New-ish Knitting Project: Pressed Flowers (Shawl) Cloth

 Some time ago I saw a beautiful shawl that used mosaic/slipped stitch knitting.  Since I had embarked on a program of learning as much as possible about mosaic knitting, I thought seeing this was providential.  It also seemed that every podcast I saw was about Pressed Flowers Shawls.  Now, I hate to spend money on knitting patterns (because there are so many glorious free knitting patterns on Ravelry and other places) but I really wanted to knit this sort of thing...so I bit the bullet and purchased the pattern.  I probably won't knit the actual shawl, at least not for a long time...too many other projects in the queue ahead of this one!

Reading the pattern was not as simple as I had thought it would be.  I read and re-read then started watching YouTube videos on Pressed Flowers.  My first efforts were dreadful but I kept going.  Finally I had a friend having a birthday and decided to try my hand again.  This is what I made:

This made me happy!  By the time I finished it, I felt comfortable with "Pressed Flowers" and was confident with pressed flowers knit flat.  Now to see if I can knit pressed flowers in the round!

The yarn here is I Love This Cotton from Hobby Lobby.  I think I used US 6 needles.

And if you are wondering what the strange "thing" is under the pressed flowers cloth, it is a copy of The Blue Zones American Kitchen.  We watched a Blue Zones series on Netflix I think it was, and became inspired to work on refining our eating and increase the odds that we can live to 100.  We shall see.  There are 100 recipes in this cookbook and Dear One has found one that he is interested in trying...the 16-bean soup recipe.  Back in the old days when we had all our children at home "on the farm", we made Magic Bean Soup which Dear One really liked.  

We will probably try this soup.  I will let you know.