Watership Down II - First Border Done - Chart 7

I finished up the first border last night and have almost completed the pick up of stitches for the second border.  I stopped where I did because I want to join the fourth skein at this point.  But before I can do that I need to thread 90 more leaf beads onto it.

I decided last weekend to string the leaf beads so that they will dangle from the points of the second border.  My knitting mojo has been lacking a little bit lately, but I think it is coming back.  Part of the reason is that I have been exercising regularly again.  I started exercising regularly when I was 18 and took a weight lifting class in college, but I got out of the habit when the building that I was sitting in at work made me sick (mold) and then I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and even though it has been eight years since the diagnosis and treatment, I still have not succeeded in re-establishing my exercise routine.  I keep trying and things keep getting in the way, especially wacky hormones.  The chemo didn't kill my ovaries, just seriously confused them, and that confusion has been going on ever since.  I keep hoping it will end soon because I am getting tired of mood swings, depression, migraines and nausea, plus the random allergy attack for no good reason.

The depression was worse the first summer after the treatment, and that was the summer that I spent weaving on my floor loom - I purchased the loom as my reward for getting through the chemo (chemo sucks, but I can do bald).  The meditative movements of weaving were very soothing to my psyche.  That is another thing I need to get back into - weaving.  I have been working in my studio, getting it neatened up and organized so I can start working in it again.  I want to get back into sewing as well as weaving, and potentially sewing clothes out of cloth that I have woven.  I have a couple of pieces of yardage that I wove during that first summer that have been waiting for me to get up the nerve to cut into them.

While I was in my studio this morning getting the rest of the leaf beads that I need I noticed a package of beads in a pile of beads that need putting away and realized that they were the leftovers from my first Watership Down.  That was when I realized that the purple beads that I used down the central panel of this Watership Down were actually from my Robin Hood stole (mine is called Maid Marian because it was done in purple) so they are size 6 beads, rather then the size 3 beads that the pattern called for.  I have enough of the size 6 purple to use them in the second border.

After finishing up the first border I checked my yarn usage and redid my estimate for the second border.  The first border used up 22 grams of yarn, only 2 grams over my initial estimate based upon yardage.  I calculated the number of stitches (13904) and determined the number of stitches per gram of yarn (632).  I then calculated the number of stitches in the second border and figured out that I'll need about 27 grams of yarn.  My fourth skein has 30 grams.  When I was working the first border (Chart 7) I left off the last row and instead bound off.  That left my working yarn positioned to perform the pick up of stitches for the second border (Chart 8).  I am trying to avoid having any ends to weave in, joining the skeins when I switch.  When I am done I should have only two ends to weave in, the beginning and the end.

Pattern:  Watership Down by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Moulin Huet
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)