going 'round

After a recent bout of finishitupitis, I believe I have finally recovered and managed to cast on something new:

The first few rows of Girasole.

Of course, I’ve made a good bit of progress since this was taken. I fell in love with the pattern the moment I first saw it on BrooklynTweed, but hadn’t really thought about it again until after this yarn arrived. It’s a cone of 100% cashmere laceweight from Colourmart (oh so lovely – although more so after the spinning oils are washed off), in just the right amount for the pattern. I like the warmth of the color for this pattern too.

This is my first shawl knit “in the round,” which necessitated learning new technique – a circular cast on. At the pattern’s suggestion, I went to TECHknitting™’s instructions. And promptly encountered an issue I had not run into before: I’m left-handed. My right-handed grandma taught me to knit “English” without any difficulties. I later taught myself “Continental” without any real problems. But I just could not catch on to that cast on – until I gave up, held the yarn in my right hand, needle in left and just tried something. It worked – I had a perfect mirror of TECHknitter’s images, so I just had to flip the knitting over. Since I never had a left-handed knitting issue before, I was a mite surprised, but now that I have it figured out, I rather like the method. Although the first few rows were a bit fiddly, casting on circularly seems to work much easier than casting just a few stiches and trying to join them in a round.