Now in progress...
A falling leaves triangular shawl made from my Shaeffer Anne in the autumn leaves colors. I swatched it on a size 5 needle, too tight, not airy enough, switched to an 8 and was satisfied with its holey-ness. I am using the pattern from Carol Rasmussen Noble's Lavish Lace book, but I didn't like the beginning she used so I have changed it some to make it taper up more. As attentive as she is to details she makes a crappy beginning on this project. I have also noticed her lace charts are lazy, she adds on a garter edge but doesn't include it in the chart pattern. So back to the beginning part, she has you cast on 6 sts, then begin working the pattern right away off the cast on. ALL the rest of the edges ALL the way around have a garter stitch edging that is 3 sts deep on the sides and 5 rows tall on the last rows before cast off. So why didn't she put that on the beginning on the bottom? If you look at the picture in the book, you can see how weird and blunt her beginning edge is. So instead of c.o. 6. I did a c.o. of 2 sts, worked the first one in knit, knit the second row with 2 twisted lift increases, then knit the third row, knit the 4th row with 2 increases (now I'm up to 6 sts), knit the 5th row, so now it matches the top cast on and begins with a gently tapering point and on the 6th row, began working the charted pattern. So I am about 4 repeats into the pattern (about 40 rows?) and I realize that this thing will be so light it will always want to curl up, so now I want to add some beads to it, maybe just on the edges? I am going to a bead store tomorrow to shop around a bit and then I'll decide. I am debating putting it on every other row in the garter border, or using it around the edge of each leaf, or in the center of each leaf, or just knitting the whole thing up then knitting on a separate border onto the edge with beads on that. Too indecisive. What do you think?

As I was looking at this book I realized something kind of funny. I bought this book about 3 years ago (or whenever it was that it came out). All of the projects in this book use Cherry Tree Hill Yarn's, pretty much something is knit from every one of their lines. When I got this book I looked at that and said, "Ha, who's ever heard of this kind of yarn" the one yarn store near me didn't carry it and I pretty much put it off as something I would never get my hands on (at the time it was even hard to find affordable lace weight or fingering even!) Then I am sitting here in my living room with the Cherry Tree Hill Silk Cascade Fingering in my hand and I think, hmm, maybe something from that Lavish Lace book, and Lo' there are 2 projects in there made from that very yarn, bizarre. Things can sure change in a couple of years. Now there are 1/2 a dozen yarn stores to shop, with large selections and real yarn brands, plus of the course, the glorious world of internet out there waiting for us to search for that special something we saw somewhere and now need to have.