Rip and repeat

As promised, I worked on my shawl last night.  I start knitting row 3 of chart C and suddenly things aren't working on correctly.  So, I un-knit what I just knit and try again.  Still not working out.  Now I start counting stitches.  I come up with 156 per side.  I should only have 153.  Ugh!!!  I must have added in some extra yarn overs while knitting when I was on the phone.  The silver lining is that I did put in a lifeline at the beginning of this chart repeat and I was only starting row 3 of 8, so I was only ripping out two rows - but boy did it stink.  Then I had the fun (daunting) task of picking up 309 stitches (151 per triangle, plus 3 at each end for the garter stitch border, plus 1 for the "spine" of the shawl).  Well, I got those picked up and was back on track.  I ended up knitting rows 1-6 last night.  I timed the last purl row and found it took me roughly 8 mins per side of the shawl, so 16 minutes to purl the whole row.  I think this is going to be the last repeat of this chart, so at row 8 I will be binding off.  I might even have it done tonight!

Ah, what is that you ask?  That is my Fair Isle coaster project!  I went to the knitting guild today for the first time and this is what I came away being able to do.  Surprisingly, I am really liking working on it.  It is taking some getting use to, but I am slowly getting the hang of it.  The woman teaching the class did a phenomenal job explaining everything.  I can really see how it is useful to be able to knit both Continental and English in order to knit Fair Isle and she picked a great first time project.  I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but it is hard since I'm only on the fourth row.  I think that the biggest tips she gave us were about making use to stretch out your stitches (on the right hand needle) to make sure that your floats are long enough and which hand holds which color yarn.  For example, the color that you want to "pop" is held in the left hand (always).  I'm looking forward to how this turns out and to being a part of the knitting guild.  Oh, did I mention that I joined the knitting guild?  I did and I might even help out by becoming the treasurer.  Stay tuned for more info on that!