Good guess Christina, but nope, my mystery project isn’t felted. This is the Crochet Half Moon Shawl from Lion Brand in Jiffy. The color is Pearl Grey*. I wanted to make it in a darker color but (surprise, surprise) JoAnn only had six color choices and only two in the amount I needed.
I saw this pattern first in the Spring/Summer Lion Brand catalogand put it on the back burners as a project I would like to complete. (I’m sure there’s a snazzy acronym for this but it’s lost on me.) Anyway, then I saw the Half Moon Shawl CAL on Crochetville a few weeks ago, and suddenly I had to try it out. It’s amazing the motivation you can acquire from a CAL by the way. So somehow I thought that it only required three balls and now I am stuck. I need to buy another ball of Jiffy or frog it. I’ll probably keep it and pick up another ball when I get off island again, whenever that is.
There are a million different versions of this shawl now. The one I really wanted to make used Lion Brand Romance. I liked the lime color in the picture and the mohair-ish look, but Jiffy was on sale and Romance wasn’t carried at that store.
Also there is a version that uses a new yarn called Cupcake. I’m partial to bright colors so I’m excited to lay eyes on the actual yarn. It looks like a slightly sturdier version of Bernat Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes, the yarn I used for the Chromium Star Blanket. They are both four ply and, from what I can tell, have the same spinning technique. I had trouble with the Sweet Stripes yarn splitting, but to be fair this was probably exacerbated by the fact that I frogged the blanket lots before settling on the structure. Say what you want about RHSS, but you can frog that acrylic a million times and still look fine incorporated in a FO.
In all, I liked this project. It’s an easy project, but not sc-square boring. I hear there are some corrections to the pattern, but I wasn’t looking and didn’t see any. Plus, it’s warm, kinda soft and pretty. I can’t complain.
*Was anyone else ever taught that gray is the correct spelling for the color? I noticed that Lion Brand spells it with an “E”. I even looked it up on Merriam-Webster. Although they don’t make and distinctions definition wise, they list grey as a variant and the definition is under gray. This whole gray/grey topic reminds me that the television show Grey’s Anatomy changed the “A” to an “E” from the book Gray’s Anatomy. (I didn’t notice this by the way. A Grey’s Anatomy enthusiast pointed it out.) I guess that it’s sort of like through and thru: same meaning, different spelling. Is it wrong to prefer gray over grey? Hmm.
*That’s cool* a random fact
The Chinese see a “toad in the moon” as opposed to the “man in the moon”. When there is an eclipse, folklore says that the toad is trying to swallow the moon.
Oooh, I love it! Its beautiful!!
I’m going to make a shawl for my grandmother for Christmas. I’ve been debating between the Half Moon Shawl and the Seraphina Shawl. How long were you working on this, if you don’t mind my asking?
I was taught that it is spelled “gray.” My brain is confused about it…sometimes I spell it with an “a”, sometimes with an “e.” LOL
I made it over two days, but that doesn’t include the border. You could probably make it in three evenings, give or take.
I looked over the Seraphina Shawl and it seems that both patterns call for a size N hook and bulky weight yarn. I would think that the Half Moon Shawl would go a bit faster since it doesn’t wrap around the front like the Seraphina Shawl does.
P.S. I’m glad someone else is in on gray with an “A”.
I love your shawl – that pattern is on my to do list. I really like the pale grey colour (in England we always spell it with an ‘e’)
Thanks for letting me know about the shawl! I love N hooks. It is bulky and a little hard to get started with, but man, do the projects work up fast!!
That pattern is fantastic for the shawl, I had a hard time stepping up to this difficulty level but the photos really help me understand the pattern.
I am trying to do the cupcake pattern but I am having trouble understanding it. I am still new to crocheting but I really want to do this one. Can you email me some help? Thank you