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Sweet Pea Shawl

14_shawl_14_ul 14_shawl_34_ul 14_shawl_33_ul 14_shawl_19_ul 14_shawl_17_ul 2015 226/365

Do you remember a few weeks ago when I bought a sundress with wide blue and white stripes and decided to knit myself a lightweight mustard-colored sweater to wear with it? The outfit was going to be perfect for an event I had coming up. I loved the combination of colors and styles.

As it turned out, I didn’t have as much of the mustard yarn as I thought I did, and I ended up scrapping the sweater. Boooooo.

Undeterred, I decided to try the same sweater in a dusty pink that I had plenty of. It was no mustard yellow, but it would do.

Thing is, it was an acrylic wool blend, and it just looked and felt warm, no matter how airy I tried to keep my knitting. Eventually I just decided that I would never want to wear that heavy yarn with a sundress in the summer and I took apart that sweater, too.

At this point, I started re-thinking the sweater idea and thought maybe a lacy cotton shawl would work. I picked out a pattern, ordered some pale pink yarn online, and waited for it to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

It took so long that I resigned myself to shopping my closet for a fine gauge cotton sweater I already owned, and when the yarn finally did arrive, I prepared to stick it in the basement for some other use.

I had five days before my event. No way could I crochet a shawl in five days!

Neil thought I should try it anyway, so I printed out my pattern, wound up my yarn balls, and crocheted a row of 20 shells in an hour. Well, that was encouraging!

I suppose there is no suspense to this story, since you can see by the images that I did, indeed, crochet a shawl in five days. Actually, I did it in four!

You may also see from the images that I didn’t wear the striped dress that started the whole thing in the first place. The more I tried it on, the less the fit appealed to me. I decided I would wear one of my eyelet sheath dresses instead. I have two. They were both white when I bought them, but I dyed one a minty blue green.

2015 227/365 Flower pin without shawl Flower pin with shawl

I wore the dyed one for my photo shoot, and the white one for my niece (aka my new goddaughter 😍)’s Christening.

And, since I had an extra day, I also crocheted a flower, attached a button to the front and a pin to the back, and used it to hold the shawl closed during the ceremony.

It was a ninety degree day on Sunday, so I ditched the shawl as soon as we left the church, and just wore the flower by itself for the rest of the day.

I love love love the way this shawl came out! I also love how quickly it happened. Instant Gratification is my middle name, you know. I don’t dress up very often, but I don’t think I need to be fancy to wear this. I can totally see it working just fine with jeans and a tee shirt on a crisp Fall night. My only hesitation is the color.

The pink was perfect for the occasion, but as a rule I don’t wear much pink. I’d probably be more likely to get more use out of it if it were a darker color. I’m considering throwing it in a dye pot, but I haven’t decided. Maybe I’ll just whip up another one in a darker color instead!

THE DETAILS

Pattern: Sweet Pea Shawl by Amie Hirtes

Yarn: Berroco Weekend in Tea Rose

Hook: I (5.5mm)

Modifications: Eliminated fringe

Notes for next time: Be careful when slip stitching along the sides of the shells. I did mine too tightly, and as a result, one edge of the shawl was not able to stretch as much during blocking as the other. I ended up with a crooked triangle. Not a big deal, but something worth avoiding next time!

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Posted on 2 Comments

2 thoughts on “Sweet Pea Shawl

  1. Beautiful, beautiful shawl! Love it!

  2. […] is the Sweet Pea shawl, which I have made once before. I liked that previous one, but I never, ever wear it. For one thing, it’s pink, and I just […]

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