Knittng Progress

Just wanted to show everyone my progress on the Cascading Leaves Shawl by Vicki from Simple Knits. I just finished my 6th repeat last night. There are 11 repeats (counting the set-up at the beginning) in all. I've gotten to the point where after doing the first repeat of each row, I have it memorized. I do have to glance back at the chart when I get to the beginning, middle and end sections of each row though. The biggest problem I have been having is that I tend to forget YO's or occasionally add them where they don't belong when I get distracted. But I have gotten really good at recognizing where I made the mistake and fixing it by dropping back a stitch, adding the YO and then re-purling the 2 stitches. Was worried about doing this the first couple times because I was afraid I would royally mess it up. But since I keep forgetting YO's, I have gotten quite good at it. The first time Vicki showed by how to fix an extra YO by just dropping it and the correspond Purl to it, I was terrified to do it. I was sure that it would result in a huge hole. But she showed me that by tugging on the other stitches adjacent to it, I could 'absorb' the extra yarn and the hole magically disapears.

This has been a really nice pattern to knit. I really like the fact that there is no edging to add on. Once you block it, it forms it's own edge. The biggest reason I set my first mystery shawl aside was the edgings. It was just too complicated and I could never seem to get it memorized. I have decided to block it 'as is' and just end up with a neck or shoulder shawl, depending on how much it "grows" after the blocking process.

I know Vicki has been busily working on her next lace project, which is going to be a stole. She showed me a peek of it last week at our meeting. Looks interesting. I have not made a stole yet. I tried the Print of the Wave Stole by Eunny Jang, but the yarn I was using was too thin, and I messed up soo bad that I frogged it and set it aside. I decided that maybe that stole was a little too advanced for my first lace project.