perseverance

Dear Oogy,
Greetings from lace knitting purgatory.
After reaching row 34 and not having the right number of stitches or a clear enough understanding of the Myrtle Leaf pattern to know what was wrong, it was time to start over.

Lace can be ugly.

The same dilemma occurred a few rows earlier on the second attempt, and I was ready to abandon this project for good.  Back to the melon stitch for scarf #3!  But then I opted to read instead of rip, and a section of Tara Jon Manning's book resonated with me: "Exploring our discomfort, although unpleasant and sometimes scary, is perhaps one of the more compassionate things we can do for ourselves.  Maybe you just hate that pattern or that yarn." (p. 18 in Mindful Knitting).  I knew that I actually liked the pattern and the yarn, so decided to give it another chance.  I picked it up a few hours later and was able to do the 12-row repeat with minimal reference to the pattern, so it might not be such a lost cause.   I thought I might derive further encouragement from pseudo-blocking the 50+ rows I have managed so far on attempt #3.

It looks much better when blocked!

I'll send a progress report soon...
Love,
Neuro