The Cherry Blossom Shawl

I've been moving along on The Cherry Blossom Shawl. I'm still on my first ball of yarn (Shibui Knits Silk Cloud in Blossom), but it would be about 2 feet across if I were to take it off the needles, and that's without stretching.

This is definitely a simple pattern and I've been working it while I watch TV. I think this would be a good pattern for a beginning lace knitter (or a fast one for an advanced lace knitter). You could work with stitch markers between every repeat, but except for the first round after an increase, you can quickly see if you get "off" on the pattern just by reading your lace from previous rows and comparing how it matches up with what you're doing. Learning to read your lace is an important skill to develop because not only will save you from using thousands of stitch markers on big projects (and the time it takes to move them all), but it will save you time (and frustration) in tinking back and trying to find where you messed up. By knowing how the row I'm working should stack up on the rows below it, I can tell if I'm off before I get one repeat past the mistake. It's easy to only watch the chart as you knit and not really pay attention to previous rows on your knitting, but if you try to see how the current row relates to previous rows, you'll soon find you're knitting faster and enjoying the lace more.