Prepare for a Shock!

I caved. Spring fever got the best of me. There's no vaccine for startitis.

This is the mandatory Ishbel. Mandatory because every knitter on the planet apparently must knit it to retain knitter cred. I'm not a big fan of groupthink in any form, but even I can't resist the pull of mandatory knitting. (See also, mandatory monkeys, mandatory clapotis, mandatory jaywalkers, etc.)

My general response to mandatory knitting is to resist until the initial craze is over. Makes me feel like less of a joiner somehow. So everyone else knit their Ishbels last year, but I'm just getting to it now.

Cathy asked to knit this with me. She's interested in learning lace, and this was one of the two easy patterns we picked out together. I figured I ought to look at the pattern before she and I tucked into it, and next thing you know, I'm almost halfway through the easy stockinette portion of the pattern. I won't go too much farther without Cathy casting on, though. So now that I've started, I might just tuck it away until she can catch up.

The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, and I adore it. It's pooling in an almost zebra-striped way, and this will inevitable make me want to carry my oversized zebra bag when I wear the shawl. The scarf is just off enough to avoid being matchy matchy.