Leave it to me

After a long hiatus I am back to blogging. I lost my camera over the Christmas holidays and found it this month, so I can take pictures again.

I'm working on a baby shawl, using some yummy Malabrigo Lace. I'm thinking of a traditional shetland square shawl model - with center square, a lace border and then lace edging. I recently completed a heritage shawl and was quite pleased with it, but this time I want to make it my own...so I'm letting the yarn inspire me.

The verdes 203 colourway makes me think of ivy and lace.....so that is what I'm looking at. I'm considering ivy leaves, rose leaves, beech leaves, ferns...and am plowing through stitch dictionaries looking for just the right pattern.

Fortunately I'm able to start on the center square, actually a diamond that starts with 3 stitches, increasing one stitch at each edge. So while I ponder what lace border pattern to use I am still able to knit away, though at some point I will have to determine what my stitch repeat is and how many stitches I need on each side of the diamond, so that I will begin decreasing at the right spot.

I usually do not design on the fly like this, but I've decided to give it a try. I'll keep you posted on whether this is a successful method for me.