Delicious crochet shawls: a book review

Hello everyone! I’m busy planning the next podcast, Episode 58 but wanted to update you about the new book of truly Delicious Crochet Shawls, written by one of my favourite UK crochet designers, Lisa Cook. Its available now on Amazon and it is amazing value – 21 gorgeous shawl patterns for £9.99 plus delivery. I was very lucky to be sent an early release copy a couple of weeks ago so I could take a look and review it and I also got a copy to give away on the podcast, so I’m adding it to my prize stash for our 8000 subscriber giveaway that’s coming up very soon.

I’ve met Lisa a couple of times and she’s based in the North East of the UK, so not far from me. You can read more about her journey into publishing her first book of crochet designs here. I’m the second blog in the tour that she’s been organising to celebrate the book’s publication and if you follow on throughout September you can tour some amazing blogs written by many of the crocheters and designers that I’ve admired for a long time and others that are completely new to me. Tomorrow its the turn of Sweet Sharna; I don’t know which shawl she’s making but from the list Lisa set up lots of the shawls are on bloggers’ to do lists so it should be interesting to see how they all emerge.

Later in the tour you can visit with Fiona of Sew Happy Creative, Sandra AKA Mobius Girl at Mobiusgirldesign.com, Susan of The Feltedbutton.com and many more throughout September.

Delicious Crochet Shawls: my review

Before I show you what I’m making I thought I would tell you more about the book. Its a soft back but its well bound with a firm and glossy cover that has a handy place keeper flap printed with all the stitch abbreviations and symbols that you need to follow the patterns. The pages inside also have a lovely sheen so I think this is a book that can be used many times and will still look like new.

Lisa’s theme with all of the shawl designs was to create shawls and wraps based around afternoon tea, cakes and all the treats. The names of the shawls are mouthwatering: Custard slice, Earl grey, Summer Fruit Pudding, Neapolitan ice… And Lisa has chosen the colour schemes to reflect the teatime treat she’s used as her inspiration but without compromising the style and wearability of the finished shawl.

One important point to note is that all of the Delicious Crochet Shawls are patterns written in US crochet terminology so if you are used to UK terms, you will need to check out the conversion information on the cover flap.

Here is just a taster of some of the shawls that I was really tempted by… First up, well is called MANGO but I loved the shape and the lacy detail…

Then the Earl Grey shawl really caught my eye…

And the Cafe Latte one looks beautiful… even if its not strictly teatime!

Neaopolitan ice is very pretty too…

As is Peaches and Cream…

My choice of a Delicious Crochet Shawl to make

It was a tough choice but I wanted to use something from my stash and to make a shape of shawl that I’d never done before. I had a chat with Lisa and although each pattern shows the yarn used to make the sample in the photograph, she wants us all to add our own interpretation to the shawls using our colour choices.

In the end, I couldn’t resist this one:

Honey Cake is a wrap rather than a shaped shawl but, intriguingly, its made using a half hexagon motif. The shape really appealed to me and it seemed to be the perfect project to use my lovely Titus yarn that I bought from BaaRamEwe when I was at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March (where I saw the lovely Lisa too).

The colours are quite difficult to photograph to show their true shades- the blue steely grey and the deep teal are showing up quite well but the darker blue is a much darker navy than it appears to be. I thought these colours would work really well together in Honey Cake.

The only trouble is I know I will be a bit short on metreage – the pattern calls for three skeins of 400 metres and my skeins are only 320 metres. So I’ve also wound off some natural grey and I’ll have to be inventive when I get to the lower segments of each hexagon.

Progress on my Honey Cake

September has snuck up a bit quickly so although I’ve started my Honey Cake I won’t have a finished shawl to show you as I’m second in the blog tour. I hope to finish it by the end and post some update pictures on Instagram so you can see how it turns out.

This was my first session and I completed two segments of the first half hexagon…

I am really liking the textured stitches and the way the colours are looking together:

This is how the third colour looks:

Because of my metreage issue, I’m now going to go on to the second half hexagon and make that to the same level and then weigh my yarn. I think that I will be short of the teal and the navy colours but maybe not the grey, so I’ll have to think how I will use my second grey to make sure the colours are balanced as the half hexagons grow through segments 4, 5 and 6. I also would like to have some navy for the border…

I’ll be showing progress on the podcast too so I hope you’ll join me there – a copy of Delicious Crochet Shawls will be on offer as a prize, probably in episode 59. If you want to subscribe you can find me on my YouTube Channel Crafternoon Treats Crochet.

I support my blog and podcast through my Etsy shop and Patreon space so please take a look at either or both if you are interested xxxxx Kathryn