skein: A new Mystery Knitalong

I've joined another MKAL. It's the Summertide MKAL, by Helen Stewart, a designer I've not tried before, but whose Pebble Beach is in my queue to knit.

You can knit this in either two colours or one. The two colour version has you knitting the first two clues in the first colour, so I thought that if I decided on two colours, they would be close rather than contrasting.

Can I just say that it's been a bit of a long journey to get this up and on the needles!

Stash hunt #1 - two colours, Seasilk, blue and green. Fail. Blue Seasilk was MIA.

Stash hunt #2 - two colours, red and purple. Fail. Wanted a red with more blue in it and could only find orange-red red.

Stash hunt #3 - One colour. So fed up with stash hunting late evening when it was dark and I was tired that I dipped into the nearest bag (Skein Queen) and found some pink Blush. This pink was designated suitable for baby girls only, Not my cup of tea. However, I thought it might be suitable for a shawl as a gift. Convinced myself it would be OK and CAST ON.

Knitting attempt #1 - Clues one and two DONE. And then MrC intervened. He came over to kiss me goodnight, glanced at my knitting.

'What are you knitting, is it something for H's baby?'

'No, it's a shawl'

'Oh'. Long pause. 'I thought you were going to knit a red and pruple shawl'

And off he toddled to bed. That was it, I'd had my doubts and MrC's lukewarm response sealed the deal. Frogged.

Peachy pink, clue one.

Stash hunt #4 - two colours, Skein Queen bag (as I was already in there putting away the failed peachy pink yarn). Blue/green colours.

Knitting attempt #2 - clues one and two complete. And then I snagged the shawl, on pointy embroidery scissors which I hadn't put away. I spent an entire evening and morning trying to sort it out. Frogged about 10 rows and the last 30 stitches of the row and the yarn stuck together in a furry little knot. I gave up. Frogged.