A rescue mission!

Sometimes as knitters we make some really silly or downrigh stupid mistakes, which we really should know better. Now, I've had knitters who've just started knitting lace made this same mistake and it's an easy mistake to make, but I should have known better. Why? 1. It's my design. 2. I've knitted tons of this kind of shawl shapes before. So what is this stupid mistake I made?

I'm knitting a new version of my Carmen shawl, which was one of my first triangular shawl designs, it may have been THE first. Can't remember if I did Carmen first or Ocean Waves. I started this version in Silky Camel ages ago and lately I've been on a mission to get it finished. Last night I weighed the yarn and had only 30 gr left. Then I looked at my knitting and saw this;

Can you see it?See how there is a central 'spine' with yarn overs either side? Then suddenly it stops and the section above is knitted in the stitch pattern. I would have drawn a circle to mark it out but I can't work out how to do it on Paintshop Pro. At some point when I was knitting this, probably last weekend when I was knitting on this rather a lot, I forgot to work the yarn overs in the centre and carried on working the stitch pattern all the way across. If I'd carried on like this I would loose the triangular shape and the shawl would obviously look wrong.

I took a deep breat and decided I could unravel the centre section only and knit it up row by row. I've done it before successfully. So  I did this (all these pics were taken in the dark yesterday evening, which is why they're so dark):

Then I thought some more. And realised that I would be increasing 2 stitches on every right side row which means that I would use more and more yarn per row and as I'd noly unravelled the centre section I only had a limited amount of yarn at my disposal for each row. I also struggled to work out which pattern row to start on. So i did this:

I pulled the needles out and started unravelling. It now looks like this:

And i'm gutted. I'd really hoped to finish this very soon. I'm about to start on a secret project which will take up most of my time for the next 3 weeks so I won't have time to do much else. I've got  about 3 projects that I'm keen to finish before Christmas and also 2 secret projects to finish. I've not weighed the yarn as I'd rather not know how much I've got left to knit. I'm not sure whether to knit on it this morning or whether I should put it in time out for naughty behaviour, which is a bit unfair as i'm the one who was naughty. Or at least not concentrating like I should have.

On to better news. I've just opened sign ups for the next Easy Lace Club due to start in January.  This club will teach you how to knit lace with  different lace scarf or shawlette each month and a skein of luxury sock yarn. Sign ups will remain open until 2nd January or until it's full which may happen before. If you'd like to buy it as a present for someone let me know and i'll send them a card to inform them that they have been given a gift subscription to the club and when their membership will start. This applies to all clubs by the way. The November installment of the Easy Lace club will be posted today.

I was dyeing the Lace Variety Club yarn yesterday and then got  phone call saying Emily was ill. I never managed to get back to dyeing so got to finish it this morning. I'm desperately hoping to be posting the Lace Variety Club tomorrow, if the yarn is dry. I did dry nearly half yesterday and that's nearly dry. I'm drying it in front of the radiators which have been on a lot as it's cold here. in fact about 10 mins ago we had some snow flurries.

I finally finished a machine knit cardigan I've been working on for the past few weeks. The yarn is my Bambino Sock which is so soft and gorgeous and lovely to knit with on the machine. I'm not 100% happy with the finished result as i'm still very much a novice at machine knitting. The rib front bands and collar was knitted separately and sew on and one of my needles didn't work very well and I did the rib several times and in the end gave up so it's not perfect. I'm also not very happy with my sleeves.  I wanted wider sleeves and had planned to do elbow length sleeves with no shaping, so that it would have been the same width at the top and bottom, then at the last minute I changed my mind. I wish I hadn't. I may re-knit the sleeves. I'ven ot managed to get anyone to take a photo of me wearing the cardigan so I used my size 8/10 dress form. I'm twice the size, at least, of my dress form which is why it looks rather huge.

I'll be doing a shop update tomorrow with the brand new Bamboozle Sock which is a blend of BFL/bamboo. It's gorgeous. I'll also have some Bambino Lace. If you're a newsletter subscriper, look out for your newsletter tomorrow for a special offer. If you've not signed up, sign up in the side bar of the blog now.

A few things have not gone to plan here lately. Our boiler is not working properly and we desperately need a new one. We've had a quote and it's rather a lot more than we thought. it is working at the moment and we've decided to try to nurse it along until the summer if we can as we may get a better deal on a new boiler in the summer. Last week my washing machine died. it's only 5 years old and has been working perfectly. No problems at all and last Wednesday when I went to put a load on it clicked 3 times and started beeping at me. It doens't normally do that. I called out a local engineer and he said it was probably the printed circuit board which will cost around £200 to fix. As the machine was only about £300 it's not worth it and we've ordered a new machine which will be here tomorrow. A big unexpected expense like that a month before Christmas was not good.

We've all got colds here. Emily was sent home yesterday and is still home today. Vanessa was sent home on Monday but went back on Tuesday. I'm coming down with it as well and I'm not feeling good.