Time to Get Cereal

Dear, dear lace knitters, I need your help.

You may recall that I planned to start the Ogee Lace Skirt while I'm here in Berlin.  I have the Rowan Bamboo Tape, the pattern and the needles.  I should be good to go. 

Yesterday I made multiple attempts to work a swatch.  I failed miserably.  A swatch.  It doesn't look good for me if I can't get past the swatch.  If you have Interweave Knits,  Summer 2007 kindly turn to pay 112 for the gauge notes.  For those who don't have the magazine, it says to work 20 sts and 28 rows of lace repeat.  Now turn the page to 114 for the chart. 

I can't even get started b/c charts mess with me.  I see Egyptian hieroglyphs.  But never mind the symbols, because there's just something off about what I'm think I'm supposed to be doing. 

There's a red box around 20 columns in the chart and the notes say that that's the "pattern repeat." 

First question:  Am I supposed to work the pattern in the red box for my swatch?

However, I don't think this pattern works if I only knit 20 sts per row.  The following "chart" is similar enough to illustrate my question:

_ = k on rs, p on ws
x = p on ws, k on rs

________________________________________
|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|_|4
|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|x|_|_|_|_|3
|_|_|_|_|x|_|x|_|_|_|_|_|x|_|x|_|_|_|_|_|2
|_|_|_|_|x|x|x|_|_|_|_|_|x|x|x|_|_|_|_|_|1

Notice that there are 5 knits before the 3 purls in the first row.  After the last 3 purls there are only 4 knits.  On row 2, I'm supposed to then purl 5 times.  Here's the catch.  If I purl 5 times, I'm not really lined up with the pattern, since I only just knit 4 stitches.  Does that make sense?

To get around this weirdness, I figured I'd knit a 21 stitch swatch and just account for that when I measure it.  But here's the other catch, on the edges of the real pattern repeat are these funny sl1 psso stitches.  So the more I knit of the pattern, the more off my stitch count gets. 

Second Question:  How are you supposed to swatch a lace pattern? I'm not super keen to just knit 20 rows of the full pattern before I figure out my gauge. 

What do you guys think?  Maybe I should see if this Addi "needle" will just knit the whole thing for me.

Comments

[Jen in CT]

I wish I could help, but I know nothing about lace knitting. Let me know how it turns out, I thought about knitting this one, too. :-)

[Jeannie]

Ack, I wish I could help. I must admit that I've never really swatched lace where it matters. I've only made shawls and size doesn't really matter. I think that you can just knit a few repeats of the lace pattern and then measure some part in the center to see if you're getting gauge. It's sort of similar to putting garter stitch (or whatever) around a swatch that is stockinette. Good luck!

[KelInCal]

Hello - I'll try to help since I just finished this pattern, but I didn't knit a swatch and this was my first experience with charts.

I just looked, and I believe you are supposed to knit in the red block area for your swatch, and you only need to cast on 20. You should read the chart from right to left on the RS rows and then left to right on the WS rows. I think that will solve your pattern matching-up problems.

If you count the moves that only require actual stitches (i.e., don't count the YOs), you'll see that each row is still only using 20 stitches.

Gee, I hope this helped, and I hope I'm right!

[Jen]

Thanks for the help you guys!

Jeannie: The pattern repeat is 28 rows, and that's the length of the swatch. But my bigger problem was that the pattern wasn't working right either. heh Problems all around. But...

KelInCal: I just took a look at your daughter's Ogee and it looks great! I'll try to get cracking on it again tonight. :)

[Heather]

Sorry kid, Ich bin eine Lace Idiota!!

[Jennifer]

I totally understand the head explosion. I am pretty visual so if a pattern isn't in graph form, and it written out, I get really dizzy and then pretty tired. I'm going to check the magazine when I get home and see if I can figure it out.

[Jean]

Good for you for swatching. You're more responsible than I because if I were knitting this pattern with the recommended yarn, I wouldn't do a swatch. Yarg! I know that may sound like heresy, but I'm just being honest. Anyway, cast on 20 stitches for your swatch. Work the swatch by following the chart inside the red box. Work Right to Left on right side rows and Left to Right on wrong side rows. I don't think you'll need to knit all 28 rows before you know how your gauge is measuring up. You'll probably have a good sense of gauge sooner than that. I like to use a post it note to keep track of where I am on a chart. The post it covers the rows I have *not yet* worked. The rows below, which I have worked, stay uncovered. Finally, if your gauge seems really close, but not spot on, it probably won't matter that much. This is a wrap around, a little more or less overlap will still be okay. Good luck!

[Twilight]

I'm having trouble with this pattern too. I'm doing a test swatch with scrap yarn to try to work out the pattern.

My difficulty is that on the third row there are four yarn overs but only two stiches that are decreased. And if the first stich is a yarn over then does the knit second stitch apply to the first stitch on the needle or the second stitch.

It's so confusing.