The design of the Bryce Canyon Shawl is coming together.  I selected two more lace diamonds to incorporate; they’ll start at the midpoint of the center medallion.  I’m estimating the shape on the fly, rather than working it out mathematically; I decided I didn’t want to draw it out but am trusting my gut.  We shall see.

I’m loving the colors and the way the yarn looks in the pattern.  Lion Brand did a nice job with this fiber.

As an aside, my birthday present arrived from KnitPicks and now I’m all excited.  I want to play with it (16 balls of electric dark blue and 16 balls of maple syrup brown), but I’m staying focused on the shawl at the moment.  I don’t know if I want to make one blue sweater and one brown, or do two mosaics with both colors.  We shall see.

But for now, here are some pictures of the Bryce Canyon Shawl so you can see how the design progresses:

This is a picture from last week, and you can see the start of the center medallion.  It will be a diamond and has a 3 stitch border in plain stockinette stitch on either side, with a yarn over (i.e. a hole) just inside that.

The two small clear crystals aren’t beads, those are stitch markers and they sit on either side of the medallion (this is one way you can keep track of knitting pattern changes).  They don’t have to be fancy, and in fact I have several plain steel rings on the needles but I wanted to use my fancy rings for the medallion since I have them and they’re pretty.

They’re actually a little annoying to work with, to be honest.  There’s a bar that hangs down from the ring, and it’s twisted metal.  That’s what is used to attach the crystal.  The problem is that a) it attaches to the stitches sometimes, and b) it gets in the way of the needles when I’m knitting.  I make it work, because I like the way they look as I’m working, but they’re not the most practical of beasts.  I prefer the plain steel rings my husband made for me from heavy-gauge steel wire.

Here is how it looks today. The faux cable look of the center “V” is deceptive; that’s just because the needle isn’t long enough to let the pattern lay flat.  But in this view, you can see the center medallion progressing up to its middle panel (a helix laying sideways that mimics the vertical one you can see).

The little white bit that looks like a scrap of paper on the left is a scrap of paper.  🙂  I was knitting outside yesterday, sitting on the grass by the river, and dropped one of my rings.  The grass ate it.  I spent quit a while looking for it, too, but no luck.

I decided to stop increasing the lace lattice that is on the outside.  Since I’m adding two medallions and they have their own increases/decreases, I stopped adding stitches at the sides and will let it grow from the stitches within the medallions.  I may change my mind once it grows some more, but we’ll see.  (That’s the geometry I mentioned earlier.)

This final image shows the right-hand medallion just beginning.  There are only about 6 rows so far, so it’s not easy to see in this image, but you can at least get an idea of where it will go.  The lattice will continue between the medallions on the sides and the center panel, to keep the overall feel of the shawl consistent.

That’s our Wednesday update.  Happy knitting!