Girasole II Goes to the Bin

Several hundred people on Ravelry said that Girasole by Jared Flood was an easy knit. I would like to add a qualifier to that - most of the Girasole charts, are relatively easy, if you can knit.

As you can see from the bundle above, I had trouble, big trouble, and that's my second attempt. Not the pattern's fault - all those hundreds of knitters can't be wrong. As usual, it is me. I found the lefts and the rights very hard to understand. Can you see the jog in between the leaves where I've gone, right, no left, oh, I was right in the first place? I also went wrong with my yarn overs - they kept disappearing. The answer is to use markers for every pattern repeat and to count the stitches both ways. That way if a yarn over has vanished (and where do they go? Mars? Pluto?) another one can be made and the situation saved.

This was a stash buster, so I used all different grey yarns that happened to be hanging around, and I don't like the effect of the different tensions. The best is the thinner, pale grey, which is a soft fluffy wool and kid. The open drape with a slight halo showed off the lace to perfection. Pity I'd done a few inches of complete rubbish in the middle of it! The darker yarn is a thicker textured British breeds, which is too thick for 4 mm needles, as is the centre panel which is a thin black Shetland mixed with a strand of grey 3-ply.

So, learning points:
Use a single colour. Use a soft yarn on large needles. Use markers after every repeat (that's 48 of the things at the point where I quit!) Count each repeat, and count on the plain knit row as well, and surely, this time, next time, all will be well.

Am I going to try again? You bet! I have some pink yarn drying in the sun right now. It's in a big skein, so if I can untangle it into balls, and if a rough count suggests that I've enough miles, off I'll go! At least I only have to think about accuracy and appearance - we're not too bothered about size at this point, although it would be nice if it was roughly the same size as the tent floor, which is still the only use I can think of for a Girasole. Although I can see that it is considerd eccentric to, as one somewhat baffled visitor put it: 'knit a doily for your tent.'