Continued doily dithering

Lavori 07/30 doily

OK, I've gotten as far as round 181 (really 182) on the Lavori 07/30 doily.  I've followed the chart but added the additional hex mesh motif in the middle of the hex mesh area.

Next round (183), another set of leaf tips joins the hex mesh motif.  I can do that round the same as the previous rounds, but I also have the opportunity to add yarnovers between the leaf tips and their neighboring leaves, similar to the way the chart had me do on round 173.

The decision I make will affect the next few rounds.

When I look closely at the photos in Lavori 7, it seems like this area has the maximum amount of binding and distortion.  So....  what should my approach be?

As charted (the incorrect way), round 183 has 8 stitches in the hex mesh area.  Round 185 and Round 187 have 8, round 189 has 6, round 191 has 2, and then leaf tips join again but it's all pretty straightforward from there.

One of the charts I drew (and have been following so far) does not add yarnovers.  Round 183 has 12 stitches in the hex mesh area (due to the extra hex mesh motif), round 185 has 10, round 187 has 6, round 189 has 4, and then round 191 has 2 and I've converged back on the same stitch count.

Given that the area will bind and distort when I block it, should I add more stitches so that rounds 187 and 189 have more stitches?  Or will it look stupid to have additional hex mesh motifs in that area, and also make it harder to converge back down to 2 stitches by round 191?   Round 193, which is labeled as 201, adds leaf tips again, which can complicate any approach that has more than 2 stitches for round 191, since I really do want to finish up the doily with the column of O-A-O (yo, sk2p, yo) between the outer fans (and leaves) for the final few rounds.

I will chart out a few possibilities now that I've reached this point and then decide what I want to do.

In other stream-of-consciousness ramblings, I made a knitting mistake in one of the pattern repeats, somewhere 2-4 rounds before round 181, in the area where leaves are growing from a stem.  Ugh.  Maybe I could fix it, but it's in a spot where there are lots of yarnovers, k-tbls, single decreases, and double decreases.  Chances are high that I'd make things a lot worse if I tried.  So...  I chickened out.  I left it alone and continued the pattern correctly on round 181, ignoring whatever was going on in round 179 or 177 or wherever it crept in.  Hopefully it won't be too obvious.  There will be a slight jog in the line of the stem in the one spot.  I don't know exactly what I did, but I think I did a twisted stitch instead of a double decrease and vice versa, low in the leaf where it's just separating from the stem and there are both stem stitches and leaf mid-rib stitches and the leaf's plain knit stitch(es) should surround the mid-rib but not the stem.

Sometimes I catch errors on the intermediate round, and sometimes I just tune out and knit without double-checking.  Most of the time, I can easily fix a problem even on the next pattern round because it's usually something pretty simple.  It gets trickier at places where there's a lot going on and it would be hard to build the section back up again if I drop the wrong yarnover or decrease at the wrong spot and various stitches run even further.  It's also complicated because this area is very scalloped due to the stacked increases and thus it's not always all that easy to follow the line of stitches from round to round.  I don't love this project so much that it needs to be perfect.  Heck, the design isn't perfect and we all know the chart isn't, either.

I am pretty excited to have only 20 pattern rounds left to go.  I think there are roughly 1100 stitches per round, give or take a bit, and it'll only keep increasing from here.  I'm glad I seem to have the stamina to do a 200+ round doily project these days.  Ten years ago I probably would have declined and chosen to do several smaller doilies instead.

I'm not sure what I'll do when this one is done.  Smaller doilies for a while?  And how small -- 50 rounds or 150 rounds?  Or do I want to choose another big one, where "big" is defined as over 150 rounds and probably over 200 rounds, or even over 300 rounds?  That's something to ponder as I eagerly plod my way through the next 20 rounds (and probably still close to 30,000 stitches).  The knitting is reasonably fun and I am genuinely happy about being close to done.  But it's still a lot of knitting.

Travel Shawl (Miami Vice shawl pattern)

I've finally knit all of the yarn that was reclaimed from the Daisies project and am now knitting fresh yarn from the yarn ball.  Yay!  So far there's no unhappy pooling, also yay!  I'm in the first band of the eyelet patterned part of the shawl.

More Travel Knitting (charity hat)

I needed a project that I could easily pick up and put down, no need to reach the end of a row or anything.  It's been a while since I knit a charity hat, so I started a new one.  It's in dark green acrylic (probably Red Heart) and is the usual k1p1 ribbed hat on 80 stitches.

Appledore Gansey

This is still coming along nicely.  I'm very close to the spot where I can start the underarm gussets.  I want to try it on the recipient to make sure it's not too big, too long, too short, etc., before I continue.  I'm nearing the end of my second skein of handspun, which means 325-ish yards once I reach the end.  The next skein I wound into a ball is about 125 yards.  Sweaters with fat yarn go faster and use less yardage than sweaters with thin yarn.  Not that this is necessarily good or bad.  There are trade-offs either way.  But I am definitely enjoying the speed at which the sweater is growing.

A Roving We Will Go (fiber fun)

I went to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival with a friend.  We didn't have as much time there as we sometimes do.  So I think I missed some vendors I wanted to see.  Oh, well!  Also, we went on the last day so the selection was probably not quite as good as it was earlier.  There was still plenty available, of course!  And plenty of cute animals to admire, and sometimes even pet!

I was very restrained (probably too restrained) and only bought a few things.  My friend was also fairly restrained.

I got small batches (4 oz each) of a mostly-Romney roving in medium to dark gray, and a mixed Navajo-Churro/Icelandic roving in mid-brown.  I don't know if that's a cross-bred sheep or a blend, though I think it's a blend, and I don't know the percentages of each.  It  has lovely darker fibers (probably Icelandic outer coat) mixed in with the lighter.  The mostly-Romney is from cross-bred sheep.  The flock started out as Romney but over the years there were occasionally rams of other breeds introducing outside genetics.

I also got a slightly larger mixed Maker's Blend from a different vendor, of various colors of dark-autumn-toned wool with maybe a bit of alpaca.  It was packaged as a mini-bump, so I'm not sure if the colors are all kind of mixed together or if there will be some variegation as I spin it.

The Churro/Icelandic roving is whispering to me so I'll probably spin it up soon.  Chances are that I will do my usual default-spun 2-ply.  I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with the yarn since it's not going to be next to the skin soft.  A hat or a pair of mittens seems likely.  Or maybe I'll use it for weaving or something.

I also want to think about what to do with the Maker's Blend.  If it's variegated, then maybe I should do a chain ply (aka Navajo 3-ply).  Or keep it as singles and then ply it against something else, maybe.  Or keep it as singles, period, and use it that way.

Last year I got what I think was the same gray mostly-Romney roving from the same people.  It's already spun up into a lovely yarn.  It'll be interested to see how this year's roving compares.  That's part of why I stopped and bought stuff from these people once I saw their booth -- I knew I liked their roving from last year.

Here's a pic of the yarn I spun from last year's Romney-X roving.  I ended up with about 250 yards of 2-ply from the 4 ounces.  It was an enjoyable spin, very clean and easy to draft.

There are some other things in my fiber stash I'd like to spin soon. I've been eyeing them but haven't been able to decide what to spin first so nothing gets done.  Sigh.  I do want to have room in my stash for more lovely things by the time next year's fiber festivals start up.  Hopefully I'll settle down and spend time with my wheels as the weather continues its descent into winter.

It's probably about time for another post on spinning wheels...

I think that's all I wanted to ramble about today.