Haruni, my oasis in the stockinette wastelands

Something that isn't stockinette, oh happy day!  Having just finished the Twirly skirt for Lil' Miss (which she is prancing around the house in as I type!) it is time to cast on a new project that doesn't require miles of knit stitch.  My new project of choice is the absolutely lovely Haruni shawl designed by Emily Ross for which I will use the fantastic new stroll tonals yarn in royalty by Knit Picks.  As I am not sure just how long this sucker will take (I have never done a whole lace shawl before, or even a partial one for that matter!) and it is intended as a Christmas gift for Chatty-Cathy I decided to get started on it now.

First off I needed to wind the skein of yarn into a workable ball so I can actually knit with it and I thought you all would be very intrigued by my oh so fancy ball winding accessory (can you smell the sarcasm?).  As I don't even have the luxury of willing little hands to hold my untwisted skein carefully, I draped it across their chair, ain't it fancy!  Who knew that the family heirloom built for Mister Vonkysmeed's great grandfather would come into use someday as a skein holder for me?

Funnily enough, after complaining about doing too much stockinette in an earlier post, now it seems almost all of what I am doing is lace.  My Hey Teach! has now progressed to the lacework section, and on Isabella I have started the all too brief interlude of the lace panel  in the midst of miles of stockinette.  So my Haruni that was cast on with the intention of being my oasis has very quickly become more of a quagmire rather than an oasis you could say!  Anyway, for some reason I found the Haruni pattern totally terrifying, let me be blunt, it scared the crap out of me!  But since I want to have it done in time for Christmas gift giving (did I mention that already?!), there was nothing left but to knuckle down and get started!

Now that I am a few rows into chart A on this sucker I wonder what my angst was all about?  I am familiar with using charts, having knit and crocheted with them before, and I have used all of the stitches required before so nothing new there, plus the yarn and needles are familiar to me having used both before.  Yet in spite of all this I was anxious to the point of sweaty palms while getting it started, why, I guess I'm just weird that way (or is that wired?!).  Of course now that I have essentially said the pattern really isn't that difficult I am probably going to make some sort of foolish mistake and have to rip it all out, I just know it!

I think I will use lifelines as recommended by the knitters in the Beginning Lace Knitters group on Ravelry (can I just say how relieved and happy I am to have this resource if I come across any trouble whilst making this shawl?) as a way to preserve my sanity.  When it comes to lace it seems to me that the difficulty factor comes in when you need to remember where you are in the pattern and being able to repeat that pattern correctly across an entire row of knitting, as I discovered with my Hey Teach! the other night.  I performed the S2KP incorrectly, so ended up having to frog out 6 rows of knitting once I realized it would take more time (and much more patience than I could ever claim to have) to fix each error one by one rather than just going back to where I messed up in the first place.  Maybe I should use a lifeline on that one too!

Here's to hoping I can get this Haruni finished and blocked in time for Christmas gift giving!   I know, it's a long way off but I am nothing if not a worrywart...