PHOTOS on white: blocked.
PHOTOS on blue towel: while blocking (pinned).

Testing the pattern--my first attempt at lace, my first time knitting with such a lightweight yarn, and on fairly big needles.

Starting it is a mess! After 2 confused and unsuccessful attempts, I switched over to some nice thick DK-weight yarn and great big needles, tried it that way, found I understood the directions and could sort of follow them, and so I switched back to the original lace-weight yarn. I still found it to be a messy and unsatisfying start: how are you supposed to knit into the back bumps of a chain of crochet in yarn too fine to see any bumps in? Similarly, how do you “knit up 1 in each of the 3 garter ridges along side edge” when each ridge is only 2 st’s wide, and again, I can’t see any garter ridges because the yarn is just so fine, everything simply looks like a web or a snarl? Whatever, I managed to get 7 live stitches on my needles somehow or other, and in fact the place I started doesn’t look particularly bad.

In this test swatch I did 3 repeats of the main pattern (rows 30-39); according to the pattern, 13 repeats will make a small shawl, blocked to approx. 68” across, 33” deep.

I’m going to try it again in a 4-ply yarn and see whether I like the look of the pattern better that way.