IMPORTANT NOTES

• I was running out of the main color so I bound off after the last 26-row, 3-rows-of-bud-stitches repeat plus 4 rows of the main color. There’s no way I could have finished the shawl with the called-for amount of yarn. This turned out to be a good thing because…
• Considering I bound off 26 rows before the pattern called for it AND I got gauge AND my shawl is the size of the expected dimensions, someone’s math is off somewhere. Bottom line: I like the size of it so I’m glad I was on track to run out of yarn.

11/27/16 Finished knitting, ends woven, and tassels made. I made three because I thought there was a tassel at each point. I may use them all because I love tassels. Drying this thing is an exercise in patience. I rolled it in towels, laid it on towels on my 7’ dining table. Now I’m moving it to my dryer on air fluff. My dryer has a removable shelf for drying things flat. This should finish it off.

11/11/16 This is clipping along nicely. Thank goodness for:

• Three World Series games
• One flight to Chicago to soak up the atmosphere of the city for games 4 and 5 of the World Series, and one flight home
• Game 6 of the World Series; game 7 was too intense for knitting!
• Knitting group at work on Mondays

It appears that I’m going to run out of Plomo. I can’t really understand why, but I think I’ll just knit until I run out ‘cause there’s no way I can match the skeins I have. It took me half an hour to find four skeins that looked good together from nine that were the same dye lot! I have no idea how big it is because it’s all shoved onto a 40” needle.

BUD STITCH TUTORIAL
I had some trouble with the bud pattern stitch. I hope these photos and my experience helps someone else. I asked a question on Melanie’s Pattern Support -Look here for help! forum topic. I was pointed to a page of helpful links here. Scroll to the bottom and follow the link to the “shell dip stitch” link. The problem is that this video is similar to, but not identical to the stitch as written in the pattern.

The hardest part for me was figuring out where 5 stitches (or rows) below the third stitch on the left needle was. When I went 5 stitches below, I didn’t get a stitch that looked like the picture in the pattern. See the six close-up images at bottom left. The top one is where I place the needle for the first part of the stitch. This is going to be clumsy to say, but think of it as just below the third purl bump (counting down from the needle) AND right above the top loop of your color B yarn. This is the spot through which you pull all six loops.

Second picture is right after I loop the yarn around the needle as if to knit and pull it through the hole with plenty of slack. Third picture is after knitting the next stitch on the left needle. And the fourth picture is completing the stitch, having pulled the yarn through the hole, then knit 1 six times.

On the next row, you knit each pair of pulled yarn and knit stitch together, returning your stitch count to six for that flower. When you get to the first two stitches to decrease (fifth picture), be mindful of which stitches you knit together. The first few like to twist a bit. You’ll know you’re on the right track if, after you do your six K2togs, your next stitch is coming from the center of the hole (sixth picture).

10/17/16 This is a great TV watching project. I rarely keep track of how long something takes me to knit, but so far, it’s taken me:

• one son in the path of Hurricane Matthew involving many hours watching the Weather Channel
• two presidential debates
• two NLDS games (Go Cubs!)
• two NLCS games (Go Cubs!)
• and a little bit of knitting here and there

10/4/16 Getting gauge with a size 8. The top half of the swatch is size 8, while the bottom half is size 7.

10/2/16 Swatching and getting 17-18 sts/4” on size 7. I may swatch on size 8 or just go with 7. It took me a while to get the hang of the bud stitch. I find I have to pull a very long loop, approx. .75 inch in length to get the bud to look anything like the picture. Also, I was confused by the pattern language. When it says “insert crochet hook into the front of st 5 rows below…” I took it literally and worked from the front side of my work. What it really means is “insert crochet hook from front to back of st 5 rows below….”