Mystery Stole Progression

Friday

8:01 PM Hey, this chart thing isn’t THAT bad. Now that I’ve just about got the symbols memorized (even though it’s taken me a retardedly long time) I can pretty much follow it.

10:30 PM Gah! Gah! I’m knitting the wrong goddamn row again! How does one keep track of this shit? I’ve knit for TWO AND A HALF HOURS and I’ve made no progress whatsoever and have had to rip back twice! Make that three times! The hell with this, I’m going to bed.

Saturday

8:30 AM New plan. Crayon. I’m going to crayon the rows I’ve knit.

8:35 AM Stop knitting the rows that you’ve crayoned, dumbass. Those are the ones that you’re NOT supposed to knit.

11:30 AM Okay, now remember to crayon after you’ve knit them.

7:30 PM Whew. Seems like I’ve got it now. Not sure why they call this thing a stole though. Stoles are rectangular, and this is triangular. Well, that’s nice, I prefer shawls anyway. Sweet. Maybe Melanie’s British or something and they call shawls stoles when really they’re shawls.

8:45 PM Sure is pretty.

Sunday

9:50 AM Tra la la. I can even knit this while I read the newspaper over Guy’s shoulder. Am chartastic.

10:30 AM That can’t be right. If I decrease right before that yarnover, that means there won’t be any more increases, which means this shawl will be bizarre (elongated triangle? Huh?) Have I made a mistake somewhere?

10:35 AM Doesn’t look like it. But I’m still not increasing stitches as I should. Must rip back. But not now. Can’t face it now.

1:45 PM I’ve reknit and still it’s not increasing like it’s supposed to. God, there must be a problem with the pattern.

2:15 PM The internet doesn’t seem to think so. The charts online look the same. I don’t see any messages posted about an error anywhere. None of the comments (and my GOD there are a billion of them) say anything about an error.

2:20 PM I wonder what her previous shawls looked like.

2:25 PM They looked like stoles. Elongated. Rectangular. Stole-like.

2:27 PM I am an idiot.

2:28 PM In my defense, it did start out like a shawl. So I can be forgiven for thinking it would be a shawl.

2:29 PM Nope. Said it was a stole right there in the name.

2:30 PM Also? It’s a MYSTERY. You’re supposed to just trust the pattern, and not have some preconceived notion of what it looks like. You don’t know what it looks like, because guess why? IT’S A MYSTERY.