Design LF433 - Pretty in Midnight

I've decided to make another of the Twilley's Goldfingering shawls using yarn from three different era's of the thread, easily distinguished by the way the thread is wound onto the cardboard inner and the oldest of the threads colour codes began with WG. In this case, the oldest thread is the dark blue, followed by the medium blue, and finally the silver.

I began crocheting this on 18th March and finished it on 24th May 2025, just working on it as and when I could, in between doing other things.

I didn't take any work-in-progress photos. This has become a recurring issue for me lately. I used to take lots of pictures of my progress, and now I just don't. There is no specific reason for this change; I just don't remember or think about taking any.

This one is very similar to one I made in early 2019, which is still available in my shop and features pale gold centres, turquoise petals, and midnight blue for the rest of it and also one that I made in 2017 which has silver centres, blue petals and royal blue for the rest of it.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Baby Pink & Purple

I started making this as soon as I finished making the last one, on 25th April 2023.

All of the threads used on this project are taken from one dye lot per colour. I didn't take any work-in-progress photos at all and I have no idea how I forgot to do that, other than the fact that my father-in-law passed away the first week of May and I was busy helping my mother-in-law and husband with all that that entails.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Purple and Cerise

I started making this back in September 2023, using this project as something to work on when I had to sit in a café and while away an hour or so when my youngest first started college and was only in for 2 hours on a Friday morning and it wasn't worth driving home to turn around and come back again.  He was in for longer the rest of the week and also at times when I had to sit and wait at appointments and such.  I don't have to sit and wait now so I've decided to finish making it a bit quicker.

As what often happens on these projects using the vintage Twilley's Goldfingering, specifically with the thread for the flower centres and/or the flower petals, I ended up having to use two different dye lots for the pale gold centres so I made sure to checkerboard them across the entire shawl so that if there is any noticeable difference it then becomes a design feature. If I have to use more than one dye lot for the main colour, I tend to use one for the crochet and the other dye lot for the fringing or a mix of both in the fringing.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Orange and Lime

The day after I finished the last shawl, I started making this one.  Unfortunately, I didn't calculate things correctly, and I ran out of lime green before I was able to make enough flowers.  I put in a lot of effort, searching the internet and trying a couple of alternatives, but there was nothing around that was even close in colour to this particular shade of lime.  That's what happens when you create things using vintage materials.  Twilley's stopped making this thread in all but seven standard colours: white, black, silver, light gold, gold, bright red, and bright green, years ago. The company went out of business entirely in February 2020, after operating for approximately 100 years.

The upshot is that I have made one of my usual shawls, but this one is a little smaller, one entire row of motifs less than normal, and therefore at a lower price point.

Design LF433 - Kingfisher Blue

For my next shawl I have picked one of the project boxes that has been in a cupboard for some time.  I have a small stack of small boxes that contains Twilley's Goldfingering that I have put together to work into shawls.  This one is pale gold, light pink and kingfisher blue.

I've not been taking work in progress photos lately but I did get a couple, one of the project box, one of the flower, one as I was sewing in the ends and some as the sun bounced on my work and I couldn't resist as its really difficult to show off how sparkly these shawls are, to capture the sparkle is almost impossible usually.

This one is similar in colour combination to another shawl that I made but it is different, that one was silver, pink mix and teal.

Design A447 - Blues and White

Another of these shawls made to an updated vintage pattern and this time I have chosen blue and white.  All of the darkest blues will go into this shawl along with a mix of medium and light blue as I have already planned my next shawl as well so I know what colours I need.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top right to the bottom left: 

Spray Blue = 11 motifs, Light wash = 5 motifs, Light jeans = 3 motifs

                                     Jeans blue = 8 motifs, Navy blue = 4 motifs

White =  main, Light Ice Blue = 7 motifs, Light Blue = 10 motifs 

Petrol = 4 motifs, Navy = 12 motifs                                               

I have reverted back to having a central strip with mirrored layout on either side as I think it works better than totally random and then having to try and make sure the colours don't pool too much in one place.

I like this one, a lot, but then I do like blue, not that you can tell with the blue rug in the lounge and the fences outside are all painted blue...

Design A447 - Grey and White

For this one, I am doing it more simply.  There really are only two shades of grey cotton available but that is OK because I will checkerboard the motifs across the shawl and use white as the main colour to make a classic looking shawl.  I had to buy the light grey to go with the larger amount of darker grey that I already had.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from left to right: 

White = main, Light Grey = 36 motifs,  Dark grey = 28 motifs

I did make a little mistake that I didn't notice until after I took this photograph and I quickly rectified the mistake and carried on.

Not colourful but still pretty.

Design A447 - Autumn Leaves with ecru

For the next one I focused on working on motifs made using the yellows, oranges, reds and brown colours.

Two of the orange shades are very close in colour with the one bottom right being lighter and a different tone.  In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right:

Brown = 5 motifs, Blood Orange = 11 motifs, Buttercup yellow = 8 motifs

Daffodil yellow = 1 motif, Ecru = main, Cherry red = 14 motifs

Orange = 5 motifs, Vanilla = 11 motifs, Papaya = 9 motifs 

I again positioned the motifs so that they would mirror the left side to the right side with a central strip made up of the what was left.  

I really love the colours in this one.

Design A447 - Various shades of green with off-white

On my continuation of using up the Aran weight cotton yarn I have made a second of the vintage shawl design that I finished in early December.  I started focusing on working on motifs made using the green cotton just before Christmas and then stopped so that I could make the moss green shawl but then I got back onto it after Christmas.

Some of the green shades are very close in colour and one of them is the left overs of another shawl that I made where I overdyed some bright yellow cotton to make green.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

Light Mint Green = 12 motifs, Moss Green = 1 motif,  Off White = main

Spearmint = 12 motifs, Green = 3 motifs, Forest = 9 motifs 

Lemon overdyed Green = 10 motifs, Green Beryl = 12 motifs, Bottle = 5 motifs

 

When I worked out the positioning of each of the colours I decided that I would mirror the left side to the right side and this left me with a central strip made up of the what was left.  It's a little bit like a butterfly - the central strip would be the body with the mirrored wings on either side.

I'm really happy with how this one turned out, even better than the first one.

Design A447 - Pinks, purples and white

I'm carrying on with my mission to use up as much of the Aran weight cotton yarn as I possibly can and this is the best time of year to do it because it's cooler weather and heading into even cooler weather.

I've picked another vintage pattern, this time it was published in the USA in 1976.  The photos in the book are not the best but it does look like it could be visually stunning.  I started to follow the instructions but I was finding it awkward to get "inch length loops" or for what I was able to do to look equal and neat and I didn't like the massive "hole" in the middle of what would be a flower.  I decided to start with a magic loop for a smaller "hole" and instead of having a number of long loops of yarn which formed the petals of the flowers I changed these to clusters of double crochet (US)/triple crochet (UK), which meant working 5 of those stitches up to, but not completing the last pull through, and keeping them on the hook until all 5 were done and then just pull through all 5 loops on the hook to make the cluster.

To get them all to be equal in size, I popped the non-working end of the crochet hook into the hole and pulled up against that and secured the ends.  I guess a biro pen or something similar would also do that job.

I had no solid colour plan when I first started, but I knew that I would not be following the colour plan of the pattern, which is rows of colours that form the V's of the triangular shape.  I did know that the main colours would be white, ecru or black as I have large amounts in each of those colours, and just to make as many flowers as possible from each colour that I have left in my stash and see how things go based on how many flowers I get from the left overs.

Because I am using different yarn to the original pattern and the fact that I have altered how the pattern is worked my motifs are coming out a tad smaller than the measurements on the pattern so having done some figuring out I need to work enough motifs to have 15 of them across the shoulders, not the original 13, and this then works to the original measurements of 60 inches across the shoulders.  It does, however, mean that I need to make 64 motifs as opposed to 49.

I've decided that the first one will be a random mix of pinks and purples with the main colour being white and so I focused on working just those colours for a while.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

white = main colour, light purple = 4 motifs, powder pink = 1 motif, medium pink = 3 motifs 

light old pink = 3 motifs, heather = 8 motifs, dark purple = 9 motifs, medium purple = 2 motifs 

red wine = 1 motif, candyfloss pink = 11 motifs, cherry = 11 motifs, rose = 11 motifs

Two of the pinks and the two reds are very similar in colour but are slightly different.  I laid the motifs out in the shape of the pattern in a random order and then spent a long time playing about moving them around so that not only were two of the same colour not next to each other but also so that the colours were as evenly spread out as I could get them because at point I had all the dark purples loitering together on the left and the reds were all huddled up together too and that just won't do so I made sure they were as mixed as I could get them.

At the point in the photo above, where the motifs have one row of he main colour around them and are joined together I only had 38g left to do the small motifs that fit in the spaces and the fringing. This was not enough so I had to order more of the white yarn because although I started with 200g my yarn has slightly fewer metres per 50g than the original pattern yarn plus the fact that I have made a mine bigger. 

When the yarn arrived and I started to make the little motifs I wasn't happy, they looked messy so once again I had to figure out a better way to work them so that they are neater and more even whilst keeping the original style of the pattern. 

I also increased the fringing lengths from 10inch to 15inch, looped through, pulled each one tight and trimmed the lengths straight. 

I think the finished shawl is very visually stunning and I will be making many more of these in an array of colours.