The pattern calls for two 40” 3mm needles and one 60” 3mm needle. The two 40” needles are used until the piece is large enough to work it on the single 60” needle. If you don’t have the needles called for: You will need 2 needles to start, each of which should be at least 32”. If you don’t have a 60” needle, you can probably work the entire piece with 2 needles (if one is longer than the other, use the long one for needle 2). If you have a 60” needle, you can use it as of one of the 40” needles - then you just need one more needle that is at least 32”. (So you need a minimum of 2 needles that are 32” or longer, and optionally a 60” needle.)

But I would highly recommend the 60” needle, because it makes the knitting much easier, especially when you get to the edging. I bought a ChiaGoo 60” needle for the project, and it was well worth the price for how much easier it was than fiddling with two needles for such a large project.

Used Asa Tricosa’s winding provisional cast-on, using two smaller needles (2.5mm and a 2mm). MUCH easier than trying to do Judy’s Magic Cast-On for that many stitches on such small needles. The cast-on row is a little more noticeable than I’d like, but I think it’s because of having used the 2mm needle as one of the needles, since that row is pretty tight compared to the others. Or maybe I accidentally used the smaller needle as needle 1 instead of needle 2. Hopefully it will be less noticeable after blocking, but even if it doesn’t it was still worth it. Update: after blocking, the cast on row is less noticeable, but still slightly visible. I should have just used the 3mm needles for the cast on, or should have used a 3mm and 2.5mm, instead of 2.5mm and 2mm.

Took all night to do the cast-on (184x2=368 sts) and first couple of rounds on those tiny needles. Whew!

I had a little trouble getting my mind in gear for the first few rounds, especially when trying to go through the optional increase information. But after getting through round 5, everything made sense. I wrote up a list of the 16 round repeat, and just checked the numbers off as I went:

Increase on each end of needle 1 every round
Increase on each end of needle 2 every 4th round
Decrease in the middle of needle 1 and inc in the middle of needle 2 every 16th round (in addition to the increases on the end of each needle)

I started off doing the optional YOs at the A and B points, but found it easier to do Elizabeth Zimmermann’s backward loop increase (BLI) instead, which is basically just a twisted YO. The difference is that on the next round, instead of knitting into the back loop of the YO to create the M1L, you just knit normally into the BLI, which creates the M1L automatically.

So instead of: yo, m1L out of the yo
I just did: BLI

(On round 3, you’d still need to do the m1Ls, but instead of the YOs, do the BLI.)

One thing to note is that if you use the optional increase method (either the YO in the pattern, or the BLI), you’ll have an extra stitch in the sections that have the M1L - so the number of stitches between markers at the “A” point won’t match the number of stitches between markers at the “B” point.

Reading from left to right, at the end of the first Round 9, the number of stitches I had between markers on the left side of Needle 1 were: 10, 1, and 8. On the right side of Needle 1, they were 9, 1, and 9. Without the optional method, I believe they would be 9, 1, 8 and 8, 1, 9.

Worked the same number of pattern repeats as in the pattern, and 22 rounds of edging.

Bound off in pattern with Estonian lace bind-off. Before blocking, measured approximately 23” x 60”. I soaked it and then laid it out on the blocking board, just sort of pulling and patting it into shape. I didn’t pull it hard or pin it. After drying, it measures about 24” x 80”.

Next time I would do the BLI instead of the M1L without doing both on Round 3, so that the stitch counts stay the same as they would be without the optional increases. Might also do the right-leaning BLI in place of the M1R.

I would also just do the increases for the border as (k1, k1fb) and then divide up the stitches into sections, as many other people did.