Probably the final June 2025 progress report on Lavori 07/30

I'm still making progress on Lavori 07/30.  I didn't get a chance to work on it every day, but progress is progress.  There are over 100 stitches per pattern repeat now, over 600 per round.

I'm in the final section of the flower motif, with lots of crossed stitches to define the upper floofy bits (petals?  pistil/stamens?  generalized floral impressions?).  I've also started the third set of leaf motifs, which is a different style of leaf motif than the inner leaf motifs.

For the moment, there aren't any pattern repeats that begin and end with a yarnover, since the growing leaves are at the end of the pattern repeats.  In the early rounds where the leaves started and ended with yarnovers, the hex mesh used a k2 where a yarnover was adjacent to the leaves to keep it texturally separate.

Another few chart errors:

Round 113:  Another fairly obvious missing yarnover, just to the right of the flower motif section.

Round 113 also has a non-symmetric bit in the flower section -- all the knits turn into (yarnover, knit 1), which doubles the stitches for the flower.  That section does not end with an extra yarnover, which makes it slightly asymmetric.  This is correct as charted.

Round 121:  Yet another fairly obvious missing yarnover, in the middle of the hex mesh section after the flower.

Round 123:  Another missing yarnover directly above the missing yarnover symbol in round 121.

I see a few upcoming chart errors (more missing yarnovers) but I'll wait until I get there to confirm.

And here is a pic of my Touchstone shawl/scarf.  I'm over half done now, probably closer to 3/4 done.  I've finished the fourth set of eyelet bands and am close to the end of the next garter stitch band.  Then it's one more set of eyelet bands, a few more rows of garter stitch, and then it's done.  I'll adjust as necessary based on the amount of yarn I have left as I get close.

I need to start thinking about the next travel project, since this one won't last much longer.

I have no similar worries about the doily -- I've finished maybe 2/3 of the rounds, so I'm about 1/3 done with the doily.  I have lots and lots of knitting left to do.  Though if I want to sneak in a few smaller doilies in the meantime, I might do so.  Lavori 07/30 is on my 47" long circular needle now, so all the shorter ones are available for use.

Yet another June 2025 Lavori 07/30 progress report

Another week, another few rounds, another chart error.

Round 105:  there's a missing yarnover at the beginning of the pattern repeat.  I noticed this as an anomaly a while ago, and yup, it is indeed missing.

I'm done with the columns of twisted stitches, yay!  I had been twisting them on intermediate rounds, so it's kind of nice to go back to not needing to think or count on the non-pattern rounds.  Soon I will start the next set of leaf motifs, which will be part of this pattern all the way to the end.  Plus I'll soon increase a bunch more stitches and then start on a new set of crossed-stitch motifs as the flower fully poofs out.

The large number of stitches is somewhat tedious.  But there's enough variety that I'm still enjoying myself quite a lot.

My travel shawl is coming along nicely.  I've finished the section with four sets of eyelet rounds.  Now I do another section of garter, then a section with five sets of eyelets, then a few more rounds of garter stitch and then cast off.  It's more than it sounds like since the rows have an ever-increasing number of stitches.  But it feels like I'm getting a lot closer to the end than the beginning.  The ball of yarn is quite noticeably smaller.  All of this is subject to how much yarn I have, of course!  If I run out sooner than expected, I'll cast off sooner, too.

It also means I need to give more thought to the next travel project(s).  And, as I keep writing, I don't have enough projects on my needles and I really should cast on a few more -- a hat, a sweater, mitts or socks, etc., plus start planning the next semi-mindless shawl.

No pics today!

Lavori 07/30 progress report -- triple digits and another chart error

Yay!  I'm halfway through the rounds, and thus roughly 25% done with the knitting, give or take a bit.

There's another chart error on round 97 -- there is an asymmetry on the outside of the 5-X-5 sequences.  The right side has a yarnover while the left side has a double yarnover.  The single yarnover is correct for both spots.

I've finished the first part of the flower base, where there are a couple of rounds of garter stitch.  I've done the last crossed stitches of the lower leaves (well, second set of leaves; the first set is long finished).  The leaves have another few rounds before they finish merging into the background mesh.  There are still a LOT of stitches for barely being in the 100s, but so far it's reasonably pleasant knitting.

Things to look forward to -- more development of the flower, yay!  And I can see where the next set of leaves gets started.  Those will be around until the end of the doily, I believe.

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I can't remember if I've shared a pic of this doily before.

It's Burda 554/15.  It's really a square pattern, but I decided to experiment and see what happened if I did 5 pattern repeats instead of 4.  It was not fully successful -- I wasn't able to block it flat.  I still like how it looks.

This is what it's supposed to look like if one does 4 pattern repeats per round.

This was done early in my doily-knitting career, and it taught me some useful things about stitch counts and increase/decrease locations and the effect of relatively simple changes on the appearance of the doily.  I still am interested in those topics!

This might have been one I did simply because (a) it was small, and (b) I could read the chart without having to disassemble the chart pages from the magazine's staples.  That was definitely how I chose my first doilies from Burda 554!

First Lavori 07/30 progress report of June 2025

Just what it says...

The last leaves are starting to close and I've started on the flower, yay!

There's a chart error in round 93 -- a missing "1" in the middle of the pattern repeat, in the flower stem.  There's a small segment that should be O-1-O-1-O, and that second 1 is missing.  It's obvious when you get there.

It looks like a proper crumpled wad of thread.  I've done almost half the rounds which means I might be around 20-25% finished.  Except that it doesn't, since the stitch counts do all kinds of weird things rather than being a predictable and steady increase rate.  Whatever the true percentage of total knitting I've already done, it is clear that there is much (much, much) more to go.

I'm in no rush, luckily.

Onwards!

Memorial Day Weekend doily progress report

Plugging away on Lavor 07/30...  The leaves that started back around round 43 are finishing up.  I'm done with the crossed-stitches for the center ribs and the leaf tips are integrating into the next set of motifs.  The center leaf is turning into the flower stem in preparation for the flower, yay!, while the side two leaves will be merging into the hex mesh background, gone for good.

The new leaves that started growing at around 67 have finished with their V-1-V increasing at the centerline.  I was getting very tired of the mirrored M1 increases, so I'm happy to be done with that.  I don't think there are any more for the rest of the pattern.  There are other M1 increases, but they're not mirrored pairs.  Ditto for the crossed stitches -- I'm done with them on the three leaves, but there will be plenty more crossed stitches to come.

I finished the second partial ball of thread at the end of round 78 and am on the next partial ball.  It's a fairly big partial ball since the one I had intended to use was still attached to some crocheting done by the former owner of the thread.  I'll cut it off and/or reclaim the thread, haven't decided yet, but I didn't want to think about it so I grabbed the next yarn ball.  Any dyelot-related color changes are still subtle enough that I don't notice them, whew, and hopefully that continues.

The number of stitches per round is still climbing, oof.

I'm still enjoying myself.  It's a lot of work, but it's interesting knitting.

My travel shawl keeps getting worked on.  There are five sets of eyelet bands in the shawl, and I'm on the fourth one.  The rows keep getting ever longer so there's still plenty of knitting to go.  The yarn is still pretty and it still seems like a good pattern for this variegated long-repeat yarn.

That's about it on the current knit/spin/dye front!  Maybe I'll have some progress pics in the next post.  Or even a new project or two.

Back to the Main Quest Doily

Yay, I've resumed work on Lavori 07/30.  I'm back in the land of yarnovers as hex mesh starts separating the various leaves.  Pattern rounds that begin and end with yarnovers have also begun, which are so very characteristically Niebling-esque.  The number of stitches per round is increasing steadily.

After knitting with #40 thread for the Side Quest doily, the #30 seems like rope.  I'm close to the end of this partial ball of #30 and will soon switch to the next.  Fingers crossed, as always, that any differences in the shade of white are unnoticeable.

Another chart error -- the chart numbering jumps from 191 to 201 for no obvious reason.  So, instead of this doily being 210 rounds, it's actually 202 rounds.  Maybe there's something else going on, but if so, I'll figure it out when I get there.  There's nothing obvious going on in the photo of the doily or the instructions, and everything in the chart seems to line up properly.  Given that there are well over a thousand stitches per round by the outer parts of the doily, this means roughly 10,000 stitches I won't have to knit, which is fine by me.

Also, watch out when I get to round 105 -- I suspect there's a missing yarnover at the beginning of the pattern repeat.

That's it for today!

Side Quest doily: FdA 822

Lavori 07/30 took a quick break while I did another doily.

This is the doily from FdA 822.  I have no idea if there was a name attached, though FdA names tend to be more descriptions or random adjectives than names, really.

A friend and I did this one together, each choosing to interpret the chart symbols slightly differently.  That person has finished, and the doily is absolutely gorgeous.  I don't know if a pic has been posted yet, but we shared our photos with each other and that's how I know how nice it is.  Mine is above.  I'm reasonably pleased with it, too.

The little poof-like motifs in the middle section remind me a bit of Apache Plume seed heads.

I don't think I would have chosen to do this doily without being inspired by my fellow doily knitter.  About half of it is pattern-on-every-round.  And the outer rounds increase to a silly number of stitches.  But I do like how it turned out, so no regrets.

It turns out the every-round sections are brioche -- yarnover, slip 1, knit 2 together, offset on each round so the k2tog gets slipped and the yo-slip1 gets k2tog-ed.  That's the innermost motif and the middle motif.

The areas that aren't brioche are mostly hex mesh surrounding the other motifs as they grow and shrink.

The outer motifs are fans, with each fan consisting of three V-shaped sections separated from the other Vs of the fan by double yarnovers.  (In other words, each fan is O-V-O-O-V-O-O-V-O.)

So....

There are rounds that begin and end with yarnovers.  Some of these are typical Herbert Niebling hex mesh charting quirks.  I do the usual double-yo at the beginning of the round, with the first yarnover moving to the end of the round on the intermediate round.  (Is this a Herbert Niebling pattern?  This chart quirk is one piece of evidence pointing to him as the designer, as are the outer fan sections which are separated by double yarnovers.)

Some of them, though, are brioche yarnovers that just happen to be next to each other at the beginning and end of the round.  For those, keep them separate.  On the next round, each of the yarnovers will have something different happen, so they don't end up doing anything unfortunate to the overall design.

Also, in the every-round part, the chart will put a number (meant to be a number of knit stitches) above double yarnovers from the previous round.  For those, one does the usual thing of putting a knit and a purl into the double yarnover rather than two knits.

I changed some decrease directions (sk2p to k3t).  And I slipped stitches as if to purl.

I didn't block the doily very carefully, but it looks good anyway.  There are a few mistakes, especially in the brioche section, that I wasn't fully able to fix, but they're hard to see unless one is looking for them.

This pattern has 78 rounds, 16 pattern repeats per round.  I don't think there are any chart errors, but the knitter is expected to know how to handle the kinds of chart quirks I mentioned above.

Now back to Lavori 07/30!  At least until the next side quest.

It's also time to start thinking about the next travel project since I've been getting in some good knitting time on my travel shawl.  It's pretty, and will be more of a scarf than a shawl, as is typical for an asymmetric shallow triangle.