My Nordic Shawl

Oh that picture makes me sigh.  A long sigh of happiness and relief.

I've had a few unforeseen difficulties with this shawl you see.  All has not been plain sailing at all.

Things started well enough, I made a lovely selection of  Drops Merino Extra Fine DK and the yarn, when it came, proved to be wonderfully squidgy and the colours rich and beautiful.  So far, so good.

This was supposed to be my 'nice-relaxing-making-over-Christmas-project' and I had visions of an enjoyable and peaceful time working on the plain sections during intervals in the Christmas rush.  I had my colour sequence all planned out for when the fun border part came too.  I was all ready to go.

At first things panned out as they should, I worked away here and there.  The perfect 'pick up and put down' type of thing, as I had wanted.  Then, one day, the border crept up on me and I was pleased to have the joy of seeing the colours come together.  I searched for my colours and found that I'd jumbled them into my basket any old how, to make way for presents or people or some Christmas activity or other.  No matter, I spent a few minutes arranging them in a pleasing way and then set to work hooking up the yummy border.

Mistake number one, right there.  You see, originally I'd planned to do a little test patch of border and check I liked how it looked, before I plunged in and did the whole thing.  In all the hubbub of festive goings on I'd forgotten this and as the border grew and grew I became increasingly unhappy with how it was looking.  Oh well, c'est la vie, I shall rip back and try again.  So I did, I ripped back again and then again and again.  Humm, this thing wasn't going right at all.  Alarm bells were ringing a bit, but eventually I did come up with something I liked and the border part was complete.

You'd think things would all be straight forward now wouldn't you but unfortunately not.  As I carried on working on the rest of the shawl, towards the pretty lacy finish I just wasn't easy in my mind.  Although I really liked my border, something wasn't quite right and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  But, despite having to wait for more yarn to arrive, and stopping to work on scarves for him and her, I kept going, sure that I'd love it by the end.  That was mistake number two!

Finally I got to the very end, I'd even started the last blooming row when I put my finger on the problem.  My colour scheme reminded me of the 80's.  It reminded me of a pair of roller skates I used to have as a child and a bit of Bucks Fizz.  Not really things that are at all compatible with a beautiful, crochet, granny chic-ish, scandinavian shawl.  I'd fallen in love with this shawl when I saw it on My Rose Valley's site.  When I saw her Instagram pictures of it and when I saw it wrapped around her shoulders while sitting in the Swiss countryside.  This 80's tribute that I'd managed to create was all wrong, wrong, wrong.

So, it was back to the drawing board and more ripping, ripping ripping.  (Blub!)

I wanted something much softer.  Something much more gentle and in keeping with Annette's gorgeous original design.  Something that did it justice, rather than worked against it.  So, to cut a rather too long story short (too late). I dragged out my old stock of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and Patons Smoothie and started thinking about the colours again from scratch.  It took quite a bit more experimentation and I can assure you I did make a test piece this time around, but I finally got there.

So even though things didn't work out the way I thought they would,
in the end I got something I'm very happy with.

♥♥♥

: : YARN : :
Drops Merino Extra Fine DK:
 Grey (5)
Mustard (30)
Pink (25)
Off White (01)
Pale Greyish Blue (15)
 Patons Smoothie:
Apricot (2004)
Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply (I think):
Teal (22018)

: : PATTERN : :
The Nordic Shawl from My Rose Valley

S x

♥

My posts, delivered to you...

      RSS      Feedly      Bloglovin'      Email