This is the second shawl that I've made from Karen Whooley's latest book A Garden of Shawls so I thought I was in a good place to provide a review. I also contacted Karen to see if she would be able to offer a giveway for my blog readers and she agreed to provide a electronic version so that I could make it available internationally (I know I have regular readers/listeners in the US, UK and Australia, probably other places too).
I wasn't going to buy this book, I was being strong, because even though I wanted it I am sort of in denial about my great love of crochet shawls. Anyway, it was meant to be because I was listening to the amazing Marly Bird interview Karen Whooley and there was a giveaway of the book at the end and I won! I was SO amazed! Listen to the interview and you can hear me laughing hysterically. And so the book arrived and I've made two shawls and there are more that need to be made. I am beyond helping and I don't really care.
I love that fact that this book is self-published and also that Karen has used yarn entirely produced by indie dyers. All twelve of the shawl designs are lace or fingering weight. But Karen does have advice for using heavier weight yarn too if that is your jam. Every shawl has full written instructions and is charted and also there's a schematic of what it looks like so you know the shape of it. I think that's quite important because I'm definitely drawn to particular shapes of shawls - I have my favorites. The designs are inspired by Italian lace and are absolutely gorgeous.
I made Violaceous first because it called for lace weight yarn and there are 8 pages of charts for it, every single one of the 158 rows is charted. I was kind of testing myself to see if I could make it or if I'd go crazy in the process. But I actually loved it and couldn't put my hook down when making it. All that hooking of crochet socks in lightweight yarns has really paid off. And when I wore it to the yarn store where I work everyone thought it was knitted (they are all knitters so that's a massive compliment for them) and I wore it both days to Houston Fiber Fest and loads of people were asking me who the designer was...
The second shawl I made was Foliole. I was drawn to this one because the shapes looked like mitochondria cell drawings (I was helping my 7th grader study for her end of year finals). I know that's a really odd reason for a stitch design to appeal to you. But anyway it is my latest shawl so it's the one I love the best and I'll be wearing it every day until I made the next one (which is already on my hook). I'm a SSH - serial shawl hooker.
To enter the giveaway to be in with a chance to win an electronic version you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook and leave a comment or send me a message on Ravelry. I'm craftyescapism in all these places. You've got a week to do this. I'll randomly select a winner on October the 16th. Good luck and have a wonderful week everybody!
Listen to the Audio Podcast
