Blowtorch Crafts

I have started a crochet shawl while waiting for the courage to start Francis’ sleeves.

Too bad I didn’t really check how many of these squares I’ll need before I started. 55 and 11 half-squares. One square takes a little over half an hour to crochet – hopefully it will be faster after some practice.

It is lovely, though. Pattern from Drops, in norwegian and in english.

I have started to knit a shawl in Bånsull’s Merino wool/silk mix. I unashamedly copied one my friend’s mother made for her, a simple pattern of one increase at the beginning of each round.

The going is slow, with 3 mm needles and my arms tiring easily, but it will be lovely when it is finished :) I plan to add a crocheted edging if there is enough yarn at the end.

…but this is for my grandmother. Her birthday is on sunday, so I hope she will like this:

I took the photo on the train, but you get the idea even if it is a little blurry, right?

I frogged the black one a few posts down, because I wanted to try and make one with beads. It is really lovely, but it takes a lot more time. The beads make the knots fiddly to do, so I get impatient.

I’ve started a new shawl in Vivaldi Mohair. I had planned to use the whole skein, but the yarn is so thin! I have not gotten very far yet, but I suspect the finished shawl will be a triangular blanket by the time I’m finished…

This is what I am working on at the moment:

It’s a shawl with a small fold-down collar in a lovely alpaca yarn, which I bought on sale from garn.dk, and I am really pleased with it. It’s so soft!

Speaking of alpaca, I have of course bought yarn in Russia, along with a few buttons. The lady in the shop got awfully impatient with me, though, so I only got a few:

I have also finished a little hat, in black silk alpaca with a picot edge: