Just pardon my really lousy photography!
My only concern is that my cast on is slightly tight, but I suspect I'll be blocking this out more for length anyway and the width will be fine. If not, in a huge pinch I'd be more inclined to cut the cast on and just replace it than to frog and start over since the rest is fine.
I'm happy with my results, but still reserving judgement on the pattern. People have done some calculations and figured that most of the beading is already done and the rest will be primarily lace, which would be my preference, but if it's mostly beading I'll do it and probably like the finished work but not love it as much as I love lace. I think I prefer beads as an accent than as a design element, but that's just personal taste.
People had warned me about the oiling of the ColourMart yarn, and I'm glad they did; after a few rows, my hands are definitely tacky. I'm assured that final washing does remove all the added oil (which is added because the yarns are originally meant for machine knitting and I guess the hand knit lace market is sort of their remnant market). I know that due to my really bad photography late last night you can't see much of the detail but the yarn and beads are quite nice together and I think once the work is done the beads will show up just enough to be subtle yet well-defined.
I'm a little concerned about the tone of some of the emails on the listserv. There have been some that have come across as rather snippy in answering questions (I don't mean specifically from the designer, but from members) especially when dealing with members who are beginners at lace KALs, and I really personally resent their judgmentalism and attitudes. I know that many of the questions are being asked multiple times and in multiple ways, and I know some of the answers are given in the instructions, but people learn in different ways, and don't process everything at once. I wish some people on the list would be more patient and more understanding about the questions that are coming up. No one makes anyone answer, so if these people are irritated that others don't understand some of the instructions or are flustered, they should just hit delete rather than answer in a negative way.
If anyone's interested though, in being part of a big active group knitting what hopefully will be a beautiful stole, you can still join in--sign ups are open until this Friday at
the yahoo group website.
Moni of the delightful Slow Bee Mystery II KAL released all three of the pattern clues that were left this week, as she is having trouble guaranteeing her own internet connectivity during a housing move. On the one hand, this enables all of us to run ahead and finish the beautiful stoles. On the other, this ruins my pacing; I feel compelled to try now to push through and finish this as fast as I can. Given that I have been working only one half so far, that means that as of now, with my stole complete through clue 14, I have one more clue and the bind off for this half, and then the entire second half to finish; that's at best going to take me a couple more months, and probably more like 3-4 months. But here is my SBII shawl as of clue 14, the whole half and then a close up: 
