Sunday my current shawl project failed a reality check big time, got frogged and then I rebooted the entire project with new yarn. One of the factors in the first effort’s meltdown was the extreme attentiveness (and shedding) of the cats, and between one things and another I was almost 30 stitches off the stitch count. Since Sunday the weather has been great, the cats are outside most of the day and then sleep in the afternoons when they come back in. Prime knitting weather!!
I’m still working on Edith’s Secret by Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmreich, and have now knitted through the first three clues and I am still exactly on the correct stitch count!!! Yeah! I have made a little chart for myself to track the colors and increases, and have been counting stitches every 4th row, and it has paid off big time.
Edith’s Secret is a shawl in 7 parts (clues). Tomorrow I’m going to my favorite yarn shop for knitting group and I hope to get another section of the shawl done. Woo-hoo! I just love it when a knitting project comes together.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Keep the pink, go for a deeper shade of purple, and add silver seed beads, especially since you’re planning to bead the lace. Right now the colors are too match-ey, it’d be better with a little more contrast.
I refuse to go back to the bead store. The clerk was the most challenging interaction I’ve dealt with this year. I felt trapped in a bead-store scene from “dumb and dumber” and finally left clutching a few tubes of seed beads. Guess I’ll dig in the bead stash.
You are right to blame the kitties for any an all yarn related disasters. I do. They may be cute but they sabotage knitting!
My kitties also sleep on any woolen item they can find, there by continuing the love and fur-shedding long after the knitting is done.