Here are the files

Hello ladies (so far all of us here are ladies. But of course, if there are gentlemen interested in joining, you are most welcome ... just give Debi or I an email.), as Debi mentioned in the last post, I did obtain some files relating to the FPS pattern, thanks to Kimberly who knitted the stole in 13 weeks (that sounds fast to me ... anyone dare to break her record?) to wear at her daughter's wedding. Perhaps having an actual occasion you want to wear the stole may motivate you more, don't you think? I may have a wedding to attend in August ... Anyway, I have uploaded the files to a sharing site and here are the links:

Birch Leaves
Fern
Right side triangle
FPS Tiers Spreadsheet

Just click on the various links and you'll be taken to the pages where you can download the files. When I downloaded the files from Kimberly's email, Yahoo! checked them for viruses and they are clean. If you are worried, you can check the files you download from the site using your own anti-virus software.

Kimberly has also kindly shared her experiences of knitting the project:
"This is a very long shawl when completed. My friend was contemplating making it shorter as she is several inches shorter than me. In the end she made it the same length as mine. If you want the length shorter don't knit as many tiers.
After I completed the border and started working the 'blocks' I found it difficult to have all those stitches on the long needle after the first couple of tiers. I put each completed block on a stitch holder and worked each pattern with a double pointed needle, leaving the other stitches on holders until I needed to work it.
As for the cast on make sure it is VERY LOOSE. This comes into play when you block the shawl. My friend's cast on was not as loose as her bind off and it made it a little difficult to get the shape even when I blocked it. Once I had knitted the beginning border, I stretched the cast on edge to see if it became larger than my knitting. I tried several cast on's - long tail, back loop, etc and settled on what I call a knitted cast on."

She also gave us tips about blocking the stole, but I think I'll leave that for later ... after all, we haven't even started, right?

Have you visited the blogs of other fellow Stole-Alongers? I put all the feeds to their blogs under a folder "FPS" in my Bloglines. This way I would be able to read any new posts they put up. Melissa has been practicing with entrelac ... go and see the lovely entrelac piece she made. Valerie received her yarn and after swatching, discovered that she didn't like the seed stitch and is considering doing garter stitch for the border. Any thought for her? Also, a couple of you have actually started ... but I am not going to tell you who! hahaha ...