[Repost of material appearing on 23 August 2006]
Still fiddling with lacy knitting and doilies here. I’m making progress. Although the notation used in the Schnelling pattern is squirrelly, once the unfamiliarity factor is removed, it’s not difficult to follow. I’m now up to round 58 or so. I plan on working this pattern out to round 125 or so, so you can see I’m a little way over a third through with this project. (Remember, as the rounds progress, they get larger, so while I may be almost half-way through the round count, my later rounds will be much larger than the initial ones, so there are lots more stitches to go).
What’s next in terms of lace knitting? I’m not sure. I’ve got the Princess Shawl pattern safely stored away, waiting for the inspiration to work up. I’m sorely tempted to buy the Wedding Ring pattern, too. But those are both very large life-consuming projects. I am sure I’ll enjoy them, but I’m not in the mood to give over to yet another monster project right now. So Princess will sit a while. In the back of my mind lurks the thought that someday my two rugrats will be female adults, and that it would be nice to provide them each with an heirloom. But they’re both still in the anime, Popsicles, and homework phase of life, so I’ve got lots of time.
To answer yet another question – the tiny stitch markers. What are they?
They’re inexpensive silver color 4mm split rings, bought at a crafts store. 4mm is big enough to sit comfortably on needle sizes up to 3.5mm, perfect for lace. I think a little bag of 50 set me back a princely $1.75. They’re thicker than single jump rings, and so stay put instead of wandering off under YOs. I save the wildly fancy dinglebob-graced silver marker for end-of-round use, and flick these little cheapies in to mark each repeat. At that price and quantity, if some end up under the sofa or in the wash, I don’t mind.
Why mark each repeat? Because doing so is way of proofing the lace as I knit. I don’t use a lifeline (lifeline video from KnittingHelp) and rarely have to rip back a full row. I avoid that by using lots of markers and making sure that each repeat is correct before I move on past the upcoming marker to the next section.
String-Or-Nothing 
I also use a lot of stitch markers and no lifeline. If I do make a mistake, I can find it fairly quick and I can drop back a stitch or two if necessary to correct a mistake further back.