Finito

Many years ago a young woman and a young man, unknown to each other, sailed out of Southampton on a ship destined for Peru and on this long journey they met and fell in love. Having arrived in Peru, they lived and worked in areas that were separated by many miles. However, as soon as they were able to make arrangements, they married and began their life together. Almost a year later their first child was born; a daughter; and that daughter was me. I grew up speaking English with my parents and other adults but all the children I knew spoke Spanish so I conversed with them in Spanish.

 

We returned to Northern Ireland when I was five years old, where I continued to speak English to grown-ups and Spanish to children, including my cousins. This was a bit of a problem, especially for school, so I was told to speak only English. The result is that I barely know any Spanish now. However, when we were children, we often had the odd Spanish word or phrase thrown into the conversation. When we were going out we got ‘vamos’ – ‘let’s go’. And when my mother finished something she’d been knitting or crocheting she declared ‘finito’ – ‘finished’.

 

This is my Blossom Shawl and I declare it ‘finito’.
 

I wasn’t happy with the way the dangly bits were attached to the shawl at only one point so I removed them. I tried a different method of attaching them but still wasn’t happy. In the end I joined each of the coloured circles at three points, resulting in a more robust join that also made the shawl keep its shape better round the outside edge. At first I thought the coloured bits were rather random but once the shawl was blocked I was happy enough with them. What do you think? Would the shawl have been better without them?

Here's a close-up of the motif and how it's joined to the ones round it.

 

Some more photos just because I took them every way I could think of!

This shawl was started back here and here and worked on really just in the car. It's been finished for some time now but I haven't had the chance to show you it. The pattern is from this book but with several tweaks to make it either easier to do or more to my liking. For a start, the pattern says to make all the motifs separately and sew them together at the end. I joined mine as I went along. Also, a big diversion from the pattern was that I used DK yarn (and a 4 mm hook) instead of 4-ply.

 

 Anyway, the little coloured bits round the outside of the shawl didn’t require much in the way of yarn. The balls are 100g and I probably used only 20g, at the most, of each colour. What to do with the left over yarn? Make a little cushion to match the shawl, of course! I made a Granny square using the Sherbert and Parchment. Then, working on only one side of the Granny square, I crocheted rows (back and forth) of half trebles in the Sherbert colour, making one side of the cushion back. On the penultimate row I made seven one-stitch button holes. I made this part of the back approximately two thirds the width of the Granny square. I repeated the process, using Parchment, on the opposite side of the Granny square. Being rather averse to sewing, I crocheted right round the whole piece; just one row of double crochets using Parchment. After folding the piece so it was in the correct position/shape to make a cushion cover, with part of the Sherbert back overlapping the Parchment back, I crocheted (using double crochet again) a row that joined the two open sides of the cushion cover and also made a ‘seam’ across where the Granny square changed to become the half treble rows for the backs. That is really, really hard to describe without showing you how it was done. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures as I went along! Anyway, to finish off I crocheted right round again making little picots. Then I sewed on the tiny buttons and there it is – finito!

 

 

Unfortunately I still haven't been able to find a small enough cushion pad to fill the cushion.

By the way, I use UK crochet terms throughout. For US readers, our half treble is the same as a US half double crochet and our double crochet is the same as a US single crochet.

Here are the statistics for the shawl:

Blossom shawl measures 47" x 50" approximately

Used Stylecraft Special DK yarn - 100% acrylic - 700g white
Plus approximately 20g Sherbert and 20g Parchment - also Stylecraft Special DK yarn

4mm hook

The shawl is made up of 6 rows of 9 motifs with rows of 8 motifs between each row of 9 - so a total of 5 rows of 8 motifs. Look at the pictures at the start to see how the motifs are laid out.

I used the first 2 rows of the motif pattern (my tweaked version) to make the coloured attachments.

I hope you like the shawl; it would be lovely to hear what you think. I have some more things finished recently that I will also show you soon.

Take care and enjoy your day wherever you are.