Part 1: Decoding the pattern for Onerva (READ THIS IF YOU NEED HELP FIGURING IT OUT TOO)

Do you know what is really, really frustrating? Trying to figure out a !@#$%^&* lace pattern when you’ve been awake for 18 hours and you’re only running off of 5 hours of sleep. That is not even close to being enough sleep to function normally, and especially not enough sleep to decode a lace pattern written in Finnish. Well, actually, some other (most likely well rested) patient individuals had already decoded it and made up a chart in English. So technically I’m trying to decode an English chart. And under normal circumstances I can do that. I have Google, I have Ravelry, I can pretty much figure anything out using these 2 tools.

So what happens when Google can’t help me, and not everyone on Ravelry is jumping at the opportunity to decode the pattern for me? Things get frustrating. Insanity levels become moderate. Levels of my patience drop considerably. I become a very hostile knitter.


See, my problem? There’s a preeeeeeeetty triangular shawl. Her name is Onerva. Onerva is Finnish. There’s a language barrier. Then I discovered Onerva 2.0 in English. I just assumed that this Onerva 2.0 would be easy for me considering that any English-speaking idiot would be able to read a chart that’s written in English.. So, so stupid of me. This Onerva has brought me to be my knees, whimpering, crying out in pain, and the worst part? I haven’t even started knitting it yet.

!@#$%^&*. If I am being defeated by a shawl I haven’t even CO for yet, can you only imagine what it will be like once I do CO?! It’ll be a nightmare. A scaaaaaaaaaaaary nightmare in which a life-sized pair of knitted needles stab me in the stomach and a mutant pair of embroidery scissors chop of my head. It’s a gory, terrifying, painful nightmare in which I am the main star.


I figured everything out except for the abbreviation “m”. Nobody knew what “m” meant. Then someone figured it out. “m” means s1k2togpsso. Now if I can just Google what that last part means I’ll be ready to go and WAIT, WHAT?! My Internet got slower, and slooooower, and then it came to a halt. Awesome, just what I need.

So.. No more Internet, no more pattern help, just me. By myself. Confused out of my mind. Getting way more frustrated by the passing seconds. And what do I do? Pull up WordPerfect and type out a makeshift blog that will be posted later when the Internet comes back.

Hey, so uhh, funny thing, I have a blackberry. A black berry with Internet. And while I am not going to blog on my blackberry, I can surely look up what psso means on my blackberry, my blackberry’s Internet still is working. When do I figure this out? Half an hour after I could've originally figured this out.

...


Excuse me while I go bang my head against a slab of concrete and cry quietly for a little while.

Psso means pass slipped stitch over. The entire thing? S1k2togpsso? That’s code for slip 1 stitch to the right needle, knit 2 stitches together, and then pass the slipped stitch over the stitch you just made by knitting two together. It's a double decrease.

That’s simple enough. I know how to do that.

Onerva 2.0 has a lot of abbreviations that took me entirely too long to figure out. And to anyone who can not handle the insanity I went through, I will now post the abbreviations for Onerva.



o (yarn over)

/ (right decrease, or knit 2 stitches together)

\ (left decrease, or slip, slip, knit. I’ve learned this can be more easily accomplished by just knitting 2 stitches through the back loop. It’s exactly the same.)

m (slip 1 stitch, do a right decrease, then move the slipped stitch over the stitch made by the decrease like you’re binding off)


Oh, and for the odd rows? You knit the first 2 stitches, purl to the last 2 stitches, and knit those last 2. The chart doesn’t really show the garter stitch border, but there is one, I promise.