Cheshire smile

With Aeolian off the needles, I was itching to start a new shawl. Last year was relatively light on shawls (only six shawls made, compared to nine in 2011 and 10  in 2010). And there are so many shawls I want to knit, and many I want to design. (Ideally, I'd like to knit a shawl a month, but I doubt it will happen.)

After putting Aeolian on the blocking board, I decided to start working on a new design. I was only a few rows in when I realized the yarn and colour weren't going to jive with my vision. So I frogged it. (The proper yarn will be dyed this weekend.)

But... I had two skeins of Slinky Cat already caked and waiting to become the Stray Cat shawl.

I've chosen Peacock (darker) and Aqua for my colours.The picture doesn't show it well, but the Peacock is actually a combo of dark green, purple, blue and turquoise - another of Mom's creations and one of our most popular colourways.

I had the peacock in my stash  and dyed the aqua to go with it. I was debating between colours - I was torn between a nice deep purple, or a bright emerald green, and the aqua. In the end, I'm glad I chose aqua - the combo reminds me of Tim Burton's Cheshire Cat - who I love!

I was a little nervous at first with this pattern. I've never done a crescent shawl like this before, and I wasn't sure how the increases were going to work. The pattern looked a little daunting, and I thought I was really going to have to pay attention. But the instructions are very clear and well-written, and once you get going, it's not too hard to get in a rhythm.The majority of the increase are cleverly hidden by twisting the stitches - it's brilliant!

The pattern has four sizes - I'm making the medium which should be a nice 67 inches or so wide. I would have liked to make the next size up (72 inches) but that would have meant dyeing up more yarn.

I actually haven't worked on this since the weekend. I've been concentrating on getting my Embossed Leaves socks off the needles. I'm getting close - and good thing - I'm dying to get back to the shawl!