Design A447 - Pinks, Blues and Black

For my final shawl using the Aran weight cotton I have chosen to use a range of pinks, a range of blues and all tied together with black, which is why I didn't want very dark blues in this shawl, as I doubt navy blue motifs would show up very well against the black.

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 wash = 4 motifs, Candyfloss pink = 4 motifs,  Light Ice Blue = 6 motifs

Medium pink = 12 motifs, Black = main, Rose = 11 motifs 

Light Jeans = 6 motifs, Petrol = 8 motifs, Plum = 13 motifs

Where possible I tried to match a similar shade/tone of blue to that in the pink range.

Its starting to look really effective but with the additional of the central motifs it is even more striking.

It reminds me a little like stained glass windows.

So now that I have made this one, I have just very very small oddments leftover, not even enough of anything to make a flower and so my kids have had what is leftover so they can add stripes or something to whatever they knit.

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.

Pretty in Copper - Design LF433

I'm making another of the Twilley's Goldfingering shawls from one of the 1970's pattern that I have.  I do like them, I have a bit of a 'thing' about Goldfingering and memories from childhood of shopping in the haberdashery department of a big department store in Birmingham City with my late Mom, strange I know, but there you have it.

So, this one isn't made from Twilley's Goldfingering though, except for the flower centres.  I've mostly used an almost identical thread which was made by Anchor (part of J & P Coats also known as Coats Crafts) that has since been discontinued.  In fact, Anchor as a brand no longer manufacturers threads or has any offices here in the UK anymore.  It was bought out by an American company years ago and after about 20 years or so they have decided to move business back to the USA entirely and this announcement was made around the same time that we had the Brexit vote, although the two are not connected, apparently.

I have used Twilley's Goldfingering in Gold for the centres, Anchor Arista in Bronze for the petals, which is kind of black with a bronze thread, and Anchor Arista in Copper for the main.  I actually started making this over the Easter Holiday way back in April when the kids were not in school but I didn't get very far and it got put to one side for a while.

I thought I had better crack on and get this one finished as its been lingering around far too long.

I fear this one may be in my shop for some time though as it is kind of a mundane colour combination, I hope not but I just get the feeling that it may well be there a while.

One of my shawls, a famous actress and a New York stage.

Earlier this month I got a surprise sale of one of my higher priced shawls and when I saw the address that I was sending it to I got quite excited and was intrigued to find out what it was going to be used for.  The address was the Costume Department at A Theatre For A New Audience in Brooklyn, New York.  I looked them up online, of course, and discovered that they have a Facebook Page, which I started following in the hopes of finding out what happens to the shawl that I made and they purchased.

Suddenly a set of photos appeared on their page, amazing photos featuring my shawl being worn by Kecia Lewis, who has previously starred in Law & Order, Crossing Jordan and Blue Bloods to name a few, and she is currently in The Skin of our Teeth, a production at Theatre for a New Audience which also stars David Rasche, who has previously starred in Sledge Hammer, Blue Bloods, Ugly Betty and many others.  I quickly messaged them and gained permission to use their photographs to show off and promote my shawls.  That is so kind of them because these photos are amazing.

(c) Gerry Goodstein

(c) Gerry Goodstein

(c) Gerry Goodstein

(c) Gerry Goodstein

(c) Gerry Goodstein

The New York Times wrote an article about the play and you find that here

I certainly feel very privileged to have supplied them with an accessory for their Costume Department and supplying theatres and such like is something I had not even considered before.  It has certainly made my year to date.

If you like the shawl, you can find it available in other colours in my Etsy store, in colours such as Lilac, Royal Blue, Bright Green, and Turquoise with other colours planned to be made later in the year.

Pretty In Christmas Green - Design LF433

This shawl I started making way back at the end of August 2016, using the time spent on a long train journey, there and back, to crochet the centre of the flowers in gold, but only just finished making it on 2nd January 2017.  I find that with the motion of travel I cannot knit but I can crochet quite happily.

It's another of the 1970's crochet motif design shawls made with Twilley's Goldfingering thread that is of varying ages, but all of it is 80% Viscose, 20% Metallised Polyester.

This I have chosen gold, forest green and emerald green.

Because I was making Christmas baubles for the past 3 or 4 months of last year I found that I didn't have much time to spend making this and so really only picked it up again once the baubles had been made.

The photos above show my bag of gold on a train, spread out on my lap being worked on and getting ready to trim that fringe straight.  I have a laminated board just the right width to match the perfect length of the fringing so the knots get lined up along the top edge of the board and the fringe can be trimmed straight using the bottom edge of the board.  In this photo I still have to push it upward to the top of the board.

The true colour is probably best represented by the photo of the shawl in the box that it will be delivered in.

Pretty in Forest Green - Design LF433

I dug out another of the project bags that I made up when I went through my Twilley's Goldfingering working out what I had enough of in various colours to be able to make more of the 1970's style fringed motif shawls that I made earlier this year.

This time I am using lime green, pale gold and forest green.  80% Viscose, 20% Metallised Polyester.

I made a start on this on 19th April, working on it in the downtime between picking the kids up from school and having to start cooking whatever they decide they want to eat.  During the day I was making chunky shawls in a whole range of colours.

I took this project away with us on holiday, camping again but this time on Wookey Farm, a dairy goat farm with a low-impact eco campsite in Somerset.  The pitches are massive, which is good because our tent is a monster and we need a big one with two adults, two kids and a dog where the youngest child has quite severe ASD and needs a lot of room as she sprawls out, twirls about and generally acts like a "fairy on a gob of lard" as my late dad used to say, which is an old local Brummie saying which means "clumsy and all over the place".

We had lovely weather whilst we were there and got out and about to visit local places such as Glastonbury, Glastonbury Tor, Wells where Hot Fuzz was filmed and Cheddar Gorge.  I did manage to get a bit of crochet time, sitting out in the sunshine on the bench provided by the campsite for each pitch.  I was being blinded by the radiance coming from my little pile of flowers as I made them and took this photograph of how the sun catches on Goldfingering.  So beautiful and sparkly.

I didn't take any additional work-in-progress photographs, finishing it on 18th June 2016, but I'm very happy with the finished item.

Pretty in Turquoise - Design LF433

I loved making that last shawl so much that I just have to make another one right now.  What colour though?   Oooh I have so many colours in all kinds of amounts but the main deciding factor is the main colour, the one that joins all the flowers together because you need 8 full reels of Goldfingering for that and with all but 7 colours now discontinued that makes it a little trickier.

What I did was to sort out what colours, other than gold or silver, that I have at least 8 full reels of or the equivalent of 8 full reels of and put these in little bundles and then looked at what colours were left and what would work with those main colours.  I have been able to sort out the colours for 6 more of these wonderful shawls in a good range of colour combinations.

I chose to use navy blue, white and turquoise for my next shawl.  The turquoise is the oldest thread, then the navy and the white is a new reel.  You can tell this by the way that it is wound onto the reel.

Initially I was unsure whether to use white for the centre with blue petals or blue for the centre with white petals but then nature provided the answer for me in the name of Anemone Coronaria.  Such a strikingly beautiful flower.

I started making this on 6th April and finished it on 19th April 2016.  Of course, with the thread being 80% viscose, 20% metallised polyester, the sun really does catch it wonderfully and makes it sparkle.  I hope the photo below in the top right of the group of four shows this off.

I love turquoise, it belongs to one of my favourite colour groups which are green-blues and blue-purples.

Sea Breeze Triangular Motif Shawl

At the time of writing this I am very much into Colinette yarns, especially their Tagliatelli and Giotto yarns.  This shawl is made using 6 x 100g skeins if Colinette Giotto in shade Sea Breeze.  Giotto is a super bulky ribbon type yarn and is 50% Cotton, 40% Rayon, 10% Nylon.

This shawl design is by Colinette yarns and was designed to be made with their Giotto yarn.  I am using a 6mm crochet hook and began this on 17th February.  I had trouble with this pattern as it just didn't read right and the wording used was confusing.  It also didn't help that the photographs in the booklet are all very catwalk/action style and there are no photos showing close ups of the motifs at all.  I finally figured it out after a few hours and then it was easy and quick to make.  Finishing this huge monster of a shawl on 27th February 2013.  I omitted the final row of motifs due to the sheer size of the thing already.

I don't want to make this again as it is so big and heavy and is really difficult to photograph successfully.