Exactly halfway done knitting my beaded lace stole.
As of yesterday, I am officially halfway done with my beaded lace stole, which is also my first “true” lace knitting project.
The progress is slow, and was especially so last week, having screwed up twice. Thankfully both times I immediately saw that I had let a stitch slide off my left needle and was able to fix my mistake. It did take time though (the last time I had to start my fix 4 rows down) and it was a little disheartening (I’ve been so careful!), but I persevered and am back on track now.
The beautiful lace pattern is definitely taking form and is easily visible. And that is encouraging, and lovely. As is the fact that I am now halfway through. Just 70 more rows to go! Not that I’m counting or anything.
A close-up of the beautiful pattern. The lace will open up even further after blocking.
While I started out thinking this project would be a good first lace project because it was smaller as far as lace projects go, at times of late it has felt very large. Those 267 stitches per row can take seemingly forever to complete. More than once last week I didn’t really feel like working on the stole, but I did so because I wanted to keep my momentum going. Although I totally grumbled about it and expressed my lack of enthusiasm to my husband. He, ever encouraging and clever, suggested I could make the stole into a scarf by just completing half of the overall pattern.
It was a great suggestion, and I’ve kept it in mind as my “plan B” as I worked on the stole. But now that I’m halfway done–where I could stop and make it into a scarf–and even after the troubles I had last week, I’m not yet ready to give up making the stole. And more importantly, I actually want to continue and finish the entire stole. Although I think I will learn from my errors, and if I don’t feel like working on it one day, I just won’t–while I may not make progress on my stole that day, at least I won’t be cursing myself and fixing a mistake due to inattention or lack of focus.
