My First Round Shawl

I have knit triangle shaped shawls, I have knit rectangular stoles (even been known to design a few), but I've never knit a round shawl although I have plenty of patterns for them. Yesterday I cast on for the Cherry Blossom Shawl that was in the Spring 2002 Interweave Knits. (The pattern is now available by itself because the IK issue is out of print - here's a link to the Ravelry group for the Cherry Blossom Shawl KAL and there's information there about purchasing it.)

I will admit the first couple of rounds were a bit floppy and tricky to work, but I grabbed a throw pillow and kept my work on that and used it to turn the shawl as I went. That made things easier than working with 6 stitches hanging onto three DPN's in mohair laceweight in mid-air. It's a little bit bigger now, I have just under 100 stitches and it looks like a fuzzy jelly fish. I'm loving the yarn I'm using too (and not just because of the pale pink color, which would be reason enough for me to love it) - it's the ShibuiKnits Silk Cloud in the Blossom color. It's similar to Rowan's infamous Kid Silk Haze with the silk core surrounded by a blur of kid mohair, but the ShibuiKnits is slightly finer than KSH. (Just in case anyone is looking for a yarn slightly heavier than KSH, Blue Moon Fiber Arts has Silkmo.)

I'm just getting started on this shawl, but it's a nice and simple project so if you've never made a round shawl and are feeling a bit intimidated, this is easy enough that it's not a scarey project.