Skirt Weather Will Be Here Soon Enough

Although there is still snow on the ground in Chicago, I know that eventually spring weather will be here. With that in mind, I cast on one of the skirts that I bought yarn for waaaaaaay back in October. The Chelsea by Cecily Glowik MacDonald is a just what I need to start out skirt weather this year. The flirty hand-knit lace at the hemline is a wonderful juxtaposition to the all business herringbone tweed of the skirt itself.

My yarn for the skirt is Wool of the Andes Tweed in Claret. I have already knit through one skein. I have a couple of different choices of lace weight yarns for the trim. A pale pink Silky Alpaca Lace which I was using for a lace project since frogged or a pale lilac Shadow Tonal that I bought on sale from Knit Picks. But I think that I will wait until the last second to decide on the lace. Perhaps I will knit a few inches of both of them and decide which I like best.

The pattern, once I figured out what the author meant by RLI (Right Lifted Increase), was easy to learn. My confusion was easy to understand as there are two ways to describe the RLI: 1) Insert right needle tip from back to front into stitch below the next stitch on left needle; place this st on left needle and knit; and, 2)  Knit into the back of the stitch (in the “purl bump”) in the row directly below the stitch on the needle, then knit the stitch on the needle, and slip the original stitch off the needle. In the 1st instance, the lifted increase ends with one stitch on the right needle, in the 2nd the lifted increase ends with two stitches on the right needle. So for the herringbone pattern directions of:


ROWS 1 and 3: (WS) Purl.
ROW 2: *K2tog, k2, RLI (see Glossary), k2; rep from * to last st, k1.
ROW 4: K1, *k2, RLI, k2, k2tog; rep from * to end.
Rep Rows 1–4 for pattern

If you use the 1st "definition" of RLI on ROW 2 you get

K2tog = 1 stitch on needle
k2 = 2 stitches on needle
RLI = 1 stitch on needle
k2 = 2 stitches on needle

a total of 6 stitches.

But, if you use the 2nd "definition" of RLI on Row 2 you get

K2tog = 1 stitch on needle
k2 = 2 stitches on needle
RLI = 2 stitches on needle
k2 = 2 stitches on needle

a total of 7 stitches. Since the author gave the pattern repeat as 7 stitches and I was using the 1st definition, it took looking at the notes by other knitters in Ravelry and asking questions in Knitting Paradise's forum before I figured it out. Good thing the knitting world is large and gracious in sharing knowledge.

Gotta go, I have a lot of knitting to do! Happy Knitting!