A river runs through it

This is my version of a pattern called the ‘Rivers shawl‘ by Rich Textures Crochet:

It’s a relatively straightforward pattern to make, but doesn’t appear so from the instructions! I bought the pattern from Etsy in the hope that it would contain a chart, which it didn’t, so for those of you who would find one helpful here is mine:

The pattern repeat is 16 stitches, plus one extra stitch at each end of the scarf. I started with a chain of 226, to make 225 stitches. This is 14 pattern repeats plus 1 (trust me – this works!) At the beginning and end of each row I just added one extra stitch with no chain before it, and turned. This is not quite what the instructions tell you to do, but it does keep it simple!

The blue scarf is in Drops Big Merino, and the autumn colourway is a West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley aran. Both are now discontinued. I used a 6mm hook and the scarves took just over 2 100g balls of yarn each. They are 9 ‘waves’ wide, 14 ‘waves’ long and measure 156 x 24 cm.

June challenge – Moebius strip cowl

Have you heard of ‘pennies per hour of pleasure’? It’s an initiative set up to raise funds for Medecins sans Frontieres for their charitable work. Designers donate a knitting or crochet pattern, and people who use the pattern donate a sum in proportion to the pleasure they got from making it. The pattern I chose is the Moebius cowl by Laura Cracknel, and this is how it turned out:

The cowl on the on the left in Drops Big Delight colour 16 ‘Blackberry’ and the one on the right is made in West Yorkshire Spinners Fusions Aran colour 862 ‘Autumn mix’, both on a 6mm hook. I started with a chain of 90 stitches and each cowl weighs 75g.

October challenge – Taiga shawl

I actually started this way back in the summer holidays, and was taught the pattern by my friend Clare.

The pattern is called ‘Taiga’ by mijo crochet and the edging pattern is called ‘Royal Starling’ (see here)

It is made in Drops big delight which is a self striping 100% wool aran weight yarn. I chose ‘Blackberry’ and used a 10mm hook for the main body of the shawl, and an 8mm hook for the very last row of the edging.

The finished shawl is 200 x 100 cm and took 5 x 100g of yarn.