I touched on these Shawls briefly in Episode 32 of my podcast but I thought it would be interesting to look at them in more detail. Why? Because they were both made in the same colourways of my yarn; one was knitted and the other was crocheted! Its fascinating to see how the same colourways look and feel – so this is a Tale of two shawls!

I’ve seen a lot of discussion on various social media platforms and blogs about how to guess what a beautiful skein of hand dyed yarn will look like when worked up. A lot of the excitement is taking that little journey yourself as you work with the yarn but its also really nice to be able to follow a yarn through and get some good clues about how colourways that you see in the future could work up.

I dyed these two colourways last year… the grey is a cool grey, which I called Pewter, which has a very faint hint of cold purple within it. Its not a solid; it has gentle tones of lighter and darker grey. Its currently still available in my Etsy shop.

This contrasts with Pretty in pixels, a bright, rainbow colourway bursting with jewel tones… This is no longer available but I might dye up something similar in the future.

I gave a skein of each colour to two friends of mine, both on separate occasions and neither friend knows the other, both living miles apart.

Tale of two shawls: Amaroo and Pure Joy

Sue chose to make the Amaroo shawl, designed by Deanne of Addydae Designs. This was a shawl that I featured in my podcast Episode 22 Shawltacular. It is a striking looking shawl and Sue’s crochet skill has created a large, drapy and warm wrap…

You can see how the Pretty in pixels really pops out against the grey. At first glance, it looks like the shawl is split between one colourway and the other, with just a few pops of rainbow in the grey section. But look closer and you can see that the rainbow is also punctuated by grey… Although this part of the shawl is still an explosion of colour, the grey really helps to reign it in and prevent it from looking too overwhelming.

The second in this tale of two shawls is the Pure Joy shawl designed by Joji Locatelli and made by Nicola, who is @creative_explorer on instagram. This is a longer and narrower shawl with an incredible wingspan – it must be over 7 feet.

This sort of random colourway, with many different colours running through the skein creates a very similar effect in knitting as in crochet, which was a surprise to me. Neither shawl shows signs of unsightly pooling (some people like that, some don’t) and, in both, the grey works really well as a restraining influence.

Both shawls are absolutely beautiful and having had the chance to keep them both for a little while to compare and show them has been a real treat. Both are warm and incredibly snuggly. Bearing in mind that my yarn is 100% British wool, non-superwash and woollen spun, both shawls feel perfect around my neck after blocking.

While the knitted shawl definitely has more drape, the knitted fabric is less sturdy than the crocheted fabric but both look really good on. As the wool is woollen spun, it is also very unlikely to pill, so it will be interesting to see how both of these shawls wear. I’ll have to give Pure Joy back next week but I’m very lucky to be able to keep Amaroo for a little while longer so she may pop up in the podcast and even at Fibre East or Yarndale at the Crafternoon Treats stand!

xxxx Kathryn

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