Craft: Work-in-Progress Hilo Shawl

I have a wedding to go to in mid July and it's presented a bit of challenge in terms of what to wear. The ceremony will be outside if all goes according to plan and it's likely to be cold (I'm in Australia so it will be the middle of winter). I've found it really difficult to find a nice dress with long enough sleeves to keep me warm. In the end I gave up and bought this cute dress from ModCloth. It has no sleeves at all, I'm going to be freezing!

I decided that I need something to put around my shoulders to stop myself shivering through ceremony. I found a suitable pattern while browsing crochet magazines in the newsagent. I think I was attracted to it because the picture in the magazine is almost the same colour as the dress. The pattern is the Hilo Shawl by Joanne Scrace and it's available in the March 2013 issue of Inside Crochet. In fact, the pattern is one the front cover!

I'm making a cream shawl to go with my dress. I'm using Blue Sky Alpaca Silk yarn which I bought some time ago (I used it to knit a cardigan for another wedding but it didn't fit very well and I thought I could make better use of the lovely yarn). 

I've never crocheted lace before and I'm finding this pattern really exciting to make. My photos don't do justice to the intricate lace pattern. I've done two rounds of the pattern chart and I can start to see the shawl taking shape now... even though it still looks a bit wobbly! 

It's going to need some serious blocking once the shawl is finished in order to show the pattern off in its full glory. I've stretched the lace in this photo to give an idea of how the pattern is coming together. It looks complicated but it's actually fairly straight forward. As the magazine suggests on the cover, this is a great introduction to lace! I'm really looking forward to finishing this... hopefully it will be enough to keep me warm!

I'm joining in with Tami's Amis WIP Wednesday link up. Have a look at her website to see other works in progress :-)