…do you knit it or quit it?
This chapter of my 3-swatch contribution to the Walker Treasury Project opened with a bang! I was able to make quick work of the first two:
Traveling Rib Pattern (Book 1, p. 281) and Flying Wings Pattern (Book 1, p. 286)I should have known that the cocky assuredness I felt as I launched into the hell that would be come Swatch Number Three would most certainly bite me in the hind quarters. Oh, yes, and quite smartly too.
Swatch Number Three, also known as Faggoting and Beehive Lace Pattern (Book 1, p. 188) is an ostensibly simple 4-row repeat of YOs, SSKs and K2TOGs with a few knit and purl stitches pulling it all together. Nothing outside my realm of knitting competency. According to the black and white photo next to the pattern, this lace should resemble bees lined vertically in neat little rows.
While there currently exists no photographic evidence, I clearly saw the bees in my four(!) attempts at creating this swatch. What I could not discern were the lines of openwork faggoting! I tried this pattern using laceweight Zephyr, fingering weight lambswool, sportweight wool and worsted weight cotton blend. Nothing! At least nothing that I would deign to show publicly.
I’ve now cast on for attempt number five, and I’m asking you, “Would you knit it or quit it?”
Sometimes things look different in different yarn. The DK or worsted should look better. I charted out the pattern and saw that there should be lines of faggoting. What’s odd to me is that it is garter on ione side of the little bees and st st on the other. But it also shows that in the photo. I say try it one more time and then let it marinate!
The first two are so perfect and you know you can do it… What I do when I am “stuck” is just walk away. But only for a litle while. Knit something else, then come back to it and then it’ll probably be one of those “slap you forhead moments!”
Me? I’d go old school. Which is to say I’d throw it down and cry in a fit of frustration like a 4 year old, and then the next time I came to Chicago, I’d ask you to show me how to do it…
I would quit it and start a different swatch or stop altogether.
Save your wrists and your sanity – you gotta know when to fold em, baybee!
I have been known to start many a pattern only to give up when it’s too confusing or I realize I’m just not doing something right. I have even continued what I started making it up as I go (but that was crochet).
It all depends on how badly I want to make/finish/sort out what I have begun.