Making Progress

I've made about every boneheaded mistake possible in knitting, but I've finally gotten more than halfway through the Elfin lace pattern.  I've figured out a few things in the process, like it makes more sense to put in markers that you have to move every other row because it does alert you to problems.  Counting stitches at the end of each row is not a waste of my time.It also is very important to put a life line in at least every two repeats, because it's a lot easier to reknit 16 rows than it is to tink 16 rows before reknitting them.  The pattern is now burned into my brain!

I went to the yarn shop today to buy more markers (because safety pins are not a good idea with lace weight yarn!).  I showed the lady in the shop my knitting and she was impressed.  All the shawls they've got up for examples are with heavier weight yarn than what I'm using.  So I guess that perhaps I really was tackling a pretty challenging project.  I'm actually falling in love with shawls these days.  I see examples in the shop of easier shawls and think that perhaps I'll do one of those next.  I don't know that I'll every try another one on small needles with lace weight yarn.  I might use lace weight with larger needles sometime, and I might even (gasp) do this pattern again with heavier yarn and fatter needles. 

I love the looks of the lace shawls in the video, but I'm not sure that I'll ever have the nerve to try to knit anything with that cobweb weight lace.