Those of you that have been following my blog for a while have heard me mention my good friend and mentor, Karen Ratto Whooley. Karen was my official CGOA mentor when I signed up to be an Associate Professional member of CGOA. Even though I officially graduated to Professional status some time back, we are still good friends and remain in regular contact.
I got to see Karen again, albeit briefly at the Knit & Crochet Show in San Diego a couple of weeks ago. We even managed to get a photo of the 2 of us. We chuckled afterward because we were each wearing the other’s “colors” in this photo. Karen in her hot pink blouse and me with a blue-green scarf.
That scarf was actually part of our hilarity. Not because of the color but because it is one of my designs from my summer collection: “Ebb & Flow Scarf”.
The week before I left for the show I got Karen’s newsletter in my email and it was about her design, “Undulating Shells Shawl”. I just about choked because I had used the same stitch pattern for my scarf. A definite case of great minds having the same idea or in this case, very similar ideas.
One of the wonderful things about being a designer is seeing all the different ways my fellow designers and I can interpret stitch patterns to create wearable and decorative objects in crochet. I thought it would be fun for you, my readers to get a glimpse into some of those differences.
I created this scarf from some lovely fingering weight yarn hand-dyed by the talented Riin of “Happy Fuzzy Yarns” (don’t you love the name). This is blend of merino and tencel making for super soft fabric with a gorgeous drape.
I created my scarf by working off a center foundation, with half the scarf growing from the “top” of the foundation coming to an end that is an exaggeration of the shell pattern in the length of the scarf. The second side of the scarf is a repeat of the first side worked off the “bottom” of the center foundation. The side edging is worked with each row of shells creating a simple scalloped appearance along the long sides of the scarf.
I took a closer look at Karen’s shawl on Ravelry. I determined that though the body of the fabric was made with the same stitch pattern, we had both taken very different approaches to how we designed our projects.
Karen’s shawl is worked in laceweight bamboo yarn off a foundation in one direction, ending with a row of stitches that match the foundation row then a lovely stacked shell ending edge. That same edging is also worked off the base of the foundation row. Her side edging is the simple line of the undulating shells.
You can purchase both of these patterns on Ravelry:
Undulating Shells Shawl / KRW Knitwear Studio $7.50
Ebb & Flow Scarf / M2H Designs $4.99
Mamas2Hands 