Uh-oh Spaghettios

I think I messed up something. At the end of each increasing round instructions, where it says work 3 rounds even in pattern, does that mean you do the increasing round, finish up the rounds 3 and 4 of the lace pattern and then work the same lace pattern (Rnds 1 to 4) 3 more times...aka 12 more times around with no increases until you get to the next increase rnd?

I just realized I have not been doing that. I'm only on Inc Rnd 5 so hopefully this doesn't matter? I tried on my collar and it looks ok. Will it be messed up if I do it right from now on?

I'm not sure these are helpful. The first shows the position of yarn and needles when you start knitting in the round. The second shows the round in progress. Note that you pull the back (non-working needle) so that the stitches are in the middle of the needle, and the ends just hang down in the back of the work.

Mistakes

I made 2 mistakes so far. One was that I got so excited when I got to the first increase row, that I didn't read the instructions. You're supposed to increase only in every other set of purl stitches, but I increased in every set.

Should I go back and fix it? Nah. I just skipped the next set of increases and continued with the pattern from there. It won't show at that point in the pattern....later on it would.

But then I forgot what row of the pattern I was on and knitted one row twice...I had to take the row out and redo it or it would have looked terrible.

I'm sure you will be more careful than I was. Just be sure to read the pattern!

Here is a picture of the neck in progress. You can't really see, but I have it on 2 circular needles.

Knitting in the round on 2 circular needles

1. Cast stitches onto one of the needles.
2. Slip half of them onto the other needle (there will be 25 on each).
3. Make sure the stitches are not twisted around the needles, but laying flat along them.
4. Bend the 2 needles in a circle, so that the join between them is on your left, and the open end is on the right. The ball end of yarn should be on the back needle. Check again that the stitches are not twisted.
5. You have 2 needles, front and back. You are going to work with the front needle only first. Push all the stitches near to the right end of the needle. Take the other point, bring it around to the last stitch on the right end, and put it in as you would normally do to knit a stitch. Take the yarn that is hanging off the back needle (this is a slightly tricky step) pull it close to the front needle, and wrap it around and knit it off. Then knit the next stitch as you normally would, and keep going. It is just like knitting with straight needles, only they happen to be connected to each other.
The pattern says to knit this row in the lace pattern, but I think it would be easier to knit it plain for one row, or do K4 P1 around to maintain the ribbing.
6. When you get to the end, turn your work around, and repeat step 5 with the other needle. You always knit from one end of the needle onto the other end of the SAME needle. If you start knitting from one needle to the other, you will have problems.

OK, give it a try! I will post photos if you have trouble!

Eureka?

This seems to be 13.5 stitches. Does this look right? I am using 11 size circular needles. Do I still need to get the dpn? They didn't have them at the store I went to in that size. But I can look elsewhere. I also checked and I am definitely not twisting the stitches. I guess that little pattern is just going to be the way this knits up. It's ok. I like it.

Hey!

My yarn came and it's really nice. It's thinner than I expected though. The label gives a gauge of 2-3 stitches per inch with #10 needles, but when I knit with that size I got 4 stitches/inch! (That would be 16 sts/4 in, way too many for our pattern).

The best I could do was 14 sts/4 in with 10 1/2 needles. I will have to go with that and adjust it if necessary.

I used the "long strand across the back" method. I'm not sure I would recommend this for beginners because it's actually not so easy to keep the strand from pulling too tight.

Gauge Take One

How's this look? I think it's too many stitches. Should I cut the strings in the back and lay it flat? More worrisome: why are my stitches coming out like that? It's a neat pattern but it doesn't look my like normal knitting. I checked a book to make sure I wasn't knitting backward. I put the needle through the front loop and looped the yarn around from left to right. That's the way I normally do it, I think but I originally taught myself to do it backward, twisted, so I'm always hesitant whether I'm doing it wrong. Could it be this yarn turns out different than normal? Or is it knitting stockinette without purling that does it? I might try to do this again knitting a bit tighter. I was kind of loose because I got worried about why my stitches were coming out like that.