Quick (and Exciting) Update

I have been working so diligently on my Lace Coat. It's almost like the ladies at the Sunday afternoon knit group told me I had to have it done by the next meeting to model it. Almost like I glibly said, "Oh that will be no problem" thinking the next meeting was in June. Only later did I realize they meant the next meeting, like the one in May. Oh. Anyway, I have been knitting on it.

Last Friday I had a young friend friend over who is working on her very first knitting project. She has 12 stitches going (well, usually. Sometimes we have to bring it back to 12 by tinking a little), and when I looked at the next step in my Lace Coat, I told her that I would have 353 stitches going (just to impress her). She was impressed. And so was I because that might be the most ever. Or not. Troy's sweater probably had more by the time I had the front, back, and both sleeves going. Anyway, 353 is still a lot.

Fortunately for me every other row had me decreasing 4 stitches, plus occasional decreases on the neck edge. So it wasn't very long until I had a more manageable number of stitches. And then not so long after that  when I had so few I wondered if I was going to run out of stitches before the required number of rows. But no. It all worked out and this evening I finished the bodice with exactly the right number of stitches: 53.

To  my delight I realized this means I have to pick up stitches on both front edges, knit four rows, and cast off, and then I will be done all the knitting on this project! Wow. I have to admit that when I realized that, first, I was happy. But then I thought, "This project was supposed to be epic. But now it's done. And it was the same as all the other projects...It got finished one row at a time. One stitch at a time." But I guess that's the only way any of them get done, isn't it.

So now I'm half way through picking up the stitches and have interrupted myself to tell you about it before it gets too late. This is one of the few times I am actually measuring and marking along the length so I can evenly balance the picked up stitches:

I do this simply by folding the length in half and placing a pin at the fold. Then folding each half in half and placing more pins. Etc. Until you have a small enough distance between pins that you can pretty reliably space out the number of stitches you have to put there. In this case I have to put five stitches between each pin. Easily managed.

This is quite different from my usual procedure where I pick up a stitch in each selvage stitch and then increase or decrease evenly on the next row to get the required number of stitches. That won't work in this case because the gauge is changing quite significantly. The bodice was knit on the smaller needles with one strand of yarn, and the edging is being knit on the larger needles with a double strand of yarn. So I pulled out the slower but more reliable method.

Here's the edge I'm working on:

Follow the top edge of this mass of knitting and you can see all the stitches I've picked up and knit on the right side and in the center. I still have to pick up the edge on the left marked with pins. And that's what I'm going to do right now. Toodles!