Does This Make Me A Bad Knitter?

Cool shadow, eh? Doesn't really match any of my WIP's on the side bar does it.... guess I better add another one.

Larry, as much as I love him and the First Class Shawl, is just TOO hot to sit on my lap with the weather we've got going now.

And, I wanted a project other than socks that I could carry around, take on vacation next month, but still could knit without carrying around charts or have to stop in the middle of a conversation to knit. And, I still wanted to make a shawl.

And.... while taking Kaity to her favorite new yarn store to look at the rovings, again, yesterday....I ran into this... (enough justification?) .

Interlacements Rick Rack II, in The Blues colorway... It's really beautiful... pretty turquoise blues and greens, Kaity thinks it looks like a mermaid. It's kind of shiny, and really has a teeny rick-rack texture to it. And, 1440 yards! My shawl is on going to take about 900, so Kaity's already calling dibs on the leftovers.

But.... and this caused me to pause a little, it's rayon. I've always used natural fibers, and really expected to make a shawl out of something like, well you know, alpaca, or at least Merino wool.

But, I chose this rayon, of all things. I mean, we can hardly raise "rayons" on the commune. Am I a bad knitter? Will I be kicked off the commune, or at least be sent to the time-out yurt, or put on stall-mucking duty?

I don't know.... I'm a little conflicted. But, really, it's SOOOOO pretty! And it's going to be wonderfully drapy. It's probably even more practical than another wool shawl in California.

Time will tell. In the meantime - it's on its way to becoming Icarus, from the Summer 2006 issue of IK.