Stinking Rose! I'll make a shawl instead.

I think I need to put the flowers away for a while. The last rose came out okay. Still not what I want but I'm getting tired of trying to get the petals to line up just right and the center from poking up too high.

2nd Knitted Rose Tester

...And I'm feeling stupid for getting ahead of myself in planning a wedding yet again. Even though Partner and I have been talking about the wedding for a month now, he still hasn't re-proposed and until I get the ring back on my finger it feels stupid to be telling people my plans.

So I'm going back to this shawl that I started months back, before I made any of the felted stuff.

I got the yarn before I was sure about the amount of yarn I needed for the Elephants or Sister's slippers, but was itching to stitch. I got a nice amount done before the yarn for Sister's gift and Elephants came, and then I wanted to get the gifts out in a timely manner. I thought I'd go straight back to the shawl, but of course making those gifts lead to my minor obsession with felting which lead to flowers....and now I've stalled out...again.

I was reminded of this shawl when I was reading "Free-Range Knitter" by the Yarn Harlot. Specifically, "Tell me a Story." The chapter is about how yarn has surprises, how you can start a project knowing it's going to be a sock, or a jacket, or a scarf and end up with something fantastic, um...weird (a.k.a. crap), or not quite what you intended.

This shawl was going to be a sampler of stitches patterns from (mostly) knitting and purling only. I throw in a few eyelet rows to help break up the different patterns. I've no idea what it's going to look like when I finish. I kinda love that. I love that with yarn if it comes out "um...weird" or "not quite what I intended" I can pull it out and start all over. Especially with this yarn and its beautiful colors.

The yarn is Chroma Fingering from KnitPicks. Each time the colors start to change I do another type of pattern to emphasize the color. It's now slightly bigger than the picture and I need to take a look at a stitch dictionary for another pattern idea, but I'm pretty excited to see how the shawl will turn out.