A Tale of Two Projects Begun

I recently started crocheting Rachy Newin's From the Ashes shawl, using two colors of Northern Bee Studio's Sturdy Sock (I have started with Tidal, which is delicious shades of grey and blue, then will border with Star Dust, which is a deeper palette of brown and purple. Shown below are the two cakes, without and with flash.) To be sure the shawl would block out nicely to show the pattern (since the variegated colorways obscure it somewhat), I sized up to an H hook, as opposed to the suggested F hook. Two sizes isn't a huge change, but I think it will be helpful.





I picked these up from Serendipity Fibers a few months ago without a specific pattern in mind, though I knew I wanted them for a shawl. They waited patiently as I started and stalled on multiple projects in heavier yarns, then after I finished my Amelia Raglan I wanted to stich something with lighter yarn and caked these two so I could attend the weekly Open Stitch on Thursday.

I have the pattern on my Kindle Fire, which makes it easy to zoom in or out as needed on the chart. I started with the written out pattern, but I almost always prefer to go from the chart. I'm currently about halfway through the Tidal cake (I need to take a more updated photo) so I check the pattern at each edge and at the center, then stitch the repeats without needing to look at the pattern. I'm not quite comfortable enough with it to follow a new program while crocheting this, but I've been rewatching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Netflix, and that's a good fit with this shawl.



I also have a more mindless project going - a cape scarf - basically a large wrap with arm slits. I saw the Saddlebrook Cape Scarf by Two of Wands, but decided to change yarns, to Caron Latte Cakes, and to skip the patterning Alexandra used, since I am using two striped colorways: Blackberry (left over from my bell sleeved pullover) and Rose Scented. I used a foundation half double crochet to start, stitching until I decided it was long enough, and then I'm just stitching rows of hdc back & forth. I originally alternated rows of the two colorways, but frogged it and decided to use one cake until it runs out (I started with Rose Scented, since it has bolder colors), then switch to the other colorway, and continue like that back & forth until it is the size I want. I'm guessing I'll use 3 cakes, but I have 2 of each, plus some partial cakes leftover from the pullover. I'm about halfway through the first cake, so right now it looks like a really long scarf.

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