When you are older, you need a lot of crutch's (Dodges to keep from messing up!)

Although Jason was nice enough to say that I appear to be knitting fast, in reality I'm not fast, just sedentary. I like to sit and knit. I'm also menopausal so when hot flash wakes me up in the middle of the night, I will just sit and knit a little until I can go back to sleep. My attention span is not very good, my eyesight sucks so what's a person to do in order to get the job done? We develop "crutches". Ways around some of our limitations. I like to enlarge my charts and put them in plastic sleeves so I can put post-it notes under the line's I'm knitting. I also use smaller post-it's to section off the part of the line I'm working on so I don't get as confused. This slows down the progress of knitting but It helps me not make as many mistakes that I have to correct later because I'm tired or inattentive. Lots of people use magnetic boards instead, but I have way too many projects to do that and the sleeves are light and portable too. You can also use painters tape to make reusable" section" markers instead of the smaller post-it's. They stick better and for longer. (see above example of a chart). It's never been about speed for me. I learned to knit as an adult so I'm just happy to be able to do it at all, much less be fast at it.

I have some pictures of the Peacock Shawl above and I am at row 85 of 223. The "feathers" are beginning to appear and I must say that after knitting on US 0 for the Shetland swatch, knitting on US 1 is much easier now. Also, in the Peacock Shawl, as in the Wedding Ring Shawl, there is a "double yarn-over" stitch that makes what ends up being a "gigantic" hole that I do not like at all. It might be ok in a thicker yarn, but in such delicate yarn, it just looks too big. Sharon Miller gives a great tip that I used on the Peacock shawl. I made a single yarn-over instead of a double, and on the flip side, I knit and purl into that one yarn-over stitch and end up with a much more reasonably sized hole. There you have it, cross pollination at it's best! That's the nice thing about knitting. If you don't like what was done, you can change it on yours!

Now that I've had a break, I will return to working on my Shetland swatch again. Knitting right now is a challenge as it's been hotter than the hinges of Hell out here in Castro Valley CA. Since I went to multiple places seeking out Susan Bates US 0 straight needles in 14" unsuccessfully, I ordered this as well as Inox US 0 in 24" on-line. I have time. I'm still swatching!

Happy knitting to all!