Now I am past the never-ending cast-on this is going fine.

I’m loving the texture of this yarn…have to get a bit further in to see how it suits this pattern. I’m going for yellow and blue stripes…

I made a foolish mistake with the central decrease - my bad for mis-reading the pattern. Carried on with this mistake for many rows…am deciding whether to rip back or do some radical recovery by dropping all the stitches in the central section and fixing it. Sigh.

12 Feb - OK I’ve done the frogging and am somewhat back on track, having re-knitted the garter section and a couple of the eyelet and stockinette sections. I’m glad I frogged it back for several reasons, one is that I’m doing alternating coloured stripes and I’ve done it more intelligently second time around - I think it looks better.

Have posted some shots of the lovely cashmere-blend yarn in the meantime, I dyed it myself with pomegranate (yellow) and indigo.

• I am so pleased with how this shawl has turned out. I had some doubts about the yellow and blue colourway, but now it’s knitted up I think they work really well together. i still need to block it - I’m looking forward to seeing how the lace at the edges stretches out…