For my Sister.
We lost our dear Mom on October 12 of this year. I will be pouring lots of tears, good memories, healing prayers, huge hugs and love…so so so very much love into this shawl for Eileen.
My sister Eileen. How to describe her…? She’s the prettiest woman I have ever met in person. Truly. She’s so beautiful she could be a movie star or a magazine cover girl. (Not that she would ever want that.) She hardly wears makeup. And she does wear worn out jeans, and men’s plaid shirts, or T-shirts and old sweaters, and an old John Deer hat…mostly. She also looks beautiful in girly clothes, when she wears them. Eileen could be easy to hate with how completely, effortlessly and naturally beautiful she is…you know…if you were the jealous type. ;D
But you can’t hate her…because my Eileen is also extraordinarily beautiful inside. Kind to a fault, my Eileen is. She’s a wonderful and doting Mom to five daughters. (Yeah. FIVE daughters. F I V E.) And she’s an awesome wife to her lucky (and sweet) hubby Kenny. She’s a caring, loving, hardworking and smart lady. She’s a great friend, aunt, sister, niece, and daughter. She’s a role model in how to care for others. She thinks of nice things to do for everyone…and does them…never expecting anything in return. She says hello to people on the street. She almost always has a smile. She makes anyone feel at ease within minutes of meeting her. She remembers people’s names. And she remembers their kid’s names. And their dog’s names. And she remembers that their grandma had a cold the last time she saw them, and asks how she’s doing. She hugs people when she says goodbye. She picks up the random sweater that slipped off the hanger at Walmart. She makes the best sautéed Brussels Sprouts with Chesnuts you’ve ever had. Eileen says “next time we know we will come thru this part of town we should make bags of toiletries. So we can give them to the homeless”…so that’s what we are going to do.
She is amazeballs.
My Eileen feels things hard and strong. She loves deeply. We are all missing our Mom. Losing Mom was unexpected. And Eileen is heartbroken. It’s a ragged… gut wrenching… soul crushing sorrow that can take over her whole person sometimes.
I can’t lessen her grief. Our grief. Only time will help us with that. But I can be here. Holding her hand. Grieving alongside. We will get to that other less hurting side of this…this…this awful sh”tiness. We got thru it before, when we lost our Dad. We will get thru it again. Sharing the love we have for our Mom, and each other, our other siblings (are we all orphans now?), and the rest of our big family will help. Each stitch of this shawl has a hundred kisses, a thousand prayers, and a million hugs in it. All for my Eileen.
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12-14-2017
Stole the picture of my yarn selection from TheYarnMaven’s Instagram. Very lazy of me. But it’s a darn good picture.
Cracked open the second skein of Grey Heather at the start of row 23.
12-18-2017
Third skein of heather grey opened for row 32.
12-26-2017
4th skein of Gray Heather got me to 11 extra rows past pattern. I want to do 12 rows extra. (34 rows per pattern +12 extra) I want this big. So I did the Charcoal Gray for that 12th row. I’m figuring it will make my border just look wider (?) and since I’m using a sport weight yarn instead dk, maybe I will need that extra width it will look like I have. So as of today I hv my 12 extra rows (138 stitches either side of the ch2) and 2 rows of border pattern done.
12-29-2017
Adding a Zauberwolle, another sport weight I got from the Yarn Maven a few months back. I needed more zing. There are not many yarns zingy-er than a Zauberwolle. It’s got some nice purples, blues and oranges going on. All right in Eileen’s color wheelhouse. I envision using the Zauberwolle for three different rows in this border.
Had to fudge row 8 of the border (the shells). My count was off by one. Couldn’t figure out why/how…but it looks ok. Crochet and fudge. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do.
01-05-2018
I’m on my last row. Lots of picots. Oye. Then to get the ends woven, a quick swish in some suds and a pin out. Pinning the picots out always makes a big difference for me in the look of this shawl.
01-08-2018
Yippee DONE!!! And it’s lovely!!! It’s blocking now. I can’t wait to give it to my Eileen. She will love it. But I won’t be doing that until March. This sweet shawl is going to live at the Yarn Maven until then…hopefully inspiring other crocheters to branch out and play with colors. This is the perfect pattern to do that.
Last week I started teaching Eileen to crochet. She’s doing great. Chains chains and more chains. Next time it’s sc and starting a scarf. Maybe in a month or so she can help me a bit with making the next Sunday Shawl. At the very least helping pick out the colors. Lol. A project I have in mind for our youngest sister. Then all four of us sisters will have a Sunday Shawl.
:)
Interesting side note. The older version of this pattern ends with a sc row across the top of the shawl. The new version does not. I’m going to leave it off. Will see how this wears. If needed I can always add it later.
Color order
MC Grey Heather
Last row of shawl in Charcoal
Border colors in order as used
Juicy Plum
Boysenberry
Meadow Green
Autumn Leaves
Zauberwolle
Juicy Plum
Oh no! Lost the Ball band… but it’s either Bold Sangria? Or Peruvian Violet? Will fix this entry when I can compare colors in the shop.
It’s Bold Sangria
Golden Honey
Toffee Bar
Arctic Moss
Zauberwolle
Peacock Plumage
Meadow Green
Zauberwolle
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