This is a truly beautiful and innovative pattern, creating a really unique crochet fabric. The new zipper stitch is elaborately described and not difficult to do. All is clearly charted and well explained, including a photo tutorial for the zipper stitch.

Thank you so much DreamsinCrochet for let me be a tester of this absolutely gorgeous pattern.

Colours:
The pattern has a 6-row-repeat. After some swatching I decided to work this with 3 colours to avoid a too puzzling look when using a short term gradient yarn. I swatched also to evaluate the best colour placement, as it makes a huge difference in appearence of the pattern, depending on where dark and bright colours are placed.
After this I worked the following sequence: dark brown - colourful - natural linen gray.. and so on, in order to have the colourful gradient in the most striking row 5 of pattern (actually row 6 in pattern chart, as the designer does not count the initial row, repeating row 2 to 7 in chart).
After 5 repeats I realized that I would run out with the gradient if working the whole stole in this way. So I inserted sections of 5 pattern repeats, replacing in row 5 of pattern the gradient by a middle gray sock weight linen/wool blend, Alb Lino.

Colour changes:

Working with 3 balls at time means that there is no need to cut the yarn at row ends. I made the colour changes not as usual by completing the last stitch with new colour but worked the last stitch with old colour, carried up new yarn VERY loosely and made a really tight (additional) chain stitch with new colour to secure the little yarn bow and to prevent carried up yarn from running into the edge stitches and making these loose and wonky. After this I worked the new row as indicated.

Side edges:

My fabric was unblocked a little bit crumpled, vertically and horizontally, and I was not able to estimate how many sc I would need to get an even edging. For this reason I blocked the piece without side edge finishing and added a sc -ch st border after blocking, blocking only the edges after this.

Yarn:

The Leinen Los yarn was a little bit stiff in unblocked condition, not so easy to crochet with this, and next time I would combine the so lovely gradient yarn Schoppel edition 3.0 only with black and gray Alb Lino, because this yarn works perfectly with Edition 3.0 and the colours of the gradient would be showcased better with black and middle gray than with the naturals of Leinen Los.

Gauge/tension:

I worked the piece with needle 4,5 mm and a quite loose gauge to get a soft, quite thin fabric with a good drape.

Difficulty:

This is not an easy pattern, definitely no beginners project.
My first swatches got wonky as I was not always totally sure where to stitch. I had also difficulties to meet the ch-1-spaces and after this decided, to work the small sc “branches” with 5 chain stitches, in order to get a 2ch-space where to stitch in the next row. The designer writes on the pattern page, that this is no tv-project, and this is true,because doing this requires a lot of concentration. This requires also some time, as the pattern is mainly sc based, and I think, that the difficulty is same as knitted foxpaws. Both are complex patterns, creating complex visual effects. Although it might be a little bit harder to get familiar with the pattern, it absolutely deserves the time and work, as it creates a really eyquisite fabric. I also could imagine doing this in a more monochrome way, having the contrasts more in yarn surfaces, combining silk with silk/mohair lace and paper yarn or something like this.