The Winter is Coming shawl: Stylecraft Blog Tour

Hi Everyone and a special welcome to anyone visiting my blog for the first time. I’m really pleased to be a stop-off point for the Stylecraft Blog Tour again this year and to have had the chance to work with the gorgeous new Bellisima yarn, which marries up perfectly with the soft colours of the Bambino released last year.

I chose to use the Summer Pudding pack of colours, which is a bit ironic as I’ve called the shawl I made from it Winter is Coming… but all will become clear.

First things first, though. If you want to enter the Stylecraft competition to win the Summer Pudding pack you need to click on the little widget at the bottom of this post. It takes you through the steps you need to do to enter today’s competition. It opens at 10am UK time 10th October 2018 and runs for 24 hours.

Secondly, I’m popping a few links to Ravelry where you can purchase the pattern. Its available at a 50% discount for today only. The pattern includes a photo tutorial showing how to do the special stitch I’ve used and a link to a private video tutorial showing how to do the stitch, how to start the shawl and how to change colour and carry your yarn through the striped sections to avoid a lot of extra ends to weave in.

Winter is Coming

It doesn’t seem like a year ago that I finished off and published my poncho pattern for last year’s blog tour. This year, I decided to also make something wearable… so here she is. A super big, super squishy shawl that is a meditation and a pleasure to work. Soothing, relaxing and lots of colour play… And you have it to wrap up in once you are done.

The colours, from left to right, are Purple Passion (Bellisima), Heather (Bambino), Clotted Cream (Bambino), Sage (Bambino) and Double Denim (Bellisima). The finished shawl uses most of the 500g and has a wingspan of over 2 metres. When winter does come, its going to be great to snuggle into but as October has been so sunny and mild, the photo below looks like its flapping around in midsummer…

So why Winter is Coming?

If you’ve watched some of my recent podcasts you may have heard me mention I’ve got quite into Game of Thrones and if you’ve watched the series you will know this is an oft-repeated phrase. After the gorgeous summer we’ve just had it may be that winter will come with a vengeance and I thought it would be lovely to be prepared. Here is me looking a bit daft (but the shawl looks good!).

The Winter is Coming pattern

When I was thinking about making this shawl I was still (and still am) in my ‘loving stripes’ frame of mind. But as well as enjoying the stripes and colour play I wanted to make a shawl that was also about meditation and relaxation.

Too often we have to fit our crochet, knitting and crafty relaxation into very busy lives and, with the big C word season coming up, making gifts can become a major feature of ‘leisure’ time. This shawl is easy to pick up and put down and every stitch is a meditation. A chance to soothe your frazzled mind by making gentle and repetitive stitches.

The stitch I’ve used is not one of the mainstream crochet favourites and while it might take a bit of practice to start with, its a great one for producing a sleek crochet fabric with a lovely drape and lots of squishability. As I’ll mention in a future podcast, its also a stitch that sets you up for becoming an expert in a fantastic advanced crochet technique… intrigued? Come along and subscribe to my YouTube channel.

The Winter is Coming shawl pattern is a paid pattern on Ravelry. For Blog Tour day, its half price and I will be giving some copies away as part of my 8000 subscriber celebration in Episode 60 of the podcast (which will also be about Yarndale 2018). I will also be gifting the pattern to all of my lovely Patrons, who subscribe to my Patreon space. Subscription slots are available at $2 or $6 per month so check it out if that’s something you would like to do.

Check out the rest of the Stylecraft Blog Tour

I take over the baton from the lovely Sarah of Annaboos House who produced a wonderful blog and colour blended cushion pattern yesterday and I’m handing over to Heather of The Patchwork Heart tomorrow.

All of the blogs are full of inspiration and if you want to check them all out, take a look at Jane’s blog at the end of the tour – she will be doing a round up of everything. You can also check out @stylecraftyarns on instagram and look back at the posts from each of the bloggers there.

Finally, here is that all-important link to the competition:

a Rafflecopter giveaway