Progress and no-progress reports on various projects

I'm blathering about several things in this post, so what the heck, let's use some bolded sub-headings so I can find them later.  (or so that the Imaginary Reader can skip anything too boring, assuming that they want to read any of this at all)

Doily Non-Progress Report

Lavori 07/30 is still sitting in time-out, waiting for me to look closely at the chart and count stitches and then re-chart the problem section for the next three pattern rounds.

Here's a pic of what it looked like after round 163:

I'm getting close to done with the current partial ball of thread.  I still haven't unraveled and re-skeined the little section of filet crochet that I cut off the partial ball earlier so I won't worry about that for now.  Next up is another partial ball of thread.  After that, I have a set of 3 full balls of thread left, each 350 yards.  I'm kind of hoping I won't need to use any of those, and that the remaining partial ball (from a ball that was originally 500 yards) might be enough to get to the end of the doily, even if I have to reclaim the little bit of filet crochet.  I'm probably fooling myself, though, and will probably end up cracking at least one of the full balls.  However, I'm not likely to need all three of them, whew, meaning that I did have enough of this stuff to do a 200+ round doily.  Fingers crossed and all that.

I have no idea how much thread I've used already since I've started with all the partial balls.  I'll weigh it afterwards and estimate the yardage from the weight.  Ravelry tells me that 250 yards weighs 18 grams, more or less.

Travel Knitting Project

My feather-and-fan shawl is going well.  I'm nearing the end of the first skein already.  Yikes!  This means it probably won't be much bigger than a shoulder shawl, though blocking might help a bit.  That's because using 1/4 of the yarn means the shawl is half the size it will be when done, and I'm gonna reach that point relatively soon.  Also, it's not going to be a good travel knitting project for long at this rate!

Here is a recent-ish photo:

There's a blurry image of a cat in the lower right corner of the pic -- a black long-haired cat with a few white whiskers.  She was zooming over to sit on the shawl when I took the photo.

Spinning (wheel evaluation skein is finished!)

I finally plied the evaluation skein for my new rescue wheel.  I used the Fricke and it all fit on one bobbin.

There's roughly 360 yards of 2-ply, roughly 3.5 oz.  The fiber was sold to me as a 4-oz bag, so either there's some humidity loss or my postal scale isn't accurate or they didn't tare the bag, or something.  They're a reputable vendor so I am assuming there's some innocuous reason.

As yarn goes, it's not great stuff.  The fiber consisted of little bits and pieces of various things rather than being one batt or one long strip of roving.  It wasn't much fun to spin and the 2-ply is kind of eh, too.

I can tell the difference between the early and late-spun singles, as the rescue wheel was getting smoother and more consistent.

Dunno what I'll do with this yarn.  Maybe when I learn to use the rescue rigid heddle loom, all my ugly yarn will get turned into fabric for bags or rugs or something.  Or I'll knit it into a toy or a bag or a cat bed, something where looks and feel aren't too important.

I'm glad the fiber is out of my stash.  It has been annoying me ever since I brought two bags of this home (in two different colorways/blends) and realized that it wasn't a single well-blended batt as I had assumed.  Maybe it was intended for felters rather than spinners.  Whatever.  I won't buy it again.

Now I get to decide what fiber and what wheel to use for the next spinning project, yay!

The new wheel could use a little bit more cleaning and playing around with, but it's already making very decent yarn.  I'm not sure if I'll use it or one of my other wheels for the next project.  Probably a different wheel -- I don't want my wheels to feel unloved, so I try to use most of them on a semi-regular basis.

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Appledore Gansey Thoughts and Planning

I'm getting more serious about starting a gansey, and in particular, an Appledore-ish sweater.  It won't be a true gansey, since it won't be form-fitting nor knitted at 7-8 stitches per inch from fine, smooth yarn.  I've been going back through the links and books and what-not I saved from last time to re-acquaint myself with what I had been thinking back then, as well as what I'm thinking about it all now.  It's fun to find some new resources, too.

Once I decide on a yarn and possibly a recipient (if I don't just make it for myself), I'll work out the necessary schematics and stitch numbers and cast on.

I'll definitely want to keep track of the Real Gauge, try on the sweater early and often, and be prepared to rip and re-do as necessary.  Usually I start with a sleeve, both because it's easier to work around small gauge differences between the swatch and the real thing, and because it's not too much of a time investment to rip and re-do a sleeve.  However, ganseys usually finish with the sleeves rather than starting with them, and I'm not planning on doing otherwise.  So I'll dive into the body and see how it goes.  I already unraveled the first iteration of this sweater, so what's one more unraveling?

I'll do k1p1 for the ribbing at all edges, probably on a smaller needle, and quite possibly (at least for the lower edge and sleeve cuffs) on a smaller number of stitches than the stockinette body/sleeves.

I'll keep one purl stitch for the side, which will of course continue down the underside of the sleeves.

I need to look at PGR and EZ and BBR, etc., for typical percentages for drop-shoulder armhole depth.  The gusset will start about 2" below the armhole split, and should increase 2 stitches every 4th round, to end up at roughly 2" wide by the time the split is reached.  If one reaches 2" wide before 2" high, then a few extra rounds without increases are called for.  There's a post on one of the Facebook groups about the Appledore gansey pattern that's in Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks by John Whitlock and Josephine Sims, and that seems to be what the sample pattern in the booklet calls for.  I'll probably mirror the sleeve gusset so that it too will be about 2" deep by the time it's decreased away.

I'm not sure yet if I'll do seed stitch, moss stitch, or Betty Martin for the shoulders.  I've seen those variations and more in the old photos and other people's patterns and projects.  I won't have as many rows to work with given my probable gauge, so keeping it simple is probably better.  The Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks booklet uses seed stitch, I believe, given the photo of the finished sweater in the Facebook post I saw.  The sweater (and pattern) in Rae Compton's book (Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting) calls for moss stitch and also might have deeper bands of reverse stockinette.  I believe that Compton's pattern calls for reverse stockinette -- moss - rev st - a row or two of stockinette, and then mirrored on the other side.  The 3-needle-BO seems to be where the shoulder strap abuts the back.  In the PTF booklet, I can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like both front and backs have a strap (half as wide as Compton's) and they do the 3NBO where the straps join?

It's nothing to worry about yet.  And seeing different versions makes me more confident in choosing to do whatever works best for my own purposes.

Hmm, I wonder if I can still acquire a copy of Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks?

Yarn.  That's often the most dither-y part of the project, sigh.  Fuzzy gray handspun that probably knits up at 4.5 st/in?  Valley Yarns, where the choices are a fairly smooth worsted weight or a very smooth sock weight (that I would knit 2-stranded at 5 st/in because I don't yet want to knit an adult-size sweater at 7 st/in)?  Something else, which requires me to go stash-diving to see what I have?  My handspun tends to be fuzzy, which might or might not matter given the simplicity of this gansey.  I'll have to see what else there is in the commercial-yarn stash that might work if the above options aren't sufficient.

And so on.

It's possible I'll be overcome with decision analysis paralysis or get distracted by something else completely, but this is still a fun exercise.

I do want to do a Staithes-style seeds-and-bars aka Harry Freeman gansey someday.  But right now I want the soothing vast expanses of stockinette knitting that the Appledore gansey showcases.

And that's enough verbiage for this post.

Lavori 07/30 progress and the next set of chart errors

I'm still slowly making progress on Lavori 07/30.  I'm definitely in the section where there are already 12 repeats per round, meaning that the chart (at 6 pattern repeats per round) repeats the same sequence of stitches.  This makes it easier to keep track of things and also to spot errors.  There are over 800 stitches per round now.  The flower is long gone; it's just the hex mesh and leaf motifs now.

Here are the next two chart errors.  I could have put them in my previous post but was hoping to wait until the post where I finally did jump to the next chart (at round 171).

Round 159:  After the first set of leaves (and the skp, k3, k2t that finishes it off), the stitches at the beginning of the stretch of hex mesh are charted as yo, skp, k2t.  This should be symmetric with all the others, and the skp should be a double-decrease (sk2p, left-leaning to preserve symmetry).

Round 163:  In the first set of leaves, the last leaf is missing a yarnover.  It should be (k4, yo, k-tbl, yo, k4) like all the other leaves.

Now I am on round 165 and have discovered a true chart error.  All of the previous ones have been fairly obvious typos, but this one is a little more complex.

The first set of hex mesh motifs shows 5 repeats of the motif, while the second shows 6 repeats.  The first set does not match the stitch counts for round 163.  The second set does.  However, the first set, going upwards through round 169, does match the stitch count needed for round 171.  The second set, therefore, does not.

Sigh.

There are decreases at each end of the hex mesh motifs.  I believe that if I change them from single to double decreases, that the stitch counts will work out.  The first set on the chart will work as charted from then on.  The second set will match the first set.

I need to do some charting and very careful stitch counting before I continue.  If necessary, I can also involve the edge double-yarnovers that are next to the double decreases in round 163 and change them to single yarnovers by dropping the second yarnover.  I'll see what seems to work best to make sure I reach round 171 with the correct number and arrangement of hex-mesh motifs.

I can also see that there is something weird at the end of round 167/169.  There's a double decrease at the end of round 167 that just sort of disappears in round 169.  There are no move-the-marker symbols on the chart at that point but I suspect that the last stitch of round 167/168 does move to the beginning of round 169.  Then, of course, the problem will be moving to round 167 instead of round 169 depending on what I do at the end of round 165 (since I'm probably changing the skp at the end of round 165 to a double decrease).

On the bright side, the leaf motif sections for the next few rounds appear to be charted correctly, no missing yarnovers or anything.

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I did start a new travel project!  It is indeed the F&F half-square triangle shawl I mentioned in the last post.  Instead of handspun, I'm using a batch of commercial yarn from the stash.  It's a smooth variegated light-worsted-weight yarn.  I have 4 balls of it, between 450 and 500 yards.  I like it so far.  I had thought to use this yarn in a Wingspan shawl, but that was a few years ago.  I'll be happy to have it out of my stash as long as the yarn and pattern are a good combo, which so far they seem to be.

I'm dithering a bit about sweaters again.  This time it's the simple gansey projects I had done some research on a few years ago -- the Appledore gansey and/or Harry Freeman's "seeds and bars" gansey.  The Appledore gansey/jersey is a classic gansey in its construction, but the only decoration is on the shoulder straps.  Harry Freeman's gansey has several horizontal bands of simple moss or seed stitch patterning, separated by bands of garter or reverse stockinette.  The Harry Freeman gansey is a very popular and widespread style with a lot of simple variations, and even Mr. Freeman himself had several slightly different versions in his sweater wardrobe.

There is a pattern given for an Appledore gansey in Rae Compton's book on traditional gansey/jersey knitting.  I had adapted it for my size and for a big batch of handspun I wanted to use, and had gotten as far as the armholes when I decided I didn't like how it was turning out.  So maybe I'll try again, not following any specific pattern but just kind of winging it.  I have several books that discuss ganseys in addition to general sweater construction plus the resources of the internet.  I also have several sweater-sized yarn batches, both handspun and commercial, in various yarn weights.

Although I like the seeds and bars patterns, I'm not sure what yarn I'd want to use.  Plus I'm not sure it would be flattering on me.

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I still haven't plied the yarn spun on the new rescue wheel.  Maybe this afternoon.  Then it might be time to clean and warp the rescued rigid heddle loom.  I think I've already written about that a bit.  I'm still trying to decide if general weaving posts will go on this blog or on another fiber blog.

No photos for this post!  Maybe I'll add something later, but chances are that it'll wait to the next post.

The Ides of August (Lavori 7/30 doily progress report)

If not the ides of August, it's close enough.

Progress on my Lavori 7/30 doily has been slow.  The stitch count is increasing again, and, well, I often slow down at around this point in a long project.  But there is progress, yay!  As far as I can tell, the doily now has 12 pattern repeats per round.  The chart still shows 6 pattern repeats per round, but that just means that there are 2 repeats charted on each line of the chart.  I'm not too far off from where the pattern transitions to the outer fan motifs and the chart really does switch to 12 repeats per round.

I did finish my Touchstone shawl, my travel project for the last few months.  It's a boomerang shawl for sure -- longer than I am tall, but not terribly deep (less than 2 feet if I block aggressively).  It's more of a scarf than a shawl.  I haven't blocked it yet.

The colors are pretty and they harmonize very well with the pattern.  I used every last inch of yarn in the skein.  I ran out most of the way through the cast-off row, oops, but luckily the crochet-cheat-trick kludge isn't too obvious in spite of the slight tension differences.  Also, I wasn't able to finish the entire pattern as written.  The final set of eyelets calls for five eyelet bands.  I did three.  It's not a problem -- it looks fine the way it is.

But this means I have no travel project!!!  ACK!!!  Plus I'll need one for tomorrow!  As a default, I can make acrylic ribbed hats for charity.

I'm thinking of doing another one of Sarah Bradberry's Feather and Fan Comfort Shawls, since it's very hap-shawl-like (it's a half-square triangle shawl with f&f).  I have a mish-mash of hand-dyed handspun that I'd like to find a use for.  They're all medium gray Romney dyed in various shades (deliberately uneven dyeing to have somewhat variegated roving).  A few are barberpoled, while the others are self-plied.  Most are 1.5-3 ounces, 100-200 yards each, roughly 1000-1200 yards total.  F&F is a pretty reasonable pattern choice for stripes and long variegations.

Or, I could cast on a zillion stitches and do a rectangular piece of F&F, one skein after another, and then end up with a rectangular lap blanket or shawl.

Or I could do a center-out shawl/blanket, either circular/polygonal or square.  I'd have to give a little consideration to the cast-off so that things didn't roll, but I've done that before by using a couple of rounds of crochet-cast-off, or by doing a bit of garter or seed stitch on the final rounds.  One problem with this is that I'd really be horsing stitches around the needle by the end.  Even the half-square triangle tends to get unwieldy by the time it's close to done.

Or I could do something else entirely.  I have two or three other batches of yarn I'd like to use up if I can find a reasonable pattern to complement them.  Maybe one of them would be better for the F&F half-square triangle pattern.  Hmmm.

Plus I'm going to be learning how to weave on a rigid heddle loom soon, and that too can use a lot of my handspun to good effect even though it's not exactly the same thing as a travel knitting project.

Dithering is stressful.

I'm also eyeing a shawl I started long ago.  It's been sitting for a while.  Do I continue it?  Do I unravel it?  It's not a difficult pattern but it's not quite calm enough for a travel project.  If I do unravel it, what would I do with the yarn?  And should I try the pattern again but with a different yarn?  The yarn I'm using does suit the pattern, but there's 1000 yards of it, and maybe I'd rather have something smaller.

At least the spinning does not require any decisions currently.  I'm doing a 4-oz batch of something not-great as a first project for the most recently rescued wheel.  It's going well.  Dunno what I'll spin after that, but I'll worry about that when this batch is done.  I have to figure out tomorrow's knitting first.

Musings about spinning wheels -- rehabbing older wheels (CPW)

In my first post in this series, I wrote how I'd spun on a wheel borrowed from a friend, but it had been sold when I inquired about purchasing it.

So...  back then, I thought it was a 1970s-ish era Ashford Traditional.  It had tilt tension and a split table, so that seemed like a reasonable conclusion.  It thus occurred to me that perhaps I should go find a nice vintage Ashford Traddy on the used market and buy my own!

And thus started a new habit.  I didn't see any Ashfords for sale when I looked.  But I did see other wheels!  Oooh....

The first wheel I went to see confused me.  Beautiful, yes.  But where was the tension control?  Why did the flyer/bobbin arrangement have nowhere for the yarn to go through the orifice?

I'm glad I already knew how to spin and could figure out these kinds of details.  Because yes, this was the wheel for which the term SWSO was invented.  This Spinning Wheel Shaped Object was designed as decor, not as a spinning wheel.  It was a lovely Made in Canada Roxton spinning wheel.

I smiled politely and walked away, though I earnestly informed them that this wheel was ornamental only and could not possibly spin.  I have no idea if they knew that, though in retrospect I don't think they cared either way.

I don't remember if there was another non-functional wheel during that first search.  Or maybe there was a bait-and-switch where they said one price but then either increased the price or suggested I offer a higher bid.  (That's happened a few times.)  But then I saw an ad for a rather battered CPW.  I'd never seen one in person even though I knew of their existence.  So down I toddled.  And it followed me home.

So much to learn!  First, a solid cleaning to remove the dust of ages.  And then a few tweaks and what-not.

The whorl was stuck on the flyer, not uncommon in an older wheel.  The screw was left-handed but I knew enough to be aware of the possibility so I didn't break anything.  The bobbin and whorl and flywheel had a few chips here and there, but nothing too awful.

The footman was missing.  No big deal -- A long piece of wire worked perfectly well.  Any drivebands were long gone, but a nice piece of crochet cotton took care of that.

The hub had a crack.  But it seemed very stable so I left it alone.  And the tension device was deeply kludged -- it had been semi-modernized previously.  So although it wasn't original, it did work.  I could adjust the tension and that tension would hold.  I could have purchased a replacement if and when I was ready to do so but I ended up not doing that.

The first time I sat down to spin, the whorl immediately tightened itself all the way until it mashed against the bobbin.  I guess the screw (either the whorl or the flyer shaft) was slightly stripped.  Wrapping a piece of plumber's teflon tape around the area on the flyer shaft took care of that problem.

Then she spun!!!

I was thrilled.  Wow, this old spinning wheel, neglected for decades, was now a working wheel, because of my actions!

CPWs are delightful wheels.  They're so industrial-looking, with the large flywheel and the beautiful metal treadle.  They look and feel very steampunk.

People say they are really fast wheels.  I'm not so sure about that.  A whorl-to-flywheel ratio is what matters, I believe, no matter how big or small the flywheel is.  But the large wheel whooshing around is very impressive, for sure.  And it was a nicely efficient spinner.

I enjoyed using the wheel.  When I did a long-distance move several years later, I sold it locally since I thought it should stay in the area.  The person who bought it finished fixing it up and then re-sold it.  I am happy that someone could put in the time and money and know-how to bring out the wheel's full former glory.  I hope its current owner loves it as much as I did.  Maybe someday I'll get another.

For those who care, CPW stands for Canadian Production Wheel.  It refers to a style of spinning wheel that was made in the late 19th through mid 20th century by a group of wheel makers who were based in Quebec.  The wheels were sold locally and also by the Dupuis Freres department store (under the brand name of Duprex).  They mostly feature large flywheels, metal treadles (and footmen), tilt tensioning, and a double-drive setup.  People who love and collect them have identified distinguishing characteristics of most of the major manufacturers, though there was a certain amount of mix-and-match and also a bit of individuality between wheels even by the same family or person rather than everything being cookie-cutter alike.  Mine was probably a Bordua, probably from one of the later/younger family members of the Bordua CPW Dynasty.

Here's some yarn I spun on my CPW.  It's llama that I had dyed with kermes.

I don't seem to have a lot of other clear photos of yarn I've spun on this wheel, darn it.  But there was more, really and truly!

After that experience, I was hooked.  Getting an inexpensive and possibly neglected old wheel, and restoring it to spinning functionality - it was addictive.  And I still wanted that vintage Ashford Traditional.  Even after I figured out that the initial loaner wheel was something else entirely.

So I kept looking.  And when the stars aligned, kept doing wheel rescue.

This is the second in what seems to be turning into a series of spinning wheel posts.

Musings about spinning wheels -- my first wheel (Fricke)

I've written a bit about spinning on this blog.  It's usually oblique -- a view of some yarn plus or minus discussion of a knitting project, with a brief mention that it's handspun.  There's a post about CD spindles (still my favorite type of production drop spindle) but only a little bit about wheels.  Hmmm.

I acquired my first wheel about 5 years after I started spinning.   I was exclusively a spindle-spinner before that.  A friend loaned me one of her wheels for a few months and after I returned it, I decided to get my own.  I've written about that loaner wheel -- I spun a few pounds of Romney on it that winter and eventually knit a sweater from the yarn.  Many years later I asked if I could buy the wheel from my friend, but alas, it had already been sold to someone else.  I don't know what it was.  I saw it once, maybe in the New Zealand spinning wheel site, but I can't remember what it was.  It was similar to an Ashford but it wasn't an Ashford.

The first wheel I bought was a Fricke S-160.  It's one of the very few wheels I purchased as a new wheel (as opposed to a used wheel).  I absolutely hated the delta orifice but luckily was able to get a more traditional flyer where the yarn goes through an orifice.  I've spun so much on it that the edge of the orifice hole is shiny and thin where the yarn rubs against it.

I still have and use that wheel, many many miles of spun yarn later.  It's my main travel wheel when I do demos or hang out with spinners and knitters.  It's not really designed to be a good travel wheel since it doesn't fold up and it's not particularly streamlined nor lightweight.  However, it is sturdy and utilitarian and doesn't have a lot of little things that can get scratched or broken or knocked out of alignment.  It's also one of my main plying wheels since the bobbins are a pretty decent size.

Some of the original plastic bits have needed replacing, namely the driveband (a stretchy band) and the footman connectors (plastic tubing of some sort).  I was able to get a new driveband from the Frickes.  When it was time to replace the footman connectors, I found out that the Frickes had retired!  Oh, sad day...  But it turned out that Ashford makes a 6mm cord that works well as a substitute, yay!

That's the downside of modern materials, and in particular, polymers.  They get brittle with age.  Maybe someday I'll have to replace these with a string for the driveband and leather for the footman connectors.  But hopefully I'll be able to find proper polymer replacement parts for a good long time.

The Fricke wheel has a nice range of ratios.  I almost always use the faster ones.  The bobbins are Majacraft plastic bobbins that hold roughly 4 oz.  The wheel is a simple upright style, single treadle, scotch tension.  The treadle is large enough to treadle with either foot or both feet.  It has a heel-toe action that means I need to find the sweet spot.

I've seen some weird Franken-wheels over the years that use bits from the Fricke wheel as one of the component wheels.  I have no idea why people do that -- did something on the Fricke break so they re-used its pieces?  Did they not like the Fricke for some reason?  I have no idea how well the Franken-wheels spun.  I hope for the sake of their owners that they spun reasonably well.

I know the Frickes came out with a double-treadle version as well as folding versions.  But I have the simple, bottom-line, old-school plain wheel.

Hmm, I don't know if I have a picture of my Fricke.  Maybe I'll add a pic to this post later.  There are plenty online if anyone cares.  But I can share a few photos of yarn I've spun.

The above pic is some 2-ply alpaca that I spun at a demo.

Some BFL handpaint, left as singles yarn.  I dyed it myself (or a family member dyed it) rather than buying the roving already dyed.

Some white 2-ply merino/dorset that was plied on the Fricke.

A cowl that I knit with Fricke-spun handspun yarn.  I later ended up unraveling it because the proportions ended up not quite right for my needs.  I'm glad I took a photo, though, since the fabric is very cute and I like how the pattern stitch interacts with the yarn.

And here's the yarn that made the cowl.  I'm pretty sure I dyed the roving.  I'm not 100% sure what the fiber was -- my original notes said BFL but when I spun it up it behaved more like some Romney roving I had at the time.

And so on.

This post started as some general musings on wheels.  But it ended up being about just one wheel, really, with only a little bit about the loaner wheel that preceded it.  I guess I've started a new series...  I have many musings to go.

Not that it's relevant, but I'm still making progress on my doily and I'm nearly done with my travel shawl/scarf.  I don't think there's enough yarn to finish the last sets of eyelets as the pattern calls for, but it'll be fine either way.

Another July progress post on Lavori 07/30 (with the latest errata, of course)

The pic I have looks like a proper wad of thread.

But you can see bits of leaves and the crossed stitches of the flower.

Two more chart errors:

Round 141:  There is a missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Round 153:  Ditto -- a missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Both of these are in a section of the pattern where every 4th round begins and ends with a yarnover.  It's pretty obvious that the yarnovers are missing in the above rounds.  I'm not at round 153 yet but listed the chart error already because it's so obvious.

I've finished another partial ball of thread (early in round 146) and am on to the next!  It was attached to a project already when I bought the thread, a pretty little piece of filet crochet.  I cut it off since it would have been a pain to unravel and re-block the thread while it was still attached to the unused thread wound on the cardboard tube.  Maybe I'll eventually unravel and re-block and use the thread, and maybe I'll leave the filet crochet project alone in honor of the person who crocheted it, wherever he/she may be these days.  I'm sorry their project never got finished and never got used.  I certainly won't be the one to do it.  Not only do I have no idea what the finished project was intended to be (and how many more motifs it might have contained), but I don't particularly enjoy doing filet crochet.

I am at around the midpoint of this doily, maybe a little bit beyond, with close to 3/4 of the rounds being done.  Soon I will move to the 60" long needle, which is the longest I currently own.

The rest of the doily doesn't have anything too wild and crazy, not like the earlier parts.  It'll be the leaf motifs, lots of hex mesh, and then the outer triple-fans with 12 pattern repeats per round.  Hopefully I'll be able to stay focused, especially when the stitch counts really start climbing.

My travel knitting project is close to done.  I'm starting the final block of yarnovers.  I don't know if I'll get through the remainder of the pattern as written or if I will run out of yarn and end the shawl a little bit earlier.  Either way, it'll be OK.  And either way, I really do need to figure out the next travel knitting project!

The first July progress report on Lavori 07/30

Another few weeks, another few rounds, another few chart errors.

Really, though, it's coming along; maybe not the fastest progress but still relatively steady.

I'm done with the flowers.  No more crossed stitches.  That feels kind of weird after so many hundreds of them in this pattern so far.  But nope, they're done.  Now it's time for the final set of leaves, which will soon match the other leaves that started a while back, as the pattern transitions from 6 to 12 pattern repeats per round.  After that, the outer fans will start and the number of stitches will climb quickly, but that's not for a while yet.

I'm probably close to half-done with the pattern, give or take a bit.  Wow.  I'm also just about done with the current partial ball of thread.  I have a few more partial balls left before I'd need to start one of the full balls of this stuff.  (I have three full balls or 350 yards each in addition to all the partial balls.)

A few more chart errors:

Round 127:  A missing yarnover between the left side of the flower and the hex mesh section.  It should be (yo, sk2p) after all of the crossed stitches.

Round 135:  2 errors in this row!  There's an extra yarnover to the left of the crossed-stitch section (the right side of the crossed-stitch section has the correct single yarnover), and also an extra yarnover in the center section of the leaves (there should be no double yarnovers in the leaf motif area, just single yarnovers).

So far, all of the chart errors have been more like typos than errors.  They're all fairly minor and all fairly obvious.  I hope that continues, should there be more errors up ahead.  I assume there will be more of these chart typos, because why wouldn't there be?

As part of my final posts on this doily, after it's completed, I'll have a list of all the chart errors in this pattern.  That might be in 2025, or maybe not until 2026 or beyond.  We'll see!  So far, I'm pleased with my knitting stamina.  But I often get the doldrums between half and two-thirds to three-quarters done.  I'm trying not to push myself too hard and also mixing this in with a lot of other fun things.

No photos for this post!