Look What Alia and I Made..

Things have been quiet on the Blog front.. however, yet again.. don't hold me to this.. I've decided to try and keep it up to date with my projects, triumphs, disasters and general goings on.

If you don't know..I can't read a crochet pattern.. well..I couldn't.  I set myself a goal a few months ago to at least TRY to work from a written pattern.  There were a few hurdles to overcome, one being my dislike of numbers.. we don't get on, numbers and I.  The only numbers I understand are those that tell me what my bank account balance is.. can you see my problem here.. patterns have a lot of numbers in them! A written pattern doesn't have a lovely person on a video screen coaxing you along!

I have tried countless times to read a pattern, there are an insurmountable amount of printed patterns on my desk, bookmarked on the laptop, stashed in my Ravelry Library and every single one of them screams "Yeah right!" at me the moment I try to translate the mumbo jumbo into something resembling the pretty picture accompanying it.  I know the stitches, I know their abbreviations, but put them together in a line on a page and I'm a mess of hook and yarn before I get past "Begin By.."

Enter The Sunday Shawl a gorgeous piece of work by Alia Bland of The Little Bee. I LOVED this shawl the moment I saw it and figured that with the gorgeous rows of feature stitches it would be a good place to try and develop my pattern reading skills and my knowledge of different stitches.  Fortunately for me, the pattern comes with some very clear photo tutorials so that I had a good idea that I was headed in the right direction.

There I was with my new favourite yarn, Stylecraft Special DK, my 5.5mm hook and the pattern in front of me.. now at this point I have normally broken into a sweat.. but I was DETERMINED! (note the captial letters there.. I was DETERMINED!).

With my best 'you can do this' voice in my head I began.. hmm.. ok.. I had a chain slip knotted to form a circle.. good start!.. I had a first row, then a second.. oh good grief I'm up to row 4 with a correct stitch count.. it's onward and upward, literally from here!  Row 34 and I'm an expert!  Wait..here come the tricky bits.. Breathe.. insert hook.. listen to Alia, she knows what she's doing..

And she know's what she's doing.. and guess what .. SO DO I!   I did it, I created an entire article from a written pattern.. with numbers! Cue glitter cannons! Cue the Rocky theme.. no don't I hate that piece of music.. but you get what I mean..  I DID IT!

Alia and I have made two Sunday Shawls now.. well, ok so I've made them, sorry Alia, I'm taking the credit for my work here, but THANKS!