Seaglass Shawl: Choosing colours

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the Seaglass Shawl giveaway last week! I wish I could have given you all a kit (including myself), but alas! There could only be one winner. So congratulations Kat! Your prize will be with you soon. 

Last week I set up the Seaglass Shawl CAL page on Facebook too. I honestly thought I'd be wafting around on my own in there like a lonely tumbleweed, but we have almost 30 members from across the globe already! If you'd like to join in, just click here. You can add friends to the group, too, and if you're not into facebook (or also into instagram!) you can use the hashtag #seaglassCAL on IG.

[Reminder: the Seaglass Shawl crochet pattern is available to buy on Ravelry]

As the CAL doesn't officially start until May 7th, there's still time to get your yarn choices sorted out. In case anyone is struggling with what colours to combine, I thought I'd explain how Petra and I put together the kits.

I feel I should come clean here - the kits are 99% Petra's work. She sent me tons of beautiful yarn pictures with only the vaguest of suggestions from me. There's a reason she is the professional dyer out of the two of us. It was so hard to finalise them into a list of only 5 (4 plus the original), but some general questions I used to guide my choices were:

- what will look good closest to the face?
- is there enough contrast to keep things interesting?
- do the stitches come out as I intended them to or is the detail lost?

Colour by colour, then, my thought process went like this:

Main Colour (MC) - the colour which gives the shawl its overall character, but which also needs to look good next to the face. Should not drown out the other colours, so keep it fairly light. Bonus points for speckles, which can then be picked up in the other colours.

Contrast Colour 1 (CC1) - the colour which ties the whole multi-stitch section together. Should therefore look good next to ALL of the other colours. Can be light to medium in intensity, so as to provide enough contrast but still show off the detail of the cross-over stitch. 

Contrast Colour 2 (CC2) - complements CC1 but still provides some contrast. 

Contrast Colour 3 (CC3) - the bold "statement" colour used for the clusters and border. Be brave and choose something that provides a strong contrast. 

Here is what all of that actually looks like in practice. 

Having said all of the above, I should add that colour choices are of course completely personal. One kit that didn't make it to the shop but which I LOVE is this one:

image credit: Fru Valborg

It's more of a fade rather than the light-dark, cold-warm contrasting palette of the others, and I therefore felt it didn't stay true enough to MY design. But does that mean it can't be YOUR shawl? Of course not. Part of the fun of putting a design out there is seeing how others interpret it, and as it happens I've seen a similar combination pop up on instagram already. I have no doubt it's going to be beautiful. 

Seaglass Shawl: Crochet-a-long (CAL) + Giveaway

I'm so pleased to announce that there will be a Crochet-a-Long (CAL) for the Seaglass Shawl. If you've never taken part in one, they are such fun; You basically get to crochet along with a bunch of virtual friends, sharing progress update photos, swapping tips and solving hick-ups. 

There will be a dedicated Facebook Group for you to join. I'll try to check in myself daily, and generally be on hand to answer any questions, offer encouragement, and get to know you a little bit. I'll also have a few diagrams and step-by-step photos prepared, so you'll have access to those before they go up on the blog. If you're at all worried about whether you have the right skill level for this, therefor, don't be - a CAL is the perfect way to try something new with a bit of hand-holding. The group will be kept closed, which just means I have to approve each new member. It's a way of keeping things friendly, safe and spam-free. 

The CAL will officially run from Monday 7th May to Sunday 1st July, but I'll open the FB group on 23rd April so we can say hi and oggle each other's yarn. There's no pressure to finish your shawl by 1st July either; I'll leave the group running but I'll just be a little less available as the kiddos will be on summer holiday. 

So what do you think, are you in?? To get your appetite going, you might want to take part in a little giveaway:

Petra from Fru Valborg has very kindly agreed to give away one kit in a colourway of the winner's choosing. The kit INCLUDES a PDF copy of the pattern, bringing the total value of this prize to 835 SEK (about $100). So it's not that little a giveaway, is it :-)

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post stating which colourway you would choose. You can see all five of them at Fru Valborg's webshop. The giveaway is open worldwide*. I will choose a winner at random on 27th April, hopefully leaving enough time for the winner to receive their kit ahead of the CAL start date, should they want to join in.

Good luck!

*Please note: I will cover postage to any location in the world, but if you are outside of the EU you may be liable to pay customs charges. Neither myself nor Petra at Fru Valborg can accept liability for such charges, should they be incurred. 

Crochet speckle

I'm sure that, in between pondering what to cook for dinner yet again and hoovering up crumbly leaves and sand and whatever else the preschooler/dog/cat has stormed in with, you've wondered: what does a crochet speckle look like? Yes yes, me too, it's an important question. So here you are:

Did you spot it? That little dash of burgundy red? Lovely, isn't it.  

But it's also made me wonder, why aren't there more crochet speckles about? Why do speckled yarns seem to be mostly a knitterly thing, so much so that I've even heard mutterings of solid colours being "refreshing" in a "world of speckles and fades".  

As a new-ish knitter, I'm new-ish to speckles. I've decided I like speckles. I didn't really come to them entirely of my own accord; It was Petra, the indie dyer I'm collaborating with on a merino version of the Sea Glass Shawl who suggested it with such an air of "well why wouldn't you", that I thought, "well why not?" And now, I like them. 

Perhaps the reason you don't see so many crochet speckles is because they tend to feature on socks or fingering weight yarns (the very thin, light ones), and my impression is that crocheters prefer DK and above. Speckles are also a bit subtle - you need tiny stitches to show them off. Are we crocheters just a bit too impatient, a bit too used to our projects growing quickly, to really appreciate speckles? 

I hope not. Because I want to re-release the pattern for this shawl soon and more speckly ideas are forming in my head. So at some point (providing the baby ever learns to go without mama milk for more than two hours at a time, but that's a story for another day) there will be more crochet speckle. Just a little bit. It's just too pretty not to, isn't it?

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Are you a sea person or a mountain person? I don't know what the theory behind it is, but I've always been told that you are either one or the other. 

I think I might be the former. I did love the majesty and drama of the Alps (how could I not?) when we lived near them in Italy, and all the pretty little towns nestled around the lakes at the foot. If I had to choose though, I think I would always opt for the sea. The openness, the wind to blow out all the cobwebs in your brain, the freedom to just walk and walk and walk in a straight line. I get antsy when I haven't seen or smelled the sea for a while, even in the depths of winter. 

Plenty to draw on then, when Crochet Now magazine announced "Beach Comber" as one their Spring themes for this year. The May issue is out now, and I've got not one but two beachy designs in it: the Sea Glass Shawl and the East Coast Treasures Wall Hanging.

Both took me out of my comfort zone - I don't design shawls much, the mandalas were a total first - but in the end they turned out exactly as I'd hoped.

Sea Glass is a lightweight shawl inspired by the treasures my Bean and I like to collect from our local beach here in the south of Sweden: stones and bits of driftwood (him), brightly coloured sea glass (me). Then, the rippling sea to wash it all in, represented by rows and rows of rhythmic TC filet stitch.

Made in Scheepjeswol Sunkissed (100% cotton 4-ply), it grows quickly, has a bit of fun with different colours and stitches towards the bottom, and is so easy to throw on over any spring or summer outfit. 

For the East Coast Treasures wall hanging, on the other hand, I looked to the Norfolk beaches where my husband grew up and where we still try to spend some time each summer. Each of its three contemporary mandalas is inspired by a specific feature of this rugged coastline: the dunes, the sea and the (occasional!) sunshine, the driftwood. 

For this pattern I used Vinnis Colours Nikkim, a hand-dyed, hand-balled cotton from South Africa which comes in the most delicious, vibrant colours. The maths in these mandalas in particular proved quite the brain bender; I changed colours and stitches and then hook sizes and HOOP sizes... and I ended up with a big pile of rejects before getting them right. But you know what? I'm not that sorry, because isn't it a pretty pile!

Issue 15 of Crochet Now is in UK shops now, or you can buy a digital copy through any of the platforms listed on CN's where to buy page.