TL;DR loved this project, gauge was spot on for purple, off for lace, resulting in needing more yarn for lace portion. Check your gauge carefully or buy more yarn. Life lines are your friend. You need them. The edges are little/big nub/slipped stitch height. It’s a little wonky.

1/22/2014
Knit swatch on size 8 Chiagoo Red Lace. Hoping to reuse the yarn so did not bind off, placed on crochet thread. Will lightly steam it once ripped out, assuming all is well once it dries from initial blocking.

1/27/2014
On tail end of skein two of five. So far no major mistakes. Yarn is a bit more prone to separating than expected. Might be the lace point tips? Thinking I need to block prior to attaching lace line by line…this thing is a curling beast!

1/29/2014
Spit knot in the third ball of yarn, grr. Extra two ends to weave in. Having a hard time deciding where to join the yarn in this project. So far trying to join near selvage edge as I figure it shouldn’t be too visible. But since the lace goes on top of purls you want both sides of the flat SS panel to look good. Tricky. The beast continues to curl. About 1/2 done on the panels. Attached locking rings every 25 stitches in the slipped selvage. Easier to count from an existing ring. You want 404 to line up with the lace pattern + 2 rows SS at each end.

1/30/2014
About to start skein four, on row 264ish. Approx 88 rows per skein of yarn. May not need the gauge swatch yarn.

So, I counted my stitches and have fifty as expected. When I count my provisional cast on I come up with 49. However THAT happens, I don’t know. First time doing provisional cast on. I didn’t lose a stitch, I’ve got fifty the whole way up, knitted fifty my first row of purple. So, er. Um. Let’s take the tail and wrap it around the orange and call that a stitch, shall we, and weave it in and hey, look, fifty stitches to graft to later. Something to do with slipping the first stitch of the row? That doesn’t make sense either, I didn’t slip the first row, as it didn’t exist yet, I just knit fifty, then slipped starting on row two.

2/5/2014
Started the lace panel a day or two ago. So…I need a chart keeper!!! Post it notes are not hacking it. Sadly I spent my hobby allocation on blocking boards and T-Pins, so I have to wait a few days to order one. I also learned that life lines are good every other line until I get the hang of this. And you really need to be super tight on the stitches that knit the panel to the purple back, or the next row up you end up with gaping stitches you can’t easily fix.

Did not have to reuse the gauge swatch yarn. Your mileage may vary.

2/7/2014
No good on the lace panel, had to rip out and restart. Turns out you can yarn over the wrong direction, because I’m that brilliant. Up to row 23 or so, so far looks much better but not loving the edge connection. It seems messy and I’m not sure blocking will fix the edging. I’ve tried it redone a few times.

2/12/2014
On hold two days. Waiting for Knitpicks to write me back about the edge stitching. Should it be normal height stitches the whole way up, or alternate nubby previously purled stitch with slipped height k2tg and ssk at the ends of the lace knit rows? I must know before continuing! If normal height, why is my gauge so vexxing in just the one spot and spot on everywhere else. Posted in forums for advice.

Edit: !?%* it! I ripped out to row 3 lace after tying to relatch the sides and failing miserably on the k2tg side. I steamed the pulled out section to release the crinkles. Hopefully the gauge won’t be horrifically different for this section of yarn.

2/13/2014
Knitpicks says tiny/big on the side stitches to connect is probably just fine as far as they can tell. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of certainty but we’re gong with it. Will start over lace from line 3 and endeavor to have tiny big on the ssk and k2tg!

2/16/2014
Almost done with a pattern complete of the lace. So far so good. Distracted by spinning briefly this week.

2/18/2014
Made it to line 3 of the second pattern repeat. Yay! Boo, losing a stitch twice on the same row (40) and having to go back to a lifeline, twice. Grr.

2/21/2014
Almost done 2 pattern repeats. Learned how to create a yarn over missed one row down (assuming you already purled back). Handy!

2/26/2014
Slow going. End of pattern repeat 3 reached.

3/3/2014
Ran out of first ball of yarn. Not quite at halfway point of scarf so that is worriesome. I have a third ball for the hat, so I can always use that, but weird none the less. I don’t think the lace looks too big, and seems like it will block out nicely, so why am I 11 rows short of half way point?

3/9/2014 halfway point. I didn’t start a pair of mittens…no…not at all…

3/16/2014
About two lace repeats left. Sometimes I feel like this is a very easy project, and then I drop a stitch, spend five minutes trying to figure out how to re knit the dropped section using a spare needle, and give up and go to a life line.

3/18/2014
The end is in sight. Lost 30 min because my center pull skein snarled horribly and had to carefully wind a ball from the outside yarn.

3/21/2014
I have the tiniest ball of yarn left and still a full lace pattern repeat to do. I ordered another ball of dove Heather for the hat for I surely will need to steal the spare ball I ordered in this dye lot for the scarf. :/

3/22/2014
$&@! Grafting. It keeps looking like purls. I’ve used three tutorials and they all say the same thing. Front, knit, stitch off, purl, back, purl, stitch off, knit. So. What. The. Hell.

3/23/2014
Okay. No grafting after 9 PM. I know how to knit, but somehow holding a sewing needle I was reversing everything. Blocked 2/3 of scarf due to not enough blocking squares. This scarf is wide! Will block other 1/3 as soon as possible. Must consider another $15 in blocking squares on Amazon.com.

3/24/2014
Blocked the other part. Hoping it will be even enough at the blended point.

3/25/2014
DONE!!!

3/27/2014
Just realized I blocked bigger than listed size of project. It’s possible if I had dropped a size or two on the lace I would have been able to block out at 11’’ and not 13’’, the scarf shrank back immediately a little after coming off the tension, but the lace still looks good. I’m guessing the needle size is why I ran out of yarn and needed a third ball.