Lace helpers

I am so very close to finishing my travelling woman, but before I have it all done to show off I thought I might share some of the little lace helpers I learned from Miss Fee at the Suzy Hausfrau lace workshop, which I have been taking full advantage of to keep track of my knitting on this project. 

 

I am super impressed with the pattern - it has every single piece of information you need to make your lace knitting easy, including having the lace presented both in chart form AND written out, and my FAVOURITE of all, which you can see in the pic there, a list of the stitch count after every single row you do! I've been counting my stitches after every single knit (right-side) row, and crossing them out on the list as I go. This has been so helpful since you know immediately if you have made a mistake in the row and it is quick to fix right away instead of only realising a few rows later on and having to try and find where it is and then pull your knitting back. It also helps me keep track of which row I am up to - super handy.

The next really clever trick we learned was those red lengths of yarn there - life-lines! This makes it so much easier if you need to undo some of your knitting for some reason - you just need to move the stitches from the waste yarn onto some needles and you're good to go! I put them in the last row before the lace, just in case I made a mistake on my first go through. The pattern then recommends putting life lines in at row 8 of each repeat of the first chart (did I mention how helpful the pattern is with all the extra info?!) - and since I'm a stickler for rules, that's what I did! I haven't had to use them yet, fingers crossed I won't, but it is such a quick think to do to give you that extra security!

The next tip from Miss Fee was generous use of the highlighter! This is not only very handy for keeping track of where I'm up to, having the row you're working on underlined by your previous highlighting helps keep you on the same row as you read across mid-knit! Another thing that makes it easier to read the chart as you knit across is writing in the number of stitches in a row - like where I have written in the 4 and 5 there - so much easier than counting!

I really think the fact that the pattern includes so much supporting info makes it PERFECT for a beginner!

Fingers crossed for a finished project post next week!

xo