A "Thank You" Scarf for Mrs S

It's the end of the school year (Yeayyyy!!) and I like giving a small gift to my son's teachers in their Foundation Phase years.  Last year I went a bit wild and crocheted SEVEN gifts - but then we were leaving the preschool after six beautiful years.

My youngest started gr 1 and he had a lovely teacher.  Mrs S is the old-fashioned type you want your child to have in their first year of schooling, properly teaching them their ABC's and counting, bonds and phonics, and he's  learnt and grown really well under her guidance.

I took note through the year that she is a scarf-wearing women.

You know, the type we hookers like.  

And blue is her colour.  

And luckily I met Yuli this year, and got to know her very beautiful pattern named the Thank You Scarf...so it was just the matter of finding the right blue, which came in the form of Vinnis Colours Serina in Pale Sky.

Bought the Pale Sky beauties en route to our Get Hooked! get-together atThe Blue Shed

With all the beautiful blues available in Vinni's range, I don't think there's a prettier one than Pale Sky!  It is just darn difficult to photograph, because just as with the real sky, the colour seems to keep changing. 

The Thank You Scarf is a pretty, easy pattern, and came out perfectly with my nr 4 hook.

I could easily sit and hook while watching the fun of learning-to-sail

 My yarn ran out just one row short of a full repeat, but I left it at that as it was also a natural end. 

The yarn's softness and my loose tension resulted in a light, softer-that-soft scarf that I would have loved to keep!

Trying it on quickly

The motif blocked our beautifully.  I would love to have one myself! I think I might make a five motif repeat then. 

And then it was done and time to wrap it up.  

(I posted this photo on my IG feed - where I took my photos of Anything On A Hanger :-)
I remove the bottom portrait, hang my item from the nail, get as close as possible while still keep the top portrait and door out of the frame - and that's my backdrop!)

My little one proudly delivered, together with the five roses and packet of Marie biscuits he insisted on ;-)

Aaaaaw

Happy Christmas, mam!

Elise Shawl V2.1...yeaaaaah

Ahem

Yeees, it had to happen, I can pretend all I want BUT.

I was Very Happy with my Elise Shawl V2.

Even though acrylic, the Lollipop worked very nicely, it looked great, I was so happy with the result and i already had a short opportunity to wear it as intended.  

Buuuut somewhere deep inside, I was still conjuring up pictures...wow, it would have been lovely if I could have made it with Rowan Tweed.  That was even before I saw Gotland yarn, and then WYS's Bluefaced Leicester...I stopped surfing right there (birthday lists...birthday angels...).  Locally we have Nurturing Fibers, of which I ordered, but the colour Driftwood was a bit different than I expected - I will use it for another long-since-earmarked pattern).

In the end, the answer was right here all the time  (can you here Survivor belting it out in the background??).

An ooooold favourite.

Right here, in the stash.  

Not one or two balls...

16.

SIXTEEN.

16 x 50g = 800g

Easily more than I have used.  Easily enough for another go at this pattern. 

Perfect colour and texture for this pattern.

Of course!  What else? Colour Clouds.

I've already started working.

We're not talking about any other WIPS, noooo, especially not the two that have to be finished within two weeks...

MIL claimed Elise V2 :-)

Elise shawl V.2

And yeay! V.2 of the Elise Shawl is done.  

It is huge.  It is half a blanket.  It is a triangular blanket.  

Which is what I wanted - something to permanently leave in the car for those days when you spend 2-3 hours between school and judo, hurrying up and waiting for the half-hours between the beginnings and endings of the boys' extra-murals and suddenly, as it does here,  it turns cold.

And you have nothing. 

But now, now I can get my huge Elise Shawl in the car and wrap myself in it.

This thing gobbled up 626 g of Lollipop Vezuvo Aran (a very, very nice acrylic. I am a total sucker for natural yarns, but when I have something i the colour thath I want , and it is manmade, but the similar in wool/tweed costs almost 9 times that much...and you have to factor in the 626g...then I happily use the acrylic.  If and when a real wool in this colour with this one black fibre rocks up, and it doesn't cost R92/50g, then we can talk).

It also really hurt my arm.  I'm using an obscene amount of Reparil gel on from the shoulder right past my elbow, and I go to sleep while Mr Diclofenac does its thing :-0

That happens when I work too much, too long over a short period of time!

On Instagram I shared some photos of Where I Worked, because it went Everywhere with me:

Starting life at the dojo

Growing a bit at the wheel-alignment center

(And here Blogger is doing That Thing it sometimes does, hence the huge space...)

It went on a road trip to Oudtshoorn, where it spent some time on the dashboard of the car, on a very hot day...

...resulting in a custom grip on my Prym 6

My MIL took one look at the pattern and said she has something similar.

Wouldyabelieveit?! 

Made by my husband's grandmother when MIL was a young 17, sometime around the early '60s

There's a tiny difference - 6DCs in the cluster where the Elise has 5, but that is about all. 

And guess what?  Just a couple of days later, I spotted this lady at the entrance to the veggie shop.  I chatted her up right there to take a look and showed her photos of mine.

She said she would really like a purple one

As it is acrylic, I couldn't really block, plus it is too big to try and steam block, so I just rinsed the shawl and hung it out to dry, pegged in a straight line.

There were so many questions about "what is it there at the bottom point of the shawl??"
It's my supersize  pegs, bought at the R5 shop and usually used to peg jeans :-) Here it added weight to pull the point down, without stretching it too much.

I can't wait to try this shawl out.  It's ready, in the car.  But, as luck would have it, we've just come through the hottest October ever recorded in South Africa - and on the rainy days this week, we weren't out in the cold. 

PS - Behind the scenes - this is what it really looked like :-D

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It's already dark outside when my son takes a quick shot so I can show my sis! 

I take my pose in front of the stationary cupboard in the homework corner, still sporting my beach shorts of earlier that afternoon.

:-)

Ha ha!!