Lessons Learned
According to the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test, one of my personality traits is the Learner. I Must Learn New Stuff. Most of the things I knit contain some sort of challenge or modification to the pattern. I'm on a lace knitting and beaded knitting kick for a while. Not sure if I'll wear any of this stuff, but it's about the learning as much as the finished product. I am also learning to like ruffles, and pink, and bright turquoise, because it turns out I look good in them, though probably not all three at once.
Started a Medusa Cascade shawl (Ravelry link), which is a non-triangular shawlette with a ruffled edge made from one skein of sock yarn. I changed it to have a three stitch border instead of one, no garter and stocking stitch stripes, and I'm adding beads. In Doctor Who, the Medusa Cascade is the place Davros attempts to destroy the universe and fails, it's in the two-parter at the end of season 3. (NB: I really, really didn't like those episodes, it felt to me like RTD consciously trying to wreck everything on his way out. So glad Moffat is in charge now!)
I'm using royal purple Malabrigo Sock yarn for the first and last time. Winding the tangled mess of a skein was no fun at all, requiring hand winding, manual untangling, and picking it out of the teeth of the ball-winder. Even wound up there are weird loops drooling off the bottom of the ball. I'm not getting this stuff again, this is the worst skein tangle I've ever encountered. The yarn is only lightly plied and I've seen several Ravelry comments about it not wearing well, so I wouldn't use it for socks.
Got some Miss Babs Yet yarn, a merino/silk heavy lace weight, and some beads from Earthfaire, to make Little Leaves (Ravelry link), which is a crescent-shaped shawl. I'm going to try something prevent curling on the top edge (moss stitch or ribbing), and a new stretchy cast-on method. The yarn colour is Roasted Pumpkin, the beads are 6/0 silver-lined dark gold AB. Yarn looks more like fingering weight than lace weight to me, but I love the warm colour.
Another thing I learned recently was that the Travelling Woman shawl pattern (Ravelry link) and the Blue Moon Fiber Arts sport weight yarn I tried to use for it are a bad match, at least for me. Didn't feel right, didn't look right, hurt my hands, frogged the lot. Sometimes you learn when to give up gracefully.