For now

I had a great time at the city centre SnB on Saturday. When I got home, I picked up Print O' the Wave. A few days ago, I'd finished the 34 repeats the pattern called for on the centre panel and still had more than half my yarn left, so I'd gone for for 40 repeats. On Saturday I sat down to the task of picking up the stitches along the edge...ugh. But, actually, it went pretty well.

First, I had to figure out how many extra stitches to pick up for those 6 extra repeats. Here's the math:
240 stitches for 34 pattern repeats means 7.06 stitches per repeat (240/34 = 7.06). An extra 6 repeats therefore means 42.35 extra stitches (6 x 7.06 = 42.35). 240 + 42 = 282 stitches. However, the edging pattern requires 8 stitches per edging repeat, so I rounded up to a multiple of 8, which is 288. Actually, I should probably just have rounded down to 280, and saved myself those extra 16 stitches (for both long sides of the stole).

Aaaanyway, forging ahead. I'd put in the vertical lifeline, so I used my 100 cm - 2 mm Addis to pick up all around the edge: I started with a long edge (I didn't break my yarn) and just slid the needle through the loops around the lifeline, then the provisionally cast-on edge, then the other long side through the lifeline loops, then finally the live stitches from the last row of my centre panel. The lifeline only went through every other row, so I needed to pick up some extra stitches. Easy enough- I marked off sections of five repeats each. Therefore, in each section, I needed 36 stitches. I counted how many stitches I had in each section before starting it and, evenly, added in the extra stitches needed to make 36. So, if a section had 30 stitches, I needed an extra 6, so I added one stitch after every fifth stitch. I did this as I knitted off the picked up stitches.

So here it is, all 712 stitches picked up and knitted. Yes, seven fecking hundred and twelve stitches.


It took maybe a couple hours and lots and lots of counting. And it looks like crap, but I believe in the magic of blocking.

After this was done, and I had convinced myself that I really had all 712 stitches (lots and lots of counting), I took a deep breath, and realized my right wrist and left hand really hurt. I think I've been knitting- gasp!- too much. My last few projects have been with 2 mm needles, and my hands must really feel it. Plus, I've been puttering around in the yard digging up dandelions, and those unfamiliar but repetitive motions have put some strain in them. So I've decided to stop knitting for a few days. I really don't want to stop- I'm dying to get POtW finished and see it in all its blocked glory, but I'd hate to find that I've really messed up my hands.