Making holes

I picked up Mary Webb's Knitting Stitches , a very nice book, with words and charts for each pattern. The charts are going to mean that I don't have to translate anything, I just have to read the charts to do a stitch.

After working a sample of the lace I intend to work, I have come to the conclusion that I need to sit down and make me a chart. WHY is it that making a hole in a piece of knitwear is so darn hard when you mean to, and yet happens effortlessly when you really don't want any holes?

After reading on the commute to work this morning, I think the problem I have with my missing holes, has to do with yarnovers. The Mary Webb book made one little reference about how important the way a yarn over lay on the needles, AND noted what would happen if you had the lay of the yarn wrong. Stitches will close if the yarn over is laying on the needle wrong. That must be what I am doing, and it stands to reason because my combined knitting stitches do lay differently. They pretty much lay the opposite from the way a continental or english knitter would see their stitches turned on the needles.

As I work on this challenge, I realize that it is all these intricate little challenges from something so simple and basic as a piece of string and a stick, is why this knitting thing, why all needlework stays endlessly fascinating.

This weekend, I am planning on sitting in the sun, and getting a good start on the lacy sock. I am going to my LYS today (no transportation the last few days) to solve the lack of needles issue, and I still do need that second treat yarn I promised myself for a job well done.