Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl

Yesterday the second shipment in The Unique Sheep Gourmet Club arrived, but I didn't get a picture of it.  There was a recipe complete with spices for Ratatouille, a package of Basil seeds, a Basil Pesto recipe and this yarn.  The color is, of course, Pesto, the yarn is Verve, and I just had to find a project for it and cast on.  The pattern I settled on is Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasova.  It is a crescent shaped shawl that starts at the bottom.  There are, as with all things, both advantages and disadvantages, with this construction technique.  The advantage, of course, is that the rows get shorter rather than longer.  The disadvantage, of course, is that cast on.  327 stitches.  I started out doing a long tail cast on using size 8 needles (the larger size was recommended for the cast on and bind off).  But after incorrectly estimating the length of the tail that I needed, twice, I decided to switch to a knitted cast on using size 5 needles.  After the cast on, the pattern starts off immediately with lace, and knitting lace directly after the cast on row proved tricky.  After running into trouble on the second stitch I decided to knit a row first and then start the lace pattern.  But first I had to count my stitches, again, and figure out how many I had lost - it turned out to be three.  I fixed that and happily knitted away.  The lace pattern looked trickier than it actually was and I memorized it quickly, but reading the lace was a little bit tricky and somehow I got off in the pattern and when I reached the end of the stitches I was not at the end of the row.  So, I went back to the start of the row and carefully checked the pattern to figure out where I had screwed up.  I did find it, somewhere between the halfway and two-thirds way point, and marked it with a split stitch marker, and then I went to tink back and discovered that some stitches had slipped off the needle.  Sigh.  Fixed that.  Tinked back.  I hate tinking centered double decreases.  Got back to where I had made my mistake and picked up the pattern again and when I reached the end of the stitches I was at the end of the row.  Success!  I stopped there for the night.

Pattern:  Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pesto
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)