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Sunday June 24, 2007

Alison: Houston we have patterning

I've been making good progress on the gurnsey and reached the chest patterns.

Caister_pattern2.jpg

I've made a few mistakes so far, I hope not too noticable as I made the same mistake on both the front and the back. In fact, I think this photo is of the error section.

I think the reason that Ive made mistakes, and these are really stupid errors of counting, is that the pattern is terribly confusing. It's really quite unnecessarily confusing as its a pretty basic 16 row repeat, with only 4 actual pattern rows. It would be an ideal pattern for a chart, however the way the pattern is written does not point out the repeat, and each row is written out, with comments like Rows 16-24 repeat rows 12-16, but the instructions for row 15 say repeat row 13...you get the idea.

Caister_pattern1.jpg

Finally, I got out my notebook and calculator, worked out where I had made the mistakes, and re-wrote the pattern in a row repeat format. I would have charted it but my squared paper was too small for the 175 stitch pattern (!) I know I could have charted the repeats, but the exercise of rewriting the pattern has reinforced the pattern in my mind and it's really much easier now. I also added the markers to aid knitting without counting (essential for knitting while watching television).

Ive got a while before the arm split, but I'm waiting for measurement details from my mother before committing to the length!

Posted by Alison at 7:12 PM. Category: Ganseys