Team #RBTL
A long long time ago (well ok about half a year ago or so) a pattern was released, that in conjunction with an amazing new yarn, took the knitting world by storm. Yes the knitting world. (Don’t worry you are still on a crochet blog) The pattern was Read Between the Lines, a shawl by Tammy Canava-Soldaat and the yarn was Scheepjes Whirl* a lovely long slow colour changing cotton acrylic blend that is so lovely to work with and comes in cakes with a whopping 1km of yarn. This shawl uses 2 different colour ways and they blend together and make magic. It was genius. Well done Tammy. But it’s knitted so I admired from afar. And then the internet spoke up. People cried to the heavens and asked for a crochet version. Little did they know their dreams were being granted behind their backs.
Maybe you saw in my last post that I had been testing patterns for a few scheepjes designers. Tammy knew I enjoyed testing and so got in touch asking if I was interested in testing her crochet version. Sure. No problem. Just 2km of yarn. I’ll love it. I think we spent about 50 million hours drooling over colour combos. The secret to simply pick your favourite colours and go. I started with these:-
You can see I’m all about the purples and blues.
I finally whittled it down to 3 all of which I still love but well. I’ve always been a purple girl at heart so I finally settled on Blackcurrant Squeeze Me and Lavenderlicious
It was a fabulous test project. I was working on it with new crochet friend of mine, Niamh of Woolly Yarn Chicken and we had such fun and there was great banter in our wee test group. We shared our progress and raced each other to the colour changes. No one had even heard of #fuzzbuzz but that phrase definitely came out of our excitement at seeing that next wee piece of fluff pop out of the cake meaning that the next colour change was fast approaching. Due to some crazy circumstances my wee test version was to be sent to Scheepjes HQ as the actual sample for photography. And oh my goodness the photographer did an AMAZING job. Wow!
I know that’s what it really looks like but I couldn’t get it to look anything like that on camera myself. It is gorgeous. And I get a wee kick out of knowing I made it, every time I see the pattern photos. Even better when I see people choose ‘my’ colours for their own version. It really makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
The Read Between the Lines was to get a re-release as a Scheepjes After Party pattern booklet alongside the brand new Crochet Between the Lines . And for added fun and excitement Tammy is hosting a Make-a-long starting today (well yesterday now haha) Check her blog for all the details. I’ve been hanging around the Facebook groups too, hopefully being helpful.
Anyway. The whole point of this blogpost is to tell you that I am being held to ransom and being forced to knit by a few well meaning friends. HELP! As knitting is fairly new to me I thought you may like to share my journey too. I haven’t poked an eye out yet so there is hope. I have even bought fancy circular interchangeable cabled pointy sticks. (Oh they are lovely. Chiagoos to the educated. Made from surgical grade steel with a lovely non-annoying cable) I have practised my knitting and purling and practised the pattern with some DK yarn and then suddenly Day 1 was here and my whirls hadn’t even arrived (well ok I only ordered them 2 days ago so it’s my own fault) and then I realised I had bought these fancy needles but hadn’t even done my gauge square. Eek. So I have started. It took me most of the evening but I think I’m on the right track and my whirls have arrived. I’m going to practise a wee bit more with my gauge swatch, just to get used to the yarn and then it’s time to start.
I’m very excited. I’ll share my colours with you tomorrow and please check back here regularly for updates. It’s going to be beautiful. (Really it will be)
If you are also new to knitting, or not, come and join me. We can share tips and progress. I’ll be sharing plenty of photos on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. I’d love it if you shared too.
You can pick the patterns up on Ravelry or from your Scheepjes dealer. All the links, info and super handy tips are in Tammy’s blog
*Affiliate Links, they cost you no more but help fund my yarn addiction xxx
