I just finished it 5 minutes ago. It is literally the first thing I have knit for myself in a year.
I used the pattern over at knitty Fern Glade and I learned several things while knitting it. Things I should record for my own sake, when I knit in the future.
1) Look, Prag. When you knit lace, I know you feel like a badass. I'm aware that you're convinced you can knit anything. But for the love of all things sacred. USE EFFING STITCH MARKERS.
I literally knit the first four inches of this hat not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR times before I found my brain and used it to think the following thought:
"Gee, this is a really simple 18 stitch repeat. If I mark off each set of 18, I will know when I'm screwing up before it is three inches later, so then I won't have to rip it all out."
Once I used some stitch markers to demarcate the repeats, I knit the hell out of this hat. I feel dumb, because I wasted two snow days knitting a) poorly, and b) stupidly.
2) Stop with the fuzz, Prag.
I don't know why I do this. I don't. I always choose super fuzzy yarn and decide that lace would be a great idea. This is possibly the Dumbest Idea Ever for a novice lace knitter. It makes it hard to see mistakes, it's ridiculous to rip out and frog back, and, as I learned, when you try to K3tog, sometimes you will miss catching all three stitches, and because the yarn is grabby, you won't notice until there's a weird little loop sticking out of the middle of your hat, chilling there asking why it has been left out.
This particular adventure in lace knitting was done in Sublime angora merino (given to me by the Gardener and the Gardeness for Yule). It is amazing. It is lovely, soft, and fuzzy and I want to pet it all the time. It took a ball and a half to knit the hat, and I sacrificed probably a quarter of one ball to failed attempts that was frogged and ripped past its ability to do anything but felt together into a lump that makes me weep.
I haven't figured out what to do about the loose loop from my missed stitch in a K3tog. In fact, I just remembered its existence while writing this just now, and this is after I put that sucker around a dinner plate to block. Hm. Should probably fix that, don't you think?
In any event, it is soft, it is wearable, and it was an excellent learning experience.
This is what it looks like, blocking.
One day, I will learn to take proper photographs of my finished objects and works in progress. I will. Today is not that day.
