Carmen's Shawl CAL

[Yarnluver]

A few months ago I made the Eva's Shawl (which despite its simplicity was a little challenging) and I loved its shape and the way it drapes so I decided that in the near future I should like to make the "sister shawl" which has a similar shape but different stitching. A few days ago I was at a Dollar Tree and bought several balls ofthe discontinued Bernat's Haven (in "Shamrock", a pale green), which is a #5 bulky yarn. I immemdiately thought my best friend would like that color and thought this yarn would be suitable to make her this shawl for an early Christmas present.

 

I got started right away but had difficulty understanding the directions so I made some mistakes and when I was about 20 rows along I realized the shape was way off so I began to frog. I was not too happy either with the way the "V" stitch looked using an "M" hook so I decided to frog it entirely so I could start again with an "N" hook but along the way I became disappointed and began looking for another design. However, the only other one I liked was the "Seraphina Shawl"( which would probably be even more challenging) but it requires more yarn than I have so in the end Ithought I should not be a quitter and decided to stick with the Carmen Shawl. I then figured it would be a lot more fun if others joined me in this, I would also love to see other versions of this using different yarns and colors.

 

Soooo.... Is anyone interested? (PLEASE say YES!). The pattern is found here. If you click on the pic it will take you to the blog author's Flickr album where there is another version of this shawl and pics of the shawl in progress.

[Super Granny]

the shawl looks interesting... I'll join you but it is going to take me a little bit to finish up some things I have to get done...

[Yarnluver]

Heh, heh, involved in one thing too many? That was me up until August, my enthusiasm slowed down a bit and recently I've only had a couple of things at a time. Ever since I came back to crochet earlier this year I've noticed two interesting things most of us have in common: the constant "need" for more yarn and working on several projects at the time!

 

I have nothing but time so I'll be here waiting, hope it won't take you too long, it's lonely here so far...

[_Stacy_]

Hmmm...this one looks interesting too. I haven't decided if I'm going to do this one or Eva's shawl. I found 3 balls of some Japanese mohair yarn (the labels are ripped off, of course) and I think they would work wonderfully with either shawl, now just to decide which one??

[Yarnluver]

Originally, I was going to start an Eva's Shawl CAL because I have 2 more colors of Paton's Lacette so If you decide to make that one let me know and I can start one too.

 

P.S. OR start your own CAL and I'll join it, how's that?

[_Stacy_]

Ok, I am in for this one, but I have to finish my pineapple shawl first, which by my estimates should take until the weekend. Will let you know as soon as I finish so that I can get started here!

[Yarnluver]

Great! See you then. Meanwhile I've started something else so I won't be too far ahead. I think I'll take a pic of what I've done so far...

[_Stacy_]

Ok, I've decided to put my pineapple shawl on the backburner for a little while. My hubby's aunt is a flashy person and I think she would like the yarn I will be using for this shawl much better, so I will probably make this one for her and give the other one to my mom or MIL. I will start it when I have a free few minutes this weekend.

[Yarnluver]

I tried starting something else the other day to wait for someone else to join me but didn't have any luck with that and ended frogging it all, and today I was alone so I sat and worked on this shawl while watching a couple of movies and before I knew it I reached a proper length for my friend (even though I had to frog about 3 times due to distractedly missing a stitch here and there. Now all it needs is the border but I'm going to wait until I talk to her and ask her if she'd prefer that I add a fringe or just wants it the way it's in the pic.

 

I must say that once I figured out where I'd gone wrong at first this was very easy to make and since I used a large hook (size N with a bulky yarn) it worked up pretty fast even though I'm not, so this is ideal for when there's little time to make a nice gift. So to those of you who were afraid to start one more project, don't be, this will be out of your hands in no time!

 

I'll try to take a picture tomorrow "as is" so I can post it here.

[_Stacy_]

Wow, you whipped that up in no time at all! I am going to start mine while hubby is watching football today- it's on until 4:30, so as long as my kids cooperate, I'll be set! LoL

[stormdrac]

I have a couple of shawls going at the moment but more projects don't hurt...I will see if my enormous stash has any yarn that jumps out at me for this or if I should go across the street from work tomorrow to the LYS and pick up something yummy.

[Yarnluver]

Wow, you whipped that up in no time at all! I am going to start mine while hubby is watching football today- it's on until 4:30, so as long as my kids cooperate, I'll be set! LoL

I can't wait to hear if you got started after all or not. I'm getting ready to take a picture of my yet to be finished shawl.

[Yarnluver]

OK, here's a couple of pics of my WIP, I haven't heard from my friend yet about the border...

 

Here's the front:

And here's the back.

 

[_Stacy_]

Oooh that is gorgeous!! Great job.

I started mine but do not like the way it is turning out. My yarn is too thin- it is lace-weight, which is why I had planned to try the Eva's shawl with it. It is a pretty dark color with bright pink/purple mixed in so I'm not sure what other color I could pair it with to make it a bit thicker. I think I will frog it and try Eva's shawl, instead.

[Yarnluver]

Thanks, that encourages me to think my friend is going to like it!

 

I think I mentioned already that I have in my stash Patons Lacette in two other colors. After my mother passed away in August some other members were trying to encourage me to open a CAL for the Eva's Shawl since I made one already that turned out pretty good (see it below, I was just going to give the link to my post in Show-and-tell but my two shawl threads disappeared...), but for a good while I just didn't feel like doing much. If you go ahead with that I can join you as soon as I finish at least one of the three hats I'm making (all in different stages...) I also started a Christmas doily a few days ago and haven't added a single stitch the past two days.

 

Now, the Eva's Shawl can take a good while because of the type of yarn used, it really drove me nuts because if you miss a stitch on any of the 2 rows of dc's it messes up the eyelet row and I had to "frog" a lot, which is murder with that type of yarn. But that shawl is really a better idea for a CAL than the Carmen's, I just thought it was probably going to be tricky too but was pretty surprised to see how fast it worked up.

 

 

[Debbi-a1]

These were such beautiful shawls I decided to start this last night and got confused on Row 2 (yes all ready).

 

Someone please help me.

 

On row 1 at the end you do the V st and the 2 trc, which gives you a total of 3 trc (one from the v st and 2 at the end).

On row 2 it asys to ch 3 then tr intot he bas of the turning ch. Then it says to tr into next tr then v-st... so do you skip the other tc?

It doesn't clearly state to do that , work a tr in the first or second tr, and you do after the v-st? because it says to "tr into next tr"... with no skiping stitches

So do you skip the 2 trc before the v st and then work something like the v-st increase in the first v-stitch?

Or do you skip tr before the v-stitch but not after:think? Really confused here...

I hope that made sense... If not maybe I could clarify...

Debbi

[Yarnluver]

I'm kind of glad to see that I wasn't the only one having trouble with the pattern, obviously, we don't all think or see things the same way.

 

Althoutgh I can't remember if I had trouble with that row, I feel the insttructions could've been clearer in at least a couple of places, you are right about having to skip some stitches.

 

After reading and rereading what you wrote I now think I placed some of my stitches in the wrong places but since no one will be the wiser it's going to stay that way! In case it helps you here's how I did it: At the beginning of Row 2 (which I wish she'd really called Row 3...) after stitching a "tr" (dc for us in the U.S.A.) at the base of the TCh I made one more "tr" on the top of the 1st "tr" below and then skipped the other and

went directly to the ch.1 space of the V stitch to make the 1st V stitch of that row. When I reached the "tr" which is part of the first "V stitch increase" I put a "tr" on it and made another "V stitch increase in the V part of that increase. Then I "tr" again on the other "tr" of that increase (although I think I really put it on the one that's part of the V...) and V stitch ed in the Ch. 1 space of the following V stitch below.

 

On my first try I was stumped on

Row 6 for a similar reason,

I finally decided to stitch on EVERY "tr" but the shawl started loosing shape and getting wider and wider so I had to frog it all. I honestly became disappointed and began looking for a different design but I would've needed more yarn and I'd already gone back to get 2 additional skeins, so, remembering how I'd eventually been able to "decipher" other tricky patterns I decided to stick with this one and improvised where instructions were unclear to me and it looks fine now, whether "right" or not, so I'm satisfied with that.

[_Stacy_]

Wow! You did an awesome job with the other shawl, too!! They are both just gorgeous.

Ok, I un-knotted my yarn today (my cat got a hold of it) then got sidetracked with kid stuff. So, tomorrow- TOMORROW!!!- I WILL start the Eva's shawl. Will start the CAL if you are interested, also.

[Yarnluver]

Thank you Stacy! I love shawls and when I got back to crochet in March I wanted to make some. The minute I saw the Eva's shawl I thought it was very elegant-looking but at the time I had no idea what "lace-weight" yarn was, all I knew is that the stores I'd been to didn't have it. Then in April I read here that people were finding yarn at "Big Lots" and I decided to visit the one in my area and "lucked out" by finding Patons Lacette in "Hint of Rose" which is very close to the one on Michelle's blog, and also "Cream Caress". All they had of each were 3 skeins but she specifies 100 g., which would've been 2 skeins, but in reality I used all 3 and had none left for the border. Luckily, in the meantime I'd bought a matching Patons Silverlash at a dollar store just because I thought it was so pretty, so I decided to do the border with that (but had to go one extra round) and it actually turned out pretty nice.

 

I got the idea of improvising that way some time earlier when finishing a shawl for my daughter. She picked a lilac baby yarn and I figured that the generous yardage of one skein would be enough, well it was for the body of the shawl but not for the fringe that she wanted. I'd bought some skeins of Patons Glittalic and when she saw them she loved the Lilac one so I told her that she could choose to buy another skein of the baby yarn for the fringe or I could try making a border out of the Glittalic, which is what she chose and it actually came out pretty nice. If you didn't browse around in my little Photobucket album you can go back and look it up.

 

Sooo, I'll be more than happy to join you when you open your CAL for the Eva's Shawl. I do have to admit that at first I couldn't make sense of that pattern either... I had to save the pic of the beginning rows, then flip and enlarge it so I could actually COUNT the stitches, then re-wrote the instructions in my own words. I continued to have trouble on/off but just because I distractedly kept missing stitches, I hope I'll do better this time!

[_Stacy_]

Well the Silverlash worked out beautifully with it. I really don't like working with eyelash yarn but I made a scarf with an ami for it and it looks really cute. LoL

I'm wondering if I will have to re-write the pattern for myself in US terms, though, because the British ones confuse the heck out of me. Maybe when I print it out I will just write my abbreviations over the original ones. The reason I love this shawl is because it looks very similar to another shawl I have made before- it was called the super-simple shawl or something, and used a bulky yarn which worked up very quickly. It came out wonderfully and I was thinking that it would be really pretty with some lace-weight yarn as well. So we will see!!

 

[Debbi-a1]

Maybe I can explain better where I'm confused:think...

 

on Row 2 (which yes should have been row 3), she has a tr after the first v-st. So I'm not sure where to put the first tr.

it says (blue is the pattern exactly)

 

( Tr into next Tr, V stitch into next V stitch, Tr into

next Tr,

then you do the V st incr

 

So that's where I get confused... The first tr into next tr goes where? there are 3 tr stiches before the chain of the v-st.

If it goes after the first stich, I'd skip stiches to work the v-st... then there's the v-st and tr into next tr, which would put it right next to the v-st. This doesn't leave a space or missed st like before the v-st. Which to me isn't even... Skipped st before the v-st but not one after.

However if you put the first Tr in the tr before the v-st and a tr after, that's an increase. So is there an 2 increases on the ends of row 2? Or is the Tr into next Tr after the v-st a mistake?

 

If someone has their shawl handy and can check what they did, I'd apprecaite it. I'm working on another shawl (started another instead), so no rush... but I like the look of this one, so I would like to make it...

 

Thanks so much!!

Debbi

[Yarnluver]

Stacy:

 

The Silverlash was very easy for me to use, I have the feeling it's a little different than regular eyelash yarns.

 

Since our printer went kaput I had to hand-copy these patterns so I just wrote "dc" wherever "tr" went to save myself the confusion.

 

Debbi-a1:

 

I edited my message to you several times and ended up deleting where I was telling you that you should not count the "tr" that is part of any V stitch as an individual stitch, the whole V stitch is the unit. So you place the "tr" on top of the one just before that V stitch and then "V into V" (in the ch 1 sp of the Vstitch), tr on the tr that is part of the V stitch increase, do an increase on the V of that increase, then you repeat what's in parentheses so you will "tr" on the remaining tr of that same V stitch increase, the rest is just the same. And, yes, it's an increase not a mistake; if you've made triangular shawls you know that they usually only increase at both ends, but this type of shawl has 3 points so it must increase there too.

 

I hope this solves Row 2 for you, and don't be discouraged if later on you get confused again, I already said it took me a while to figure this pattern out too!

[Yarnluver]

Debbi-a1:

 

I'm wondering if you read my post and were able to make sense of Row 2. Last night I did the border and was not satisfied with just sc'ing it so I tried doing a scalloped edge; looked nice except that the center point is not lying flat as I'd like (maybe too heavy...) so I think I'm going to frog AGAIN and maybe just leave it be. I just had an extra skein I hated to see go to waste and thought that would be a good use for it...

[Debbi-a1]

Thank you for all your help. I've given up on the shawl for now. Your instructions help, but it must just be me. I may try it later. Thanks again.

[Yarnluver]

I just PM'd you. Maybe after a break you'd like to try again!