Green shawls

The fifth shawl for the year was actually a test pattern. I offered to test a pattern called "Heron Shawl" for a girl on Ravelry who had created this beautiful shawl, showed it off on the crochet thread of the Shawls forum, and thought she might like to offer it as a pattern. I had done some testing before for a designer, but not a full pattern.



This was a lot of fun to crochet. As it was a test, I had a few problems with the amount of yardage used, and a couple of row instructions. I could have finished it in two days if I hadn't needed to ask questions of a designer on the other side of the world, but I'm not complaining. This was my favourite shawl yet.



In the end, you are left with a crumped mess of fabric. The beauty is in the wet blocking - you end up with a shallow curved shawl with beautiful stitches, the ribs looking like the wings of a heron, hence the name. The yarn I used was Wollmeise Twin 80/20 in Farn. The green doesn't come out very well in the photos, but it's the same green as the dark green pencil in your coloured pencil set. I really love it. It's bold and bright and looks great worn with black. I'm keeping it.



While Shawl number 6 slumbers while I think about how big I want to make it, Shawl number 7 was a project with a deadline. When I asked my friend to hypothetically pick the yarn for the hypothetical shawl that I might be hypothetically making her, she picked a variegated green in Cascade Heritage Painted sock yarn, colour "Forest". Originally this yarn was being made into another pattern for my friend. I started it last Saturday in Melbourne, but by Tuesday night I had only progressed about 9 rows. My quilting group (that rarely quilts but are nifty with hooks and needles) came over that night, saw that I was hating the pattern, and kindly ripped it out for me, instructing me to find another pattern. I chose Flying Diamonds, just like my first shawl.



in the end it took me only four days to crochet. It was a battle to finish in the end, but I had it blocked by midnight on Saturday night to give it a day to dry. I hope she likes it. I think she will.