March First Friday project marches on

 In case you missed it, here is the First Friday project from March - a gorgeous v-neck top that's great over a blouse now or by itself in the heat of the summer.  I picked the pink colorway - big surprise.  This was taken the day before our first Friday kick-off.

I've been really good - totally monogamous with this project.  Partly because I want to get it done but partly because the pattern is really engaging.  It's a 10 row lace pattern that's easy and intuitive, so it's simple enough to work without referring to the chart, but still different enough to be interesting.  It goes pretty quickly. Here's the back so far.  I did make it two inches longer before beginning the increases. 

 
Which brings me to the main point of this post:  the increases are those that you work alternate second and fourth rows while keeping in the 10 row lace pattern.  Frankly, it's a headache inducing set of instructions unless you find a way to keep track. Since I'm a so high tech, I used this awesome and advanced method. 

Basically I just wrote down pattern rows 1-10 until I had filled a sheet.  Then I counted where my increases should go (purl, , knit/increase, then purl, knit, purl, knit/increase and so forth) until I had 24 increases.  I just cross 'em off as I go.  Makes life so much easier.  Of course, you'll want to keep your paper in a very safe place until you're done with the increases.  This is a very simple, low-tech method of keeping track of your pattern.  It's especially useful anytime you run across a pattern instruction with the words "and at the same time" in it.  You'll be so glad you did. 

Here are my increases.  I did lifted increases which are pretty much invisible.  I'm happy!