Of Shawls, and Things.

Hello All, and I hope life has been giving you lemonade! Although some Lemons are sweet too. 😄

Just popping in for all you Hooksters who haven't "hooked" up with me ( yet ) on the Facebook HooksnTales page. It's a lot more lively there than here on my Blog, which I use more as a collection site for Crochet Resources and/or a pick-up point for new patterns I release. One of the reasons I am not on Instagram is the time it takes to administer Social Media accounts! This, I can tell you, takes time, and therefore time away from the Hook! And we can't have that now, can we? 😃

There has also been quite a bit of action regarding The Pondoland Square and almost daily I am adding new Pondo's to the FB Albums ( pop over to the FB page for a further looky? ). These are from my patient and talented Testers.

Credit: Cindy Van Der Schee 💕

Credit: Judy Stamnes 💚💝

Credit: Lucia Martins 🙌

And then I made all those video tutorials which was going waaaahaaay out of my comfort zone! The Pondo has also been featured on quite a few websites too! Here and here, Not to mention getting a lot of action on FB crochet groups. I've been dishing out buckets and buckets of grateful THANK YOU's. I'm always ( pleasantly ) surprised that my squares do make other crocheters happy! I feel very encouraged by all our sisters in yarn. Having never had an actual sister I can tell you it's a brand new experience for me to be the recipient of so much positivity and kindness from other women. Our crochet community is an incredibly warm and nurturing one, and I feel very grateful and honoured to be part of it all. 💓

And The Pondo was #1 on the Ravelry Hit Parade for a week! Showeee, I was SO excited! 🙌

Then there has been a mini-CAL, as well as a bigger CAL hosted by the Colourful CAL's/KAL's Group Projects on Ravelry. This CAL runs until August and involves all the squares. It's " open-project too" You can join anytime, make whatever you like, and no pressure to stick to a specific timeframe.

I've been creating "squary" Albums on FB as a way of providing a database of all the squares and their colourways, and honestly, I am awestruck at some of the AMAAAZING colourways clever crocheters have come up with. I used to think I was quite good with my own colourways but no, I see I have still so much to learn. Which is wonderful, challenging and inspiring! Thank you!

In spite of all sorts of personal interruptions to my hooky life ( my eldest son stayed with us for 3 weeks 💓 en route to a new job in New York, I had Flu, there were all those public holidays too with The Man at home! ) I have been deep in designing, redesigning, frogging, and generally faffing over the new BIG square. This one will be a paid pattern so I am excited to see what sort of results will come of my attempt to extort hard cash ( for YARN of course ) from y'all in exchange for an awesome pattern? Tee hee! I will still continue offering beautiful FREE patterns, so don't panic. But from time to time, to keep my yarn basket in action, I will charge for a pattern. Sounds fair? Or not? Let me know in the comments. You may have noticed that a while ago I added a PAY FAST button in the hopes a few pennies would be deposited to help with that ever dwindling yarn basket. And so 💕 THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH  💕 to those who have popped in some spare change. A little goes a long way here in South Africa. 💖

The other thing is...I have suddenly been struck with the Shawl virus. I began making one, just off the top of my head, to see if I could actually do it and then BAM I was hooked. I am only half way through and just feeling my way through the design. Of course, it has been named * The Flamingo Feathered Shawl *. If it works out as I hope, then I will attempt to replicate it and share the pattern.

I was wanting to do an easy side project that would involve an almost "brainless" amount of hooky. Also, using one skein ( or two ) in one variegated colour and a large Hook ( 5.5 ). I had a new 100g skein of Elle Yarn Pullskein DK acrylic in "Rosily". I managed 17 rounds with one 100g skein and I have a 50g skein in a similar colour ( more purply ). 9 more rounds to go, not counting the border, to make it approximately 52" ( across ) and 26" ( down the centre ). There will be tassels involved. 😄

 I'm not even a "shawl person" so who knew! 😃 Watch this space because there WILL be shawls! With patterns!


Keep your Hooks close and wishing you a wonderful yarny fun-filled week!
 💕 Jen