Triumph, or something that tastes like it

I finished the Left Front of Salt Peanuts.

You know what you can do to stave off frustrations while trying to keep track of collar increases, neckline decreases, armhole AND shoulder shaping happening "at the same time"?

NOTHING.

Absolutely nothing. No blissful "floating away" thoughts. No note taking (except check marks next to my longhand notes made Ahead of Time). No "Come here and take a look at how cool this is, babe," pauses. No spacing out about the long list of domestic chores I could be doing if knitting weren't so much more pleasant (note: usually more pleasant).

I really think this pattern could have been better presented diagramatically. I used Jen's idea of two charts: the armhole and shoulder shaping in one column and the lace pattern and neck decreases in the other. Then I lined them up the first time they coincided with each other. I will likely scan the notebook paper as a laugh because it sounds like MUCH tidier of a system than it was.

Additionally, I would like to state For the Record, that this would have been less exhausting of a piece if Ms. Avery had structured the instructions as she made the sweater instead of (and I am agreeing with Jen's hypothesis here) after.

For Example: She attaches the neckline decreases (which are body stitches) to the lace pattern repeats by row—but then has you insert lace-only short rows. How can you decrease the body on row x when you are inserting row x as a lace-only short row? Since it is easier to spot the decreases after the fact where they appear next to the lace, there is good reason to believe she wrote at least some of the pattern after the sweater was done. She could have said something like "decrease every other body row one stitch before the collar x times, then every 4 body rows x times." In retrospect that would have been easier to do and to read. But all things are clearer in the rearview, right?

This blather probably only makes any sense if you have just tried to execute the pattern, for those of you who have been spared the Peanut Torture, I apologize.

But anyway, the point of all this is: the left front is done. I think my ability to read my knitting helped immensely where my experience knitting fell short. As Jen stated during the midst of her first Front piece, this isn't a hard sweater, it is just a hard pattern.

Casting on for the Right first thing tonight to keep the numbing momentum up. Pictures to follow.

On a Related Note: I would love folks' thoughts on end-weaving. In my great finishing techniques book, Nancie Wiseman says that ends should be woven in after seaming. But I have seen several mentions in blogland and elsewhere about weaving as one goes (with 20+ skeins in Salt Peanuts I like this idea, but haven't been doing it).

I guess if you wait to weave you give yourself the option of ripping and reknitting? How do you all deal with ends? What have you found that works well, and what hasn't?