Juno Regina, cast on.

I’ve gotten into this whole lace knitting thing in a bad way. After finishing the Colleen shawl, I cast on my Juno Regina. I love it already. Let me count the ways.

• One: It’s (more or less) rectangular.

I haven’t finished my Icarus yet, mostly because I’m not totally sold on triangular shawls, but partly because each successive row gets longer. I can’t determine how long each row will take, so it’s not great knitting for, say, when I have five or ten minutes here and there. The joy of rectangular shawls is that each row has the same number of stitches- so you can say, “Oh, I have fifteen minutes. I can knit three rows.” Or however long each row takes you.

• Two: Sea Silk is a pleasure to work with, and mine is ORANGE.

Orange is my favorite color. I looked through my lace yarn, and it’s all orange, pink, or olive green. Shockingly enough, I have Sea Silk in orange, Sangria (reds and oranges), and olive green. This fact simultaneously thrills me and makes me uncomfortable.

I’ve taken on this whole “living with less” behavior change. Do I really need six orange, six olive green, and six pink shawls? I knew I had the OTHER similarly colored lace yarn when I bought each successive project, but they were all different.

Granted, they vary in both fiber and color intensity, but really. If I’m buying something, it needs to be something really special- which means I shouldn’t buy ten of them. You can’t get to yarn that is buried under other yarn- and the fact that it’s buried diminishes the “specialness” of it.

I was ashamed that I had to hunt for some cashmere I bought earlier this year. One should always know where her cashmere is. I would like to get my stash down to a more manageable size. The definition of manageable is somewhere between no stash, and one bedroom closet. Maybe a walk-in closet. Definition pending.

• Three: Miriam Felton writes a wicked good pattern. I wasn’t uber-enthusiastic about beginning this shawl because I saw eight charts. EIGHT! For this simple little shawl. But.

I am forced to eat my words, again. The charts make sense, if you follow them in an unquestioning way. At this rate, understanding her brilliance may encourage me to finish Icarus and cast on Seraphim. Her shawls have a simple, classic elegance, while still looking complex.

• Four: It knits itself. I considered not going out for knitting in order to get it to the “mindless” place. When I got home and did all of my nighttime routine before bed, at 11 PM I considered working on it a little longer. Better judgment won me over, and I settled for working on it the next day instead of compounding the current sleep deficit side effects.

• Five: It’s so pretty! I keep pausing to admire the knitting. I’ll stretch it out and admire how smart it all looks. Vanity, thy name is Juno Regina. Hello! Look at that picture. She knows she’s beautiful. Check out that diva-licious pose.

I know I say this every time I cast on a new lace project, but I think this is a terrific beginning lace pattern.