Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

I did it! I finished Hannah’s periwinkle shawl. It’s blocking now and, if the gods of blocking and drying are with me, it will be dry and ready to gift to her for her birthday on Friday. It is done! The border was a menace, though, let’s talk about that.

So my brave, little plan was to use this stitch pattern that I found on Pinterest:

Pretty, pretty, yes? If you have seen this on Pinterest, you have probably seen it paired with a bit of the finished border that isn’t this stitch pattern at all. The comments call this out, and it looks like the post has been removed. Anyway, I thought the stitch pattern was pretty and set out to add it to the edge of Hannah’s shawl. I decided to work the border in Malabrigo’s Paris Night in the same silkpaca yarn I used for the body of the shawl with the same 2.5 mm hook. It ate up nearly a whole ball of yarn! I was a bit surprised. 

I worked a row of half doubles at the edges of the shawl in Paris Night as a set-up row. I was going to do linked doubles, but linked doubles in a slippery, lace weight yarn are a nightmare so I scrapped that and went with half doubles. That went well. The next row did not. 

It proved to be nearly impossible for me to work the big Y stitch shell. Was this a lack of skill on my part? Yes, mostly that. Was it, I would like to argue, also a result of trying this stitch pattern with a tiny yarn that was hard to see and even harder to work into, especially when one is trying to work into the side of a stitch? Yes, I think it was. Anyway, I continued the story but departed the text. 

I decided to break the cluster stitch and Y shell into two rows and eliminate the Y element of the shell altogether. I worked the cluster stitches from the first row and added a chain one, triple crochet, chain two, triple crochet, chain one shell to the middle of them to leave space for the center shell in the next row. You can see my poor drawing of it at the bottom of the page.

Or perhaps you can see it better in this diagram:

Please note the double crochet clusters in the second row are really triple crochet clusters. The diagram app didn’t have three triple crochet clusters available so I improvised.

For the second row, I worked the formerly Y shell around the chains of the triple crochet-chain two center v stitch as seven triple crochets with a chain between each. Between each shell, I worked two chains, a triple crochet, and two more chains worked into the single from the last row. I was quite pleased with this except for the thing that always bothers me about my tall stitches: They all had floppy, open tops. I have tried to correct this. Theoretically I know how to correct it, yet I cannot make my hands do it properly with any sort of consistency. I might get a few good stitches here and there, but the bulk of them look weird. So I used my go to top squisher, the back post stitch. But first, I strung on a whole bunch of beads.

The thing with the beads was that I did not possess a needle with an eye large enough for the yarn that was simultaneously small enough to go through the beads. So my darling husband had me twist the yarn tight and then he superglued it into shape. Instant beading needle unlocked! It worked wonderfully too. I ended up needing just over 750 beads, so I broke that into two groups and got started on the last row.

For the last row, I chained eight to start, then worked back post double crochets on the wrong side of the wrap with a bead and a chain stitch between each one. The beads nestle in perfectly and really add to the edge of the shawl. I find myself amazed at my own work, which is a good place to be.

Hannah’s shawl is off blocking in the kitchen right now. Meg is vacillating between guarding it and sitting on it. Hopefully either of those things will help it dry faster. There are far too many pollens for it to go outside and block right now, so inside it is. Pictures next week when it is all done and beautiful.

In other project news, I have officially started the name doily, and I hate it with my whole everything. It looks just horrible. Dave mistook it for some store bought piece of lace and wondered what I was doing messing with it before he realized what it was, so perhaps my perception of its horrendousness is misplaced, but I hate it either way. If I work three rows everyday for the next six days then it will be all done except the end weaving and the blocking. I am so close.

Which leaves me with a pile of projects already on hook or I could start a wrap for the wedding (the doily couple) I will attend in June. Obviously I’m going to start a new wrap, and I have the perfect linen yarn for it too. Wish me luck!

Happy crafting! May your week be full of kind people and the peace of crochet.