Uncharted Mess

When last we left our intrepid knitter she was contemplating charts and lace edging. Specifically the No. 3 For Grace McGregor lace edging. From what she could make out peering at the little bitty black and white photo, she thought that it might be the edging she was looking for. There were triangles at the edge and squares in the middle and a zigzag line in between that, should everything else fall into place, it would bring the whole baby blanket together.

… Okay, enough of the third person.

I’d gotten a few lace edge patterns under my belt, so I thought I’d try charting out a really old one and maybe make it better.

Knitted Laces by Lillius Hilt (Needlecraft Vol. XI, No. 1) No. 3 for Grace McGregor if you would like to print out one of your own.

You’ll notice that this is a 72 row repeat. I wasn’t really thinking about that when I started charting it. I figured that out when I had to use three sheets of paper to get it charted.

My first attempt. I included all the knit stitches as lines instead of just leaving them blank.

Something is not right. There are extra stitches at the end that don't match up.

I figured it out when I re-charted it without the lines for knits.

You can see the pattern easier once you strip out the extra stuff.

Once I’d done that, I realized that in the pattern they’d missed a bit. They'd forgotten to include a line of yarn-overs, starting at row 65, and that’s why the stitch count was off.

No extra stitches in boxes.

I haven’t actually test knit the edge because I think it’s going to eat a bunch of yarn. I think I want to do it in stockinette rather than the original garter. I’m fairly sure that it’s the pattern I want to use, but I need to get from 406 stitches (I think, I haven’t picked them up yet) to a multiple of 72 (plus a few extra rows so that the corners lay flat). And I need the repeats to be even around the blanket, and for the corners to turn right… And it is at this point my head explodes and I want to run to the nearest knitting design guru and throw myself on their mercy to please come up with a pattern for me.

So instead of joining an ashram in search of said guru, I took my knitting with me to my parents' place for dinner. While telling my Mom about my current project, she suggested that three colors with three different lace patterns might just be a tad busy.
She asked, "How about doing the middle bit plain?"
I said, "Stockinette? That's easy, and I can increase until I get to the correct number of stitches for the lace edging I want to do? Brilliant!"  (Thanks Mom!)

So that's what I'm doing. I still haven't decided if I'm going to be doing the pattern garter or stockinette edging, but for now I'm going to work on the bit in the middle and let my brain rest.