Kate's Shopping Shawl

I simply adore this shawl. It is elegant, versatile and pretty. I'm loving it so much that I'm wanting one. So what to do? Yup, you guessed it. I'm reverse designing one. :D

Kate's is made out of cashmere, which is gorgeous but a little out of my budget. Plus, I want a fiber that's a little on the hardy side without sacrificing drape and flow. I chose Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine for my yarn in colorway "Salt & Pepper." This yarn is a sock yarn, so it is hardy. Yay!
Although I cannot find a close up of the Kate shawl on the internet, the general consensus on the Ravelry group "Kate's Shawl & All" is that it is the Woven Transverse Herringbone. I love the look of it. I was a worried that the herringbone would be blurred a little too much by the halo of my yarn choice, but the swatch I did assures me that it won't. Let's hope it's not lying.

So, the swatch. I did a large swatch, approximately 8 inches x 8 inches because I've never worked with this yarn before. I really wanted to see how it draped before I start knitting. I am very pleased with it's performance!

Now, the math. I can hear the groans from here, and I'll admit this step had me pulling my hair and gnashing some teeth. Here is one of the pages from my design book.Originally, I thought to work from one elongated point, increasing my way to the center, then decrease to the other elongated point. After much frustration and frogging, I decided to start from the center and do one half, then knit the second piece. Kate's shawl has a fine row of garter stitch running from center top to center point, so that has me thinking I'm on the right track. I did a temporary cast on with similar weight yarn using the crochet method. Two rows of garter and straight into the pattern. So far I'm liking the results. I'll keep you up to date as I go. Wish me luck!

Update:
Well, I'm at the 40% mark and I really love the pattern. It's elegant and totally satisfies the my Capricorn tendencies. Originally, I was going to decrease once every 8 rows, but my math was WAYYY off. Frogged and started again, but this time, the decrease is once every 4 rows. The angle is much more to my liking. Yay!