Of Shawls and Gloves

I tried to post yesterday... twice! Blogger was having issues and my post never did make it to the blog. Let's hope that today Blogger's feeling better.

Where shall I begin? Last weekend, I had decided to knit the Blackberry Shawl from the Drops website (this one). I have some Drops Alpaca that I'd intended to use for this shawl; it had been purchased with Evelyn A. Clark's Estonian Garden stole in mind, but I frogged it. Anyway, I started the shawl. And frogged it.

It's a lovely design, but the pattern is very confusing. It would be very helpful to have more spacing between the paragraphs, for one thing. The charts for each half are placed one above the other, making it very difficult for the eye to follow the flow of the pattern. As well, the center stitches and their increases are not shown in the pattern, but you're told, in the written instructions, to incorporate the increases when there are enough stitches for a pattern repeat. Fine and dandy, but it would be helpful to have that charted.

Like I said, I frogged it. For now. This week, I was able to copy the charts into PageMaker and now have them side by side, which will make them easier to follow. One of these days, I'll start it again, but for now, I'm working on this, another Drops design...

The pattern can be found here. It's working up quickly. Looking at the picture, it looks like there are seven repeats of the initial leaf pattern; I already have six repeats completed. By the end of today, I should be well into the second section.

The yarn I'm using was a gift from a friend. She and a friend have alpacas and this is yarn from those alpacas. Margie originally had a design in mind for me when she gave me this yarn, but, though I tried to cast on for it a couple of times, this yarn just didn't want to be that design. It seems to like this design very much! This will be one cozy, comfy, and cushy shawl! Once I have it done, I'll have to be sure and show Margie and once again let her know how grateful I am for her gift of this yarn.

Oh yes, I do have a progress picture...

Lace never looks like much before it's blocked, does it?

And then, there are the gloves. I did post a picture of the glove in progress in my last post, but it wasn't a very good one. I must be honest, I haven't worked on the gloves this week; they seem to be a weekend project (or a Sunday project). I do, however, have somewhat better pictures.

Keep in mind that the glove in progress is for the right hand; I've photographed it on my left hand, so everything is reversed. What you see on the palm is, in fact, the back of the hand and vice versa. I'm very much liking how this is knitting up. They're going to be one warm pair of gloves!

I know that if an expert in Fair Isle were to examine the gloves, they would critique a few things, but all in all, who's going to look too closely at my hands? They're meant for warmth more than anything else.

Now, it's time to hit the "publish" button and get on with my day. I have a couple of overdue library books, so I do believe a trip to the library is in the schedule for today. After that, I intend to get some knitting done!