So about two years ago, I went to Lakewold Gardens with some friends, and as we are all Ladies Who Knit, we stopped at Lamb’s Ear, a lovely little knitting shop in Tacoma. This beautiful cashmere yarn spoke to me, and I walked around the shop with it clutched in my little paws for half an hour, but finally decided to give in and buy it, just the one skein, to maybe make a lacy scarf with. Not that I’d ever knitted lace, or used cashmere before. After finding it in the bottom of a basket of yarn a few times, as well as knitting a couple of simple lace scarves, I decided the time had come to give it a whirl. If you like it a lot, it’s 2 ply Mongolian Cashmere, from Jade Sapphire, in Forest Glen.

There seemed to be enough (350 yards) to make a shoulder shawl from the Flower Basket Lace pattern from Fiber Trends, and after consulting with the ever helpful Marie from Main Street Yarns in Mill Creek, I bought some bamboo circular needles and got started.

The pattern starts at the center back, with just eight stitches. This seems to be a common way to make triangular lace shawls, but it was new to me! Every pattern row increases just 4 stitches.  But, you must get every row exactly right, or the pattern won’t come out correctly.  After much knitting, unknitting, reknitting, and counting, counting, counting every single stitch, it finally got done!

 Soaked it in slightly soapy water for 20 minutes, squeezed it dry in a towel, then pinned it out on the rug to block it.

That thing’s not going anywhere!

Today revealed a perfectly blocked shoulder shawl  . . .

that looks pretty nice against the surprising snowfall we had overnight.

Need I say that I am pleased as punch with how it turned out?  It could perhaps have been done on the next size down needles, but I love it a lot. And despite the aggravation, I may do this again some time.