Birch

Finally, the camera is back in my hands (with batteries).

Here, then, is a picture of my progress on "Birch":



I'm now on the second ball of Kidsilk Haze and as the requirements are three balls, I suppose I'm about one third of the way through. Someone, somewhere, will have the ability to work out exactly how far I am but that person is not me. I did have some yarn in the same dyelot left from the first "Frost & Ice" shawl, so I started with that, which could indicate I am even more than one third of the way through.

I love the way the cast on edge is wavy. Here's a close-up:




While I love Sharon Miller's patterns (clear, easy to follow, good charts - though this pattern is words only) I was not too keen on her pairing of K2tog tbl (for the left slanting decrease) with K2tog (for the right slanting decrease). I prefer to pair K2tog with SSK. Here's the reason why:



This is K2tog tbl/K2tog. See how the decreases on the right (the K2tog tbl) are twisted? Well, I don't like that. So this is what I did instead:



This is SSK/K2tog and looks much better to me. It is still not perfect, and so the hunt for a true pair for K2tog goes on. If anybody has any input on this, please feel free to leave a comment.

I also changed the 3-to-1 decrease she suggests for closing the top of each leaf but discussion of that will have to wait.

Many thanks to all for their comments - my head is becoming quite swollen!