Slow Start to the Amazing Race, er, Lace

Ok. Monday night, I cast on all 437 stitches for Creatures of the Reef. Then I knitted the first row. That took quite a while to get done. Last night I knitted for a few hours on this. I am nearly halfway through the 9th row. Not too bad, considering each row has more than 437 stitches. Row nine has a lot more than 437 stitches, because there are so many yarn overs. They all disappear in row 10, and that will be the end of the Seashell row. Like my stitch markers? I didn't have enough stitch markers, but I did have a tub of 1000 paper clips, so I used them. Not ideal, but so far, they work out pretty well, as long as I am careful to make sure they don't catch.

I have mixed feelings about the Twinkletoes yarn. I love the colorway, but the yarn is not as soft as I thought it would be, and I did notice that some of the color comes off on my fingers. For one brief moment, I thought about frogging this thing, and restarting in Helen's lace, but fortunately, sanity returned quickly, and I am knitting on. I do like the colors in this yarn, and I like the way it's turning out, although 9 rows knitted on size 4 needles is not a really good representation. I'm working the next couple of nights, so I won't make too much progress.