Knitting in Fairyland

Mostly bookmarks. After the unfortunate scorching of the "White Diamonds" bookmark, which I think looks pretty white in this photo, I went on to the "Drooping Elm Leaf" pattern from Mary Thomas's Knitting Patterns. (Page 185.) And I found a mistake in the pattern! It is wrong both on the chart (Fig. 192A), and on the written-out version. Or at least, it doesn't match the drawing shown in Fig. 192B.

The mistake is in line 5. As written, it says " * K1, O, K1, O, sl 1 K1 psso, P1, K2tog, K2tog, K5, O *. Repeat, ending K1." It seems to be missing one of the "O"s on the lower edge of the left-hand leaf. So I've been adding an "O" after the two K2tog's and before the K5. This adds back the one stitch which was decreased-out in line 3. Otherwise, line 7 doesn't work, because I am one stitch short.

Mary Thomas has a stitch or two in each line purled. I haven't been purling them. I tried doing this in the white swatch next to "White Diamonds", and wasn't impressed with how it looked. She apparently designed it with the purl stitches in the "Beech Leaf Lace" to look like the central vein of the leaf, and the center stalk. But this is me knitting here, and since I don't like it, away with it!

Such power.

Three years ago I could no more have knit this than walked on my hair. Please don't laugh at knitting frames like the Knifty Knitter: they turned out to be perfect knitting "training wheels" for my brain. After I had used various knitting frames for several months, I picked up the knitting needles which had frustrated me for decades. And here I am, after about two years of knitting with needles, not only knitting lace patterns, but figuring out where there are mistakes in them!

It feels amazing. Like growing out an extra mental limb in my brain. Now everything "knitting" interests me. I go to a friend's house, and have to investigate a hat to see if it might be handknitted. I treasure-hunt a Goodwill or Salvation Army store, and check out the hats and mittens to see if there is anything interesting. Usually there isn't, but I am always hopeful. I did once find a whole cone of Shetland wool yarn there for 99 cents, so I keep looking.