Started a new one (three-cornered shawl in clover pattern)

Apparently I'm thoroughly addicted to lace, because I've started my third project from the book. This time it's the "three-cornered shawl in clover pattern," in KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud, Mist Heather.

The cast-on for this was a doozy. You cast on for the entire lower edge of the shawl at once - 624 stitches. Using the loop/e-wrap cast-on, which has very quickly become my least-favorite knitting operation, by a mile. The very first row calls for some increases and decreases, but after about 10 minutes struggling with it, I said NO WAY to that, and just purled the first row (which will be wrong-side) so I'd have some structure to work with for that first patterned row. Probably this is a heinous crime, but there was just no chance I was going to work across all those crazy loops trying to do decreases. Just purling them all was nerve-wracking enough for me! (Maybe next time I work a lace pattern calling for this cast-on, I will try a different cast-on altogether.)

There's still a boatload of knitting to do on this of course, but I think I'm into the rhythm of it now. Further updates as events warrant.