No more frost

Less than a hour after deciding what my next project would be (Ene's Scarf by Nancy Bush), I started having doubts. Do I want another triangle just now? Do I really like that center decrease section? (It's the only part of the pattern that bothers me.) Should I look over some of Evelyn A. Clark's single patterns?

Suddenly I wasn't so sure any more and I began to drag out patterns, books, printouts. You know how it goes. A couple of piles later I ran across a free pattern from Classic Elite that uses the Frost Flowers and Leaves motif.

Here it is just with two full repeats just before I ripped it all out. I LOVE the motif and it is much fun to knit, being patterned on both sides, but it just wasn't what I wanted and I wasn't thrilled with that edging. Not thrilled maybe, but rather proud. Do you know it has p15tog?! Don't adjust your set. You read that correctly. Purl 15 together. That's enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. But thanks to Ravelry, I read more than one reassuring comment that it is no big deal and, truly, it wasn't. It is the most unusual stitch I've ever knit. The row before has all these yarnovers between stitches that you drop to get your 15, thus they are long and loose and easily captured to purl together creating a sort-of shell effect.

Here you can see a really gorgeous example of this shawl (in silk no less!). No coincidence that it was knit by blogless Maureen who was the reason I knit my first red Estonian shawl.

I had hoped to be further along with a new project, but here's what I arrived home yesterday to find. Some small branches were driven straight into the ground. This picture shows just part of the mess and was taken after I'd moved enough limbs to allow the car up the driveway. Instead of settling in for a nice cast on after morning coffee, I had to hurry out and start clearing this before the sun got ahead of me. What an irksome chore!

I suppose it was a microburst. Nothing was really damaged and, thankfully, I didn't have 200 sheep to worry about.