned -  don't admit how easy something may be until you have really knitted it while talking, watching t.v. or both a the same time.

When I first started knitting fairly easy lace patterns or charted patterns for cables, I took the written instructions and put them on my note cards so that I can at a glance read and knit the lace at the same time.  You know, while watching t.v., talking or both.  It worked well for me in the past.  But, then, I thought maybe it was time to give up the crutch and start reading charts while knitting.

I've graduated to knitting from charts (and sometimes the written stuff in a pattern) from my old system.   I am knitting from the chart, using my highlighter tape.  I place my highlighter tape above the row I am working on.  This way, I can tell what the stitch pattern should look like from the view of whenst I have come.  It is not something I came up with, but rather something that I read about and it really helps me read my knitting much better.

I am also not much of a life line putter inner or user of markers.   I use them to signify a change in what is going on at the beginning or end of a row, but don't as a rule to separate the pattern repeats.

But, maybe I should, (thing #2 I learned) because it would seem that a marker for the repeat would have been helpful to tell that I dropped my yarn over and the subsequent row above it not once but twice, and had to rip back aways on the row when I finally got around to looking down and seeing that the number of yarn overs on the chart did not equal the number I had on my knitting.

Thank goodness, both of them were an easy fix and now I am on my way again on my shawl!

Today's moving photo - anybody got a tape measure I could borrow?