Andee Graves learned to crochet from her mother when she was a little girl. More than 44 years later, she still loves crocheting, designing and generally playing with yarn.
Andee designed her Eleonora Shawlette after falling in love with Berroco Boboli Lace at her local yarn shop. She got the idea to crochet a mesh triangle, using basic stitches to show off the yarn’s changing colors. To finish, she added a more elaborate lace border in a complementary shade of Berroco Folio. The shawl is worked as one piece from top to bottom.
How did you decide on the yarn?
I tend to design to a particular yarn; I swatch to find a stitch I like in the yarn and then plan out the design. When Longmont Yarn Shoppe got the Boboli Lace in I immediately knew I wanted to design with it. I liked the beautiful blend of colors, as well as the texture and weight of the yarn.
Any disaster stories?
My favorite design style is “small starts.” So as each row or round of a design is worked they become much longer. Early in my design career, I was working on a lacy shawl that had a 4 row repeat and was about 30 rows into it. I discovered a mistake at the beginning of the previous row that messed up the lace repeat at the end of the current row. I had to pull out nearly 3 hours worth of work to fix it. That taught me to check over my work more carefully as I went along.
What’s your favorite thing about knitting/crochet?
The magic of taking just what is basically “string” and turning it into an amazing fabric or sculpture with a few tools. It always makes me smile that I can turn a hank of yarn into a beautiful, wearable/usable object.
Do you have a cool design you want to share? Or did you recently finish a project with Berroco yarn? You can email Ashley: apalumbo@berroco.com or post it to the Berroco Lovers forum in Ravelry.