Sidewalk Shawl

Over winter break I bought six skeins of Debbie Stroller's Bamboo Ewe in Twilight. I figured I should bring some color into my wardrobe, so I went with the pretty purple instead of the silver Mercury. I really like this yarn; its soft, flexible, light, wonderful drape, and cheap. I like the cheap part. I want to make my own shawl that's not a granny-shawl, if you know what I mean.

I tried starting the shawl last week, but I had trouble right from the get-go. The first try I simply could not understand how to make an increase shell. Silly, I know, but this is the mostly complex pattern I've used so far, so I had to decipher the 'crochetese'. I ended up starting over 3 times before I could get past row 4. Then, once I got to row 6, I had to rip it back to row 4. But, I think I've finally started to understand the pattern. Now I realize it's not all that hard really.

Today I got to row 18. Here's what I've got so far...

I really want to keep working on it, but I've got a lot of work to do this weekend. It's going to be really hard not to keep working on it! It takes pretty much all my attention to follow the pattern, Ms. McAlidin's pattern writing can be a little unclear.

On another note, I had to move my car across campus today. It's been snowing so much that the school parking lots had to be emptied and totally plowed over. So I had to walk across campus at 10 pm with my roommate to go get our cars again. It was 16F out so when we found my car I had to wait a while for my poor car to warm up enough to defrost the ice on the windshield. It was rather inconvenient.