7 peaks

I've never added a lace border to a shawl before.
OR, at least not in this way. Usually I knit a triangle and then get to the bottom and switch from garter or stockinette to a lace stitch, knit in lace for a while and then cast off.
This is different.
Using advice from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop, I selected a pretty lace edging from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury- I picked "Alpine Edging"- and cast on 17 stitches separately from the shawl.

Casting off at the bottom, EZ claims, has a "terrible effect on shawls," and so to avoid a cast off edge I am instead knitting the edging ON to the edge of the shawl. Here is a well-put explanation from page 115 of Knitting Workshop: "At the end of every second row, you will knit the last (straight-edge) stitch together with one of the stitches from the edge of the shawl- and thus nibble away at the un-cast-off stitches until you have traveled around the whole periphery."

The lace pattern I chose has a repeat of 24 rows, and so each repeat eats away 12 shawl stitches. I believe there were 276 stitches at last count, which means I will need 23 repeats total to finish my shawl's edge.

As of right now I have 7.

I think it's taking so long because I need to use a post-it note to keep track of what row I'm on. Also I work on it at lunchtime at work and sometimes I get too distracted by conversation with co-workers to keep up lace knitting. I'm thinking of getting a sheet of metal and some magnets to hold my place on my pattern because the post-it notes continue to lose their stick at the most inopportune time and then I end up spending all my knitting time trying to count stitches and figure out where exactly I am.

Anyways, just a quick update before work. Hope you all are doing well and knitting happily!