Swallowtail Shawl progress

Clearly, the trick is to concentrate. It's always good to reinvent the wheel, I say.

Yesterday, I had some time in between arriving at work and going into the store in the morning. I sat in my car and just studied the last row in the Swallowtail shawl. I noticed that as you start each repeat of the pattern, everything shifts to the left. Now the center stitch of the pattern falls in the middle of what was not pattern in the last repeat.

And there's a logic to the pattern. Each repeat of the pattern across the row has four stitches that do things: the first two stitches are knit together, the center stitch of the five-stitch portion is a plain knit stitch, then there's a slipknittwotogetherpassthe slipped stitchover (abbreviated as ssk for obvious reasons), and a plain knit stitch that ends the repeat. It also has two stitches that go along for the ride, stitches that create the openings that turn the knitted fabric into lace. These yarnovers (made by wrapping the yarn over the needle . . .) bracket the center stitch and are like placemarkers that remind me that I'm halfway through the repeat.

I didn't try to knit yet. I just sat and looked at the row. Then I made my way from right to left, checking that I'd gotten all six stitches into each repeat and that stitches were where they were supposed to be.

And I discovered I'd skipped a stitch. As reward, I let myself do the next row, which is the relax-and-look-up-occasionally-at-the-world row of purling back to the beginning.

Then, very proud, I concentrated. I made it across the row without incident. I even caught the mistake and corrected it. It's just a little thing. But can I say that I'm proud?

Honestly, I just noticed that I'd already said it.