I decided to conquer my fear of reading charts. It took several tries, because I couldn’t figure out why I was ending up three stitches short on the first row of the pattern.

I realized that when decreasing a stitch to the right with k2tg (knit two together) the stitch immediately before the symbol is that second stitch that is knitted together. I took my chart and put a / symbol in the square right after the k2tg to remind myself that stitch was part of the k2tg.

The same went for decreasing stitches to the left with ssk. The stitch right before the symbol is knitted up as ssk, not knitted alone. I marked a \ symbol before the printed symbol to remind myself.

After I had the symbols worked out, the pattern started to knit up very quickly.

I’m not sure a multicolored yarn was the best decision to knit this pattern, but it was the only DK yarn I had on hand.

I’m using my 24 inch size U.S. 5 / 3.75 mm Chia Goo circulars I bought at Tuesday Morning for less than $3.

I finished the increase section 12/15/14 and used 63 grams in this section. This means I will knit 37 grams before decreasing on my third skein of yarn.

So, there was a wrinkle in this plan. I weighed my second skein and it was only 81 grams. I’m not sure how much my first skein weighed; I assumed it was 100 grams like the label.

Looking at other project pages, it seems as though the amount of grams for the increase sections varies between 60 and 80 grams.

I’ll assume my first skein was the full 100 grams and make sure to have at least 65 grams (for fudge room and binding off) for my decrease section.

Finished the middle section 12/20/14. Started the decrease section, which is actually going pretty fast. Trying not to injure my wrist in the mad dash to prep for holiday travel and meeting the Jan. 1 deadline.

Washed and blocked and ready to be gifted.

Used a single crochet cast off.

12/26/2014
I bought true blocking wires and pins and it made a world of difference with the final product.

The Arauncania yarn bleeds dye really badly. Make sure to have enough layers to catch all the dye while blocking. Even after soaking it twice with no rinse soap (Euclid), the purple dye pours out.