Sharon herself wrote a tribute to it in the Yahoo group – she suspects it’s better than the prototype, and suggests pistols at dawn. She says, addressing Miriam, “Rest assured, you're at the top of the tree of lace knitters now : and that attention to detail over grafting puts you ahead of me, as I get quite devil-may-care over these, having come from such long exposition to in-your-face baddish joins.”
It rather confirms what I said yesterday. If I finish off with an “in-your-face baddish join”, I’ll at least be in good Shetland company.
Here’s a progress picture of my Princess, to show how far I have advanced across the centre. Not very far, is the answer. I’m past the middle point of repeat no. 21 – a full three, therefore, yesterday. It was in general a bad day, knitting-wise, full of small errors. I even found a pair of detached stitches on the outer edge -- you can see the loose thread I have used to secure them.
No sign of broken yarn. I must have dropped the first stitch of the row, instead of slipping it, and then, when I got back and found myself short, fudged instead of looking around for a dropped stitch.
In one row, I was interrupted twice by the telephone. One was a wrong number. After the second one, there was a major stitch-escape. The repair is distinctly “in-your-face baddish”. I offer the picture partly in illustration of what I said yesterday, that the Princess sweeps forward and can carry mistakes along with her. But looking at Miriam’s work makes me realize how imperfect mine is.
Cynthia told me a while back that the top edging was longer than the initial one. I didn’t see how that could be – the Princess is at least vaguely a triangle, and one edge of a triangle can’t be longer than the other two put together. The original edging is 85 repeats long. In order for my top edging to be less than that, I’d have to get all the way across to the equivalent point on the other side in fewer than 45 repeats. It doesn’t, at the moment, seem likely.
On we go.
For Something Completely Different, here’s Rachel-the-Younger of Beijing singing with her school choir.
She's the one in the centre, looking at the camera. You see what Murial Spark meant, in The P. of Miss Jean B., about the opportunities for self-expression in the angle at which wears one's hat.
Back online after my SECOND computer crash in 3 weeks. I have spent the day downloading support programs, like Adobe Reader. Bah, humbug.
ReplyDeleteI made some changes in my Princess along the way. I only knit 72 points for the beginning. Then I joined 13 sts per point along the top instead of 14. So, I had 50 points at the top, plus 13 and a half on each side, making a grand total of 77 points ( without the short row corner) for the top and sides, and 72 for the bottom. My shawl will block out, intentionally, more of an ellipse than a triangle.
Only 6 more points plus the corner, and I'm done. What worlds to conquer next for the two of us, I wonder?
Cynthia
Looking at the photo from Beijing, I first became envious of the hats, then noticed the girl next to Rachel with the bandage on her knee. That would be so me! My mother always said that there was one thing she could be sure of, no matter how fancy my wedding gown was, she would wager good money that I would have at least one run in my stockings (if I even had stockings) and a bandage on some part of my body. I showed her, never had a wedding. But I did do a very formal voice recital in college, barefoot under my elegant gown and yep, a skinned knee.
ReplyDeleteThe princess is gorgeous. Perfection is highly over-rated.