Shawl issues...then pleasant surprise!

This past week I have come pretty far on my current wips, and didn't start any new ones! yay. I'm about 2 inches from being able to decrease for the toe of my blue 2x2 ribbed socks. I'm working on the instep of the first monkey sock. I'm at the midpoint of the Coachella halter, and have worked about 2 inches of the shawl. Of all of these projects, the 2 inches of shawl took the most time! Sounds weird, but just look at it: And I had a pleasant surprise. Some one commented on the shawl in Ravelry! I had written in the comments section my woes in starting the shawl:

1/7 Noon Ok, I haven’t actually started it. To be frank, I am terrified of this pattern. Eek! I swear I’ll start it today.

1/7 4:00 Started with figure-eight-like provisional cast on. this cast on is easy!

1/7 6:00 Finished second row. This sucks. Way loose. I’m taking it all out, then going to the mailbox to see if my stephanie pearl-mcphee books have come in. (they didn’t)

1/7 6:10 Did crochet-chain-pickup-in-backloop provisional cast on. :-)

1/7 8:30 Finished row 4. Seriously. Switched to project with more instant gratification while persuading myself that this shawl will be a process rather than product knitting project, because I’ll be working of this for a long while…

Then, I got the comment:

Don’t give up - once you get into the pattern a bit it’s really quite straight forward, and can even be fast knitting. This is just ribbing, with a regular pattern of inserting and dropping stitches, just to keep it interesting. I do strongly recommend using at least two kinds of stitch markers to identify the different chart sections, and to identify which stitches inside the chart get dropped. Hope you have fun!

It was so nice. Thinking it was just another knitter who had recently finished the project, I clicked on her name to see her profile, and it was the pattern's designer! I was like, Wow, she is so cool for not only looking to see who is making the shawl, but offering help and reassurance. I thanked her and kinda felt bad for showing my struggle with the pattern. I hadn't included the fact that I loved the pattern so much that I immediately ordered the yarn online minutes after seeing it the day that that Knitty issue came out. So I responded:

hey–i’ve gotten to the first two rows of cable and then the first drop stitch round–you’re right–it’s a lot easier than it looks (which is good when showing it off). I can’t believe this is your first pattern! it is so detailed for a first pattern. good job!

And she wrote back:

Thanks! I hope you continue to have fun with it. There’s only 6 rows between each cable, and each cable is an inch, so it does actually grow quite quickly, even if sometimes it might look as if i there is a long way still to go. Keep having fun! :-)

It really is a good pattern, and I will enjoy knitting it. Here is the pattern if you want to make it too! http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter07/PATTjeanie.html

happy knitting!

p.s. my SPM books came in!