Making progress

I finished the center of my Saltire & Thistle Shawl. Since the next step is to pick up 100 stitches along each side, I decided to lightly block it. It sure beats trying to fight the curly edges.

And to help me pick up the stitches evenly across the row, I’ve put coiless safety pins at the 4 even points across each row and I will pick up 25 stitches between each pin. I can’t remember who gave me that tip but it’s one which is a great help. Usually I would use stitch markers between each pattern repeat but the way this thistle lace pattern (from Barbara Walker’s second volume) repeats, I won’t be able to do that. Also, traditionally one would work each side of the border individually but I’m going to work it all together in the round.


I've also been pondering what color to make my next Dalek. At first I sort of thought this (they're gold nowadays):



But then, last night, I watched "Genesis of the Daleks" and decided I might go with an early color scheme:

The early ones sported a much more industrial look that I kinda like in a Dalek.