it's a tablecloth!
Earlier in the year, I returned to working regularly on Lyra. I was doing either two or four rounds a day, and enjoying just puttering along at a consistent pace. But then I decided that maybe I should check the boards on Ravelry to see if there were any errata or other bits of advice. Many, many people had stories and pictures about knitting Lyra and having trouble with a certain section not blocking flat.
So . . . I sat down and checked the math. Lyra is knit from the center out. And the math in the first few rows is roughly as expected, about 8 stitches every-other round through about round 42. But then the increases slow down. Part of this may be because hexagonal mesh lace is introduced at that point, and hex-mesh seems to stretch generously. But from round 69-86 the increases just stop. And then round 87 has 16 decreases! Inconceivable! And this is all the more perplexing because Herr Niebling was clearly a master lace knitter. How could his math be so terribly wrong?
I was discussing this problem on Wednesday with Pam. We were sitting at a round table, eating our lunch and sipping our tea. And then Pam had an epiphany. Why would a master lace knitter forget to increase? Because he didn't want to. He wasn't knitting a shawl, he was knitting a tablecloth! The lack of increases was to make the tablecloth hang straight and to prevent it from sliding around on the table.
Now I won't feel like an iconoclast if I make changes to the pattern.
Earlier in the year, I returned to working regularly on Lyra. I was doing either two or four rounds a day, and enjoying just puttering along at a consistent pace. But then I decided that maybe I should check the boards on Ravelry to see if there were any errata or other bits of advice. Many, many people had stories and pictures about knitting Lyra and having trouble with a certain section not blocking flat.
So . . . I sat down and checked the math. Lyra is knit from the center out. And the math in the first few rows is roughly as expected, about 8 stitches every-other round through about round 42. But then the increases slow down. Part of this may be because hexagonal mesh lace is introduced at that point, and hex-mesh seems to stretch generously. But from round 69-86 the increases just stop. And then round 87 has 16 decreases! Inconceivable! And this is all the more perplexing because Herr Niebling was clearly a master lace knitter. How could his math be so terribly wrong?
I was discussing this problem on Wednesday with Pam. We were sitting at a round table, eating our lunch and sipping our tea. And then Pam had an epiphany. Why would a master lace knitter forget to increase? Because he didn't want to. He wasn't knitting a shawl, he was knitting a tablecloth! The lack of increases was to make the tablecloth hang straight and to prevent it from sliding around on the table.
Now I won't feel like an iconoclast if I make changes to the pattern.
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