Knitting finshed on REID

I’ve finished knitting REID for my daughter Gwen.  I started a month or so ago.  It wasn’t too challenging, if you’re new to lacy patterns, don’t be afraid.  It’s really not that bad.  The basic patter repeats over 16 rows.  Once you do it a few times, you don’t need the chart at all.  And the same rows repeat exactly the same across all the pieces.  The only difference is the start and end of the rows.  This was a fun project, but I’m glad to be moving on to other things.

 I knit both sleeves at the same time.  I’ve never done that before, and it was a bit challenging at first.  I kept getting the yarn tangled.  Once I got going, it was definitely easier.  Especially since you repeat the same patter row twice.  It made for fast knitting, not to mention I know both are identical.  It did, however, make the end of the sleeves seem to go slowly, since each ended up with 63 stitches, I was knitting 126 stitches on each row.

One word of advice on this one, after every pattern row, count your stitches.  Don’t skip this, as this is a difficult pattern to pull out.  Tinking is about the only options.  I can’t imagine trying to frog several rows when about 40% of the stitches are yarn-overs and 40% are decreases.  If you make a mistake, you really, really want to catch it before you move on to the next row.  The majority of mistakes I made were skipping a yarn-over, or forgetting to pass a slipped stitch over.  Luckily, these can be remedied on the next row very easily, without going back.

Unlike my usual self, I followed the patter exactly.  I didn’t make any modifications.  If I were to knit this again I would try one alteration.  The center of each diamond is: YO, Pass one knit-wise, K2tog, PSSO, YO.  This center reduction is not really centered well.  It tends toward a “left slant” as the right stitch (which is passed over) is on top, so it looks kind of like a big chunky SSK.  I think I would try substituting a double reduction that looks more centered: YO; insert needle as if to K2tog, but slip the stitches instead of knitting, K1, Pass both slipped stitches over the K1; YO.  I didn’t try it, so I don’t know if it will work right, but I’ve seen that reduction on other pieces, and I really like the way it looks.  The original center stitch ends up on top, in the center, so the whole thing has a nice symmetrical look that the original doesn’t have.  Also, it makes a raised “rib”, which seems to fit well in the lacy patter of this sweater.

 I’ll be blocking this weekend, and I should be assembling soon.  Keep a lookout for updates.