The shawl is 318 rows not including the border.

3/11/2013 no photo - 180 rows completed. Going well! I found at least for me, the right twists need the extra yarn over, but the left do not unless moving 2 stitches. The wings are very distinctive, even with the multi-color yarn. It’s been too wide for awhile to display on the 16 inch needles, so I haven’t been taking photos.

2/18/2013 photo 5 - 122 rows completed. Hope I’m doing the blue twists right! They’re being marked with a safety pin. I’ve been doing an extra yarn over and dropping on the wrong side to make sure the stitches aren’t too tight, but they may be too loose instead.

2/11/2013 no photo - 80 rows completed. I feel that the dragon is clearer. Yay! Still not sure how well it will show up after blocking, but I feel better about ripping it all out.

2/09/2013 photo 4 - 110 rows completed. Tragedy strikes again! I realized I had somehow been doing the right twists with a knit through back loop for the 2nd stitch. I could see a clear difference in the stitches on the needle although I’m not sure I could tell a difference in the end result. I debated for a little while whether or not to start over, but in the end, I decided that it would be horrible if this mistake make the dragon less visible in the end. The photo is of the current state before pulling everything out.

2/03/2013 photo 3 - 60 rows completed. The row count and photo is of the second try.

Tragically, I realized yesterday at row 50 that sometimes I was reading the wrong side rows right to left. >.< I ripped the whole thing out (which wasn’t even necessary since I had a lifeline at row 30 where the wrong side rows are anything except purl straight through). After some obsessive work, I’m caught up. The pattern is much more obvious now, but I’m still afraid it won’t show up very well. For fun, I put in a bead for the tail tip, and plan on putting more at the wing tips and in the border.

One note about the horizontal stitches, they really do look like a normal stitch turned 90 degrees. I also read a tip from another user that was useful. The first increase stitch and the last ‘special’ k2tog horizontal stitch both count as ‘=’ symbols.

2/01/2013 photo 2 - 40 rows completed. The yarn is more variegated than I thought. I hope the dragon still shows up.

1/31/2013 photo 1 - I’m so excited to start this project! I’ve never done lace knitting before and it’s soooo cool. I plan on placing lifelines ever 10 rows, and finished 12 rows to start. Sadly, I need to get up early tomorrow or I’ld keep going.

I hope the needle size / yarn combination will show the detail okay. I have no frame of reference. I’m using one size smaller than recommended because I want to end up with a smaller size.