Getting Caught Up

Hi K.,

I’m getting caught up on working the Princess, having taken a huge detour into working the Rosebud shawl, and there’s been some stuff goin’ on at work that has required more brainpower than usual. But here I am.

I admit that I kinda stalled out on the edging around row 16 of the 55th repeat. I knew that working the edging was going to get as boring as all heck, but I’d hoped it wasn’t going to be so soon. Previously I’d been counting how many repeats I’d worked: now I’ll be counting them down. “Now there’s 30 to go, now there’s 29, now 28,” and so on. Kinda like when I’m exercising: counting the reps down from 12 (or 10 or whatever), finishing the last one and realizing I still have enough oomph that I can do another rep, and then I know I can do another so I do, and so on. Isn’t that how people motor through their Regia socks? “Oh I’ll just finish this stripe of colour before going to bed”, and then another colour gets started and they finish that one, and soon it’s into the wee hours of the morning.

Don’t buy it, eh? Hm; well I’m not sure I do either. But if it helps, it helps. Maybe readers of this blog who’ve done the Princess edging, or a similarly long edging, would like to leave comments telling how they got through it. I’d surely be interested in learning others’ tricks.

One thing I do know is that, for me, working an edging and attaching it to the live stitches of the border has the job going a lot faster than working a l-o-n-g length of just edging.

I see you’ve thought through pairing decreases in lace. I’ve wondered about this as well, but as the topic is old news here and elsewhere, I don’t think I have anything new to add. Sarah Don uses only k2tog for decreases, so she makes no distinction between left- and right-leaning decreases. (Her book, "The Art of Sheltand Lace", is out of print.) Nor does Hazel Carter. Gladys Amedro uses both k2tog and k2tog-in-back-loops with no mention of slip-knit-pass or ssk. (K2tog-in-back-loops would be my last choice because it adds a twist to the stitches.)

I wondered what the photos in the Shetland Museum Photo Archives would reveal about this. Not much, actually. Generally, the photo resolution isn’t high enough to get clarity, or the photo didn’t zoom in on details like that. There were a few where I could see sufficient level of detail, and I saw the use of paired decreases, and the use of only right-leaning decreases. The photos’ annotations usually don’t give information about when the garments were made or by whom, so there’s no way that I can think of to determine whether the general method was to just work right-leaning decreases and then that evolved to working paired decreases; or whether use of only right-leaning decreases was practised in certain regions of lace knitting activity; or, well, whatever. (Possible research project for a PhD.)

In the end, does it matter? I mean, if you worked an entire shawl and only did right-leaning decreases (so there was no use of left-leaning decreases to compare with), would anyone really know? Would anyone just looking at it -- admiring its gloriousness -- really get down and look at it that closely? Not likely; they’d need a particular reason to do so.

Or does it matter? The techniques of any craft evolve over time, in response to a variety of factors. We do things one way because we know only that way. When we learn another, we evaluate the merits of both: one costs more in terms of execution ease or speed, or whatever criteria are important. If speed is the most important criterium, than you’ll pick the method which is fastest. If the finished appearance is the most important, you’ll pick another way of doing things. I am not a fast knitter, for example, but I appreciate details and ease of execution, so the techniques I use for working decreases will not be the ones that allow me to work fastest; they are the ones that give me the tidiest / neatest results (the difference is often in the details); those which reduce the opportunities for errors (such as dropped stitches), and; those which are most efficiently performed, given my clumsy, self-taught, knitting method. (Yes, I have thought about relearning to knit more efficiently.) And it will vary within a project, depending on the stitches being used, what’s on either side of them, and so on. For example, in one place I may work a left-leaning decrease as ssk, in another it may be slip, knit, pass.

And speaking of the evolution of the craft, had anyone even heard of ssk 50 years ago?

Back to working the edging the edging. Just think, 29 repeats and 4 rows to go.

Comments

[k]

I was fine until I hit 70 repeats -- I think I wrote that to you, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

But the last five repeats have been Like. Pulling. Teeth. Slowly. Very. Slowly.

I am So Very Bored with the edging.

I've gone back to working on socks and a sweater, so I just work a couple of rows of the edging, and as soon as I'm bored, I switch projects. I figure if I try to push myself, I'll be more likely to make mistakes, and I'd rather take more time to get it done than have to rip out and fudge and fix.

PS -- I'm *so* glad you're back!

[Jean K.]

I think I got stuck in the mid 50s, same as you. The Princess got shoved in a closet for months. I wouldn't really recommend my solution: major abdominal surgery and 6 weeks of forced inactivity. I was only on conciousness-altering painkillers for the first week or so. After that, I had a lot of time on my hands and nothing much to do, so I picked up the Princess again. Most significantly, about that time I discovered Jean Miles' most excellent blog, which has provided unending inspiration.

Finally, if it is any help, everything Jean M. has said about the edging vs. the border is true. Border is a piece of cake. A huge piece of cake, but cake nonetheless. Look forward to it.

[Kat with a K]

Glad you're back! As far as the decrease issue, I think the most important thing is that we all realize that each knitter needs to make these decisions for him/herself, and there's no need to denigrate other knitters for making different decisions. (Not that you were, but I've seen that elsewhere.)

[Duffy]

If I remember right, it was Barbara Walker who invented the ssk. At least that's what I remember Elizabeth Zimmermann saying in one of her books.

Go Princessers Go! You can get through the edging!!!!

[Jean]

Have I got news for you: when the work's all done this fall -- maybe next fall, in my case -- you're going to get your druthers: that edging will be attached all along the upper edge of the Princess, just the way you like to work!

I wonder how long it will take me to learn it again. When I had cataract surgery early last September, I amused myself under the knife by reciting the edging pattern in my head, stitch by stitch. I can't remember a word of it now.

Jean