Picot Bind-off =

...this is fucking BULLSHIT.

(You should know that this is pretty much a big rant, and if you're not interested in fiddly knitting BS, you probably will find nothing of interest here. Be forewarned.)

Okay...here we go!

One should not attempt to knit Ice Queen with Denise Interchangeables with Louet KidLin Laceweight. Don't get me wrong - I love the cowl, the needles, and the yarn very much; they just do not belong together.

This is the first time I've knit with lace weight yarn in a lace pattern. You can do this using the Denise set, but I've found considerable frustration due to the bluntness and material of the needle. Too blunt = no good for lace, not when your yarn is laceweight. Too plastic = too slippery...especially for this yarn. The yarn is beautiful, but the aspect of it being a two-ply yarn, each ply being of different fibers and gauge, added to to the difficulty of working with it.

And the pattern itself...well...
I'd love to rant & bitch about how hard it is, but that's not really fair. It's not hard, necessarily, it's that it introduced lots of new techniques to me, and that's what they call challenging. Or so I'm told.

So, enough of my bitching, let's move on to what fucked me up! Wheee!

First: the Provisional Cast On, which I discussed in my previous post. We'll get back to this later.

Second: Beading. It sounded so sweet and provincial to begin with, and really wasn't all that bad. Until I tried to shove a too-small bead over a too-thick portion of yarn, and then the bead broke and cut the yarn along with it. It's a bitch to splice together yarn when you have 1/4" of each side to work with. Trust me.

Third: The Dreaded Picot Bind Off.

Which, all told, really wasn't that bad once I figured out how to do a knitted cast on mid row. If you're unsure how to do this, don't bother looking online. I spent 12 hours, searched 50something related Ravelry posts, and the first page of Google hits. I also researched all my other fave knitting sites regarding the topic, like Knitty.com & KnittingHelp.com. No luck. Finally I picked up some books off my shelf...and whaddya know? I find my answer/figure it out therein. Dag.

Details about The Dreaded Picot Bind Off problem here:
The picot bind off called for in the pattern asks you to begin by "CO 2 sts using Knitted Cast On..." My problem was that every description I found about this cast on told me to begin with a slip knot, then... But, I'm not casting on traditionally; I'm mid row - so why should I make a slip knot? Can't I just use the stitch on the left needle?

I had options. I could have finally attended my local Stitch n' Bitch and pleaded for help. From what I gather, these ladies would have been happy to comply. I could have wandered up to my LYS, or the new LYS, and asked for help, I'm sure I would have received some guidance. But no, I'm stubborn, so I made it up on my own.

Here's what I did, according to "The Knitting Answer Book,"
I treated the first stitch on the left needle like a slipknot (as every description tells you start a knitted cast-on with a slipknot), then knitted off that stitch, and continued as described in the book.
No one ever told me I could treat the first stitch like the fucking slipknot stitch! I didn't know! Feck! Don't you tihnk someone would have mentioned that?

Ug, anyways...I bound off the top...and then...

I have to pick up these damn stitches from the bottom, just to do another Picot Bind Off! WTF!!!???

Okay, in all calmness, I assume I'm missing the part where I understand why I can't cast on this way. I mean, I've learned this much this far, I might as well learn how to Picot Cast On. I fucking learned how to crochet for this shit. And it's bullshit. This is why:
The pattern does not tell you how to pick up the stitches.

Perhaps she assumes that you've done this before. After all, it's a "tangy" on Knitty's scale. Described roughly on their site as a "level 2" of four. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Knitty. But tangy this is not.

So, I make it up (how I'm supposed to pick up the stitches, that is), and I pick them up all backwards.

Of course, I don't notice until I'm far enough along not to go back.
So.
Feck.

That's where I'm at. And I'm moving on.