A Story About A Shawl

I started knitting a beaded shawl early last spring for one of my sisters for her birthday (which is in August), because she mentioned to me in passing how much she loved some of the shawls she seen in the stores, but didn't want to pay the exorbitant prices for any of them.  So I searched for a nice pattern that I thought would be easy to follow, but I found reading the chart was not as easy I thought it would be. Somewhere in the very beginning stages I lost a stitch, so I set it aside thinking I would at some point get back to it and fix my mistake.  But I got so busy with other projects that I had deadlines and people waiting for them.  And I never got back around to fixing the lost stitch and well her birthday came and went and I was forced to buy a gift card instead of surprising her with a handmade shawl. Even worse, now a whole year has gone by and my sister's shawl hasn't progressed past what you see below:
 

Beaded Knit Shawl (Swallowtail Lace Shawl
by Evelyn Clark) that I  started last year

As part of my New Year's decision to try to work through my WIP's and as suggested by: stitch.tac.sew, who said on January 24th... "I would alternate for each new project you make finish an old one!" to my post of "Delving into my WIP's Goodie Bag".  I pulled it out of my WIP's bag and decided, instead of trying to fix the lost stitch and figure out how to read what I considered a complicated chart, I would frog it (pull it apart), and look for an easier pattern to follow. I don't want to give up on this design completely, because it is very beautiful and I really need to get over my anxiety of reading charts, maybe after some practice with easier chart designs, I will give it another go.

But in the meantime, I found this really great crochet pattern that I figured I could whip up in no time.

Frogged the first attempt - changed to a crochet design,
Sidewalk Shawl by Kimberly K. McAlindin

And as you can see above that it is coming along and has this really great pattern going that reminds me of a pineapple.  It's quick and easy to follow and I can't wait until I'm done and can send it off to my sister.  I'm really hoping she will like it. And this time around I will get it done before her birthday. 

I like it so much I might even make one for myself or maybe for my other sister who also, has a birthday in August.  If I'm industrious enough, I could probably pull it off, if I don't get sidetracked again.  We'll see...

On a side note:

I just finished another baby set and I had so much fun knitting it for a good friend.  I decided a sweater was too much since she needed it by May 1st and it will probably be too warm for a sweater by the time the baby is born, so I searched Lion Brand's website and came across this cutie:

The Bunny Blanket Buddy
from Lion Brand.

I paired her with another Feather and Fan Baby Bonnet, and Ballerina Booties. You can check my Sweaters page (very last picture at the bottom of page) for links to the patterns for both the bonnet and booties.