My Chocolate Dream Shawl (Sheepjes Yarn Kit for Kika)

A few weeks ago I was asked to make a sample shawl for Scheepjeswol’s yarn kit for Kika (a children’s Cancer charity) that they released last week.  It’s a kit that includes a knitting and crochet pattern using the Invicta Colour and Invicta Extra yarns, which are current favorites of mine, and the yarns I’ve used for my Dreambird shawls.

 

The kit comes in 15 different color combinations, which, if you are indecisive like me, can be very difficult to choose from!  Thankfully, the choice for the sample was already chosen, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d still be mulling it over.

This is the photo of my Chocolate Dream shawl that Scheepjes released with the kits, isn’t it pretty?  Let me tell you, that pompom just about killed me, but it was totally my own fault. More about that later…

I freaking loved this shawl.  I considered changing my phone number and moving house so that I could keep it and they would never find me, but alas, the better side of me won out… but only just.

It’s huge, like REALLY huge, and it just feels so nice when you wrap it around you.

Susan Lucci loved it too, I could tell.

I most surprised by how much I loved the color combination because I’ve never been a huge fan of browns and blues, but this project won me over completely.  When it came time to order a kit of my own I very nearly chose this color combination again, just because I loved it so much and wanted it for myself, but I thought it would be nice to choose something different.  In the end, after much deliberation,  I went with Dark Skies instead.  Is the fact that it still has blue and brownish colors a coincidence?  I’m guessing no.

I very nearly went with Vintage Movie, but this won out in the end.  I thought these colors would be nice with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt in the spring.  Not that the others wouldn’t, mind you.  Gosh even now after I already have the kit I’m still itching to have the other combinations as well.  I just love that Invicta Colour yarn so darn much.

This was a really enjoyable knit and just the kind I like, the kind that I can sit and knit without having to look while watching a good TV show or movie.  No squinting at charts, no using three different counters to track the different elements of the pattern, just straightforward knitting and purling back and forth.  If you can knit, purl and increase, this will be a breeze for you!

My biggest struggle was the pompom!  I’ve never made a pompom before, and while I did have a number of those plastic pompom makers, I’ve never used them. I also didn’t have them in the correct size, as they wanted a rather large pompom for this project.  So I went on the internet and found this tutorial, which I think is great.   That is, if you have a clue what you are doing and 1) use cardboard that is strong enough to handle the wear and tear of pompom making 2) have sharp and strong enough scissors to cut through that much yarn at once.   Of course, neither of those things dawned on me, so I used the cardboard from our box of coffee pods and my little embroidery scissors.  Needless to say, my hands were pretty sore the next day and so were my husband’s ears.  In the end, I think I had a pretty kickass pompom, though!

Pompom perfection!  Almost at the cost of my sanity, but perfection nonetheless!  I snipped at that darn thing for an entire evening trying to get it as perfectly round as possible, I kid you not.

Fear not!  They have included the cardboard pompom maker in the kit!  So you won’t have to worry about any of what I just told you happening to you!

I also mentioned how incredibly long this shawl is, right?  Check this out…

This was pre-blocking and I wasn’t even finished yet!  Towards the end, as it got wider, I started to feel like my progress got slower and slower, so I started using stitch markers to mark what I was getting done each day.  They got closer and closer as the shawl got wider.  In the beginning I was cruising along and thinking “oh I’m totally going to smash this in time!” but towards the end it was more like “HOWDIDIONLYGETTHREESTRIPESDONEINALLTHATTIME?!!”.

Keep in mind that I was on a deadline, so it wouldn’t feel the same for you.  You’d just knit merrily along for as long as it took while catching up on the latest episodes of Downton Abby.

Regardless, I’ve decided to try an experiment with my Dark Skies shawl.  I made a note of how many stitches I had on my final row and I’m going to cast that on in the beginning.  So rather than starting at the skinny end and increasing, I’m going to start at the wide end and decrease. Then it will go faster and faster and by the time I reach the end I’ll feel like a knitty speed demon!

I have a few things to finish before I can start on it though – boo!  So it may be a little while before I can report back on that.

If you’d like to get your hands on one of these kits, act fast!  They are only around for a limited time.  You can also order the yarn for this worldwide via WoolWarehouse* or have a look for a shop here in the Netherlands on the Scheepjes website.  If you do get one, let me know, I’d love to hear what color you chose and see your finished product!  I’m so eager to see how the different color combinations look when finished!

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