My notes on this project are extremely long-winded and confusing. They probably make sense to no one but me, and I’m also probably the only one who cares, but I wanted a record for myself of how it all played out and I couldn’t think of how to say it all concisely. I’ve tried to bold the salient points, for those who might be interested in my mods & yarn usage, so that way they don’t have to read all of my ramblings if they don’t want to!

Note that all of this is due only to the fact that I didn’t have as much yarn as required by the pattern, and had nothing to do with the pattern itself, which is extremely well written and enjoyable to knit. If I had enough yarn to make it as written, then my notes would have been quite short and sweet. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and would love to make it again at some point.

Ok, so my skeins are 92 yds ea, as opposed to the 125 yds that the pattern calls for. This is a shortage of 26.4% which, for a 44-row repeat is about 12 rows per repeat. Since the colors are used in equal amounts for the whole (except for cast on, bind off, and final garter ridge), this is what I did for each repeat:

• Go down a needle size.
• Eliminate 2 garter ridges (4 rows).
• Eliminate 1 tier of the lace (4 rows, #39-41 of the chart). Note that I also eliminated the yo’s & dec’s for that tier on the previous rows, so as to eliminate the entire tier and not just lop off the top of it. I wish I could include a picture of my modified chart here, but I don’t think that copyright law would allow me to do that.
• Eliminate 1 repeat of the lace (cast on 122 sts instead of 134, for an approximate equivalent of 4 rows, calculated as follows: 12 sts per row x 44 rows per repeat = 528 sts per repeat, @ 134 sts/row = 4 rows).

So, the total eliminated was approximately 12 rows per repeat. For the first 2 repeats, I actually eliminated an additional 2 rows per repeat, as I was determined not to have to play yarn chicken with any of the 12 colors, and I thought that eliminating 12 rows might be cutting it too close. I wanted to have more of a buffer, so I also eliminated 2 rows of plain stockinette at the beginning of the lace section (chart rows #17 & 18). It became apparent though, that I didn’t need to do this, so I put those 2 rows back after the first two repeats. I also didn’t like how that looked, as it made the lace appear to start immediately with no plain stockinette after the garter (even though there still were 2 plain rows). I decided not to rip back and start over though, because it just didn’t seem worth it for those 2 rows. I also thought that I might need the extra yarn (colors B1 & B2) at the other end for the last garter stripe (B1) and the bind off (I could use the B2 for that if I didn’t have enough B1). I had read that some Ravelers had fallen short at that point.

The only other modification I made was to add an extra garter section at the end in order to counteract the severe curling that happened when I ended as per the pattern. The pattern has you simply do 1 garter ridge after the last lace section, and then bind off, but this wasn’t enough to prevent the curl, so I added another full garter section with the darkest red (A1) for 6 of the 8 rows, and A2 for rows 7 & 8 (because I didn’t have enough of the A1), and then framed it with another garter ridge of the darkest gray (B1) before the bind off (also B1).

In general, this is how much yarn I used:

• Approx. 17-18 grams of most colors, except:
• Approx. 3-4 grams more of A1 & B1 for the cast on, bind off, & extra garter section at the end.
• Approx. 1 gram less of B2, as I had started out eliminating 2 more rows for the first couple of repeats, and didn’t end up using more of this one at the end.

For simplicity’s sake, and because I really only have scraps left, my stash entry says that I used up all the yarn, but more precisely, here’s how my usage broke down by color (based on 4.63 yds/gm of the full-size skeins):
A1 (Darkest Red): 21 Grams/97.23 Yards
A2: 18.5 Grams/85.655 Yards
A3: 17.5 Grams/81.025 Yards
A4: 17 Grams/78.71 Yards
A5: 17 Grams/78.71 Yards
A6: 17 Grams/78.71 Yards
B1 (Darkest Gray): 20 Grams/92.6 Yards
B2: 16 Grams/74.08 Yards
B3: 18 Grams/83.34 Yards
B4: 17.5 Grams/81.025 Yards
B5: 17 Grams/78.71 Yards
B6: 17 Grams/78.71 Yards

Note that I used less of B1 as well, for the first repeat, and had I not done so, I might not have had enough for the extra that I did at the end. The skeins were also all generous by approx. 1 – 1.5 gr each, and had they not been, I probably would not have had enough of A1 to do the extra at the end. I didn’t have enough of that one as it was.

Some other particulars:

• Crochet over the needle cast on, with an E hook.
• “Elastic Bind Off”, per p.170 of Leslie Ann Bestor’s book Cast On, Bind Off.
• 14” Signature straights.

I blocked it rather aggressively, and was able to gain back all the width (and then some) that I had lost from eliminating one of the lace repeats.

And a final plug for Leading Men Fiber Arts: I was really nervous that the red dye would bleed onto the gray when soaked & blocked, but there was not even a tinge of red in the water! I was so very pleased about this, as I’ve had a lot of trouble with red yarn in the past. They’ve got me as a fan for life!