Next shawl in works

I’ve started working on my newest shawl. It’s seamless with a crescent shape and knitted bottom-up. It starts at the edge with a pretty lace pattern embellished with beads. I always have such a hard time finding suitable beads, it seams that I can’t never find the appropriate size, being either too small or too big, but this time I think they’re alright, the opening could be bigger but I’ll manage. I was very happy with the color, this violet is so pretty and goes well with the variegated yarn I chose to work with.
Here’s a picture of the beads followed by the work in progress:

It’s hand dyed by Karin, dyeforsocks1965 on ravelry. You can visit her blog and see her etsy shop here. I was saving it for a good match between pattern and yarn. I decided to design the pattern myself. The goal is to knit one shawl only with one skein of sock yarn, approx 100 gr, I feel that the crescent shape is just perfect for this project.

I think that the lace section will be a good approach to “true” lace, because some wrong sides are “rested” rows, being all purled, while other are worked in lace as well – nothing too complicated just yarn overs and single decreases – P2tog and Ssp. I’ve also decided to make the borders worked in lace, instead of the usual plain and boring garter stitch.

Generally, I don’t feel very tempted by variegated yarn, my concern (that occurs every time I’m knitting with a non solid color) is that the lace pattern doesn’t become visible enough due color changes, that’s why I prefer a solid or a quiet semi-solid yarn, but this time I couldn’t resist to this dye combo, isn’t it beautiful? Curiously, combines the two shades I was more driven last year – purples/violets and yellows/oranges.

Last week I finished the cast-on (which, by the way, was counted a zillion of times) and started the lace pattern. The first row (that counts 357 sts) was redone due knitter’s error…anyway, yesterday I've concluded the first lace pattern and I’m looking forward to seeing the pattern stitch emerging more and more!