I think I've got it

One last post about waving lace joins, and then I'm done. Promise.

Last time, I showed you the new join. It looked pretty good. The extra openwork columns gave the lace a little more room to stretch, so there was less necking.


But the tip wasn't quite right. I'd knit this version by finishing up the last pattern row of the waving lace, purling back (the usual reverse side), and then beginning the openwork. That left two horizontal bars just above the tip (far left image, below). These two bars disrupted the usual pattern of diagonal lines in the openwork, and they were bothering me.

I thought it might be because of the fact that the two openwork columns started on the same row. It seemed like it might be better to offset them, since the openwork itself always offsets the yo's. I tried two versions of introducing yo's staggered by a row (center images), but both ended up looking wobbly, and neither really got rid of the horizontal bars. The dark lines between columns were especially ugly in these versions. Definitely not an improvement.

After sitting and poking at the swatch for a while, I realized that the horizontal bars were from the purl row, where the yarn is carried between the stitches. Once I realized that, I moved both yo's into the "purl back" row, beginning the openwork immediately after the pattern repeat ends. This gave me the same even look for both columns, and started the openwork right away, eliminating the extra bars (far right image). It might be a picky detail, but I like it a lot better. I'm always amazed at how small things can make such a big difference in lace, and how important each stitch is to the overall pattern.

And now, back to charting.