Sunday, June 29, 2025

Tendril Shawl

The pattern for this Tendril Shawl is available for free on the designer Carmen Heffernan's blog. She also provides a video tutorial that walks you through the setup rows and the first couple of pattern repeats, which is very helpful for getting this project started.


I made mine at a heavier gauge than the original pattern calls for, but it worked out well and produced a lovely shawl/wrap/scarf. My yarn is Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton in the Emerald Pine colorway, which is labeled as a 4 weight, and I'm using a 5.5 mm hook. I had a few skeins of this colorway left over from my Dressy Swingy Shawlivest project, and I thought they would look good being worked into the Tendril Shawl design. This yarn looks and feels more like a 3 weight despite the fact that it's labeled a 4 weight, and the cotton is so soft and smooth that it's a pleasure to work with.

Finished with gothpixy's edging

I love the sawtooth edge and the beautiful lacy-ness of this shawl. The project grows quickly, which is satisfying, and the four-row repeat becomes fairly intuitive after you've worked it a few times.

Finished size

The only downside to using this particular yarn is that the skeins are pretty short at only 153 yards each, so I was worried I might not have enough yardage on hand to make a full size shawl. The first skein ran out at the beginning of row 36. 

End of first skein

The second skein ran out after making it most of the way across row 52.

End of second skein

My third skein ran out almost at the end of row 64. Thankfully, I had another skein available to finish that row and continue, because the top edge of my shawl was only about 64 inches long at that point. I used the fourth skein to work another two "points" and then do the edging row.

End of third skein

I started working the picot edging row as written in the pattern, but I felt that it was coming out too tight, so I searched through the Tendril Shawl project gallery page until I found gothpixy's project.

Gothpixy suggested an alternate way to work the picot edging that I ended up using for my project. I like their edging better for two reasons: One, it provides a lovely bumpy, wavy edging that finishes the edge really well with an easier method than working traditional picots. And two, it utilizes an extra chain stitch between each bump, so the edging doesn't tighten the edge in the same way that the original pattern's edging row was doing for me. You should check out gothpixy's project to see if maybe you might like their edging better, too!

Getting started

The designer says the finished fingering-weight samples she made measure about 70 inches (178 cm) on the long top edge after 64 rows (65 rows with the final edging applied), which is 16 "points" on the bottom edge, and 32 inches (82 cm) tall/deep on the border edge after blocking. 

I crocheted mine to 18 points, or 72 rows, plus the edging row. My shawl's total length is about 72 inches before blocking.

Monday, June 2, 2025

Emotional Support Chicken

I just couldn't resist the allure of the Emotional Support Chicken any longer. Meet Scrappy Henrietta! 😍


This pattern arrived on the knitting scene sometime in 2023 or 2024 (I believe), and the internet practically EXPLODED with excitement.

I added the pattern to my Ravelry favorites for safe-keeping but decided to wait before making one. I noticed, however, as the months went by the way the emotional support chicken consistently remained on the first page of Ravelry's "hot right now" designs, suggesting that the internet's adoration for the ESCs had yet to abate. It was on FIRE.


Eventually, I just couldn't resist the pull of the ESC any more.  


I think the thing that put me over the edge was when I discovered that The Knitting Tree LA had made a companion video for the pattern. Checking out the video was my undoing. 😂

Tail part 1

I grabbed a long old scrap of Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in the Jazzy Stripe colorway (left over from an Infinite Granny Square afghan project) and cast on to follow along with the video, which starts at the tail.

Tail part 2

For part 2 of the tail and the main part of the body, I used a couple of long scraps of Red Heart With Love in the Pewter Gray colorway that were left over from when I made my Autumn Mists vest with no pattern.

Tail and main body

I don't know which yarn I used for the neck and head, but it was one long scrap of an ombre-ish yarn with purple, dark pink, and raspberry colors that is probably something by Red Heart, but I didn't have a label for it anymore.

Neck and head added

I used up the remainder of the raspberry ombre scrap for the top end of the undersection piece, and more of the gray yarn to finish the undersection.

Henrietta got a bit wonky as I was sewing her up, where the two ends of her neck stripes don't line up at the front, but hey. She is still adorable, and I wuv her!! She has 15 mm blue safety eyes from a pack that I bought off Etsy years ago from a seller named 6060, who is no longer active on the site. Whenever I'm installing safety eyes, I always use this tool to help set the backs, because it makes it a lot easier for my arthritic hands to handle the task of snapping them on securely.

You might be able to knit a whole ESC by only watching the video, but I think the video really makes a better accompaniment if you also own the written pattern, so before I reached the end of the first tail section, I bought the pattern: And the emotional support chicken claimed yet another willing (happy) victim. 😂

I followed this up by making a friend for Scrappy Henrietta, another Emotional Support Chicken, Scrappy Patty, in colors to match our guest bedroom.

Scrappy Patty and Scrappy Henrietta

 
Scrappy Patty sitting on the bed in our guest bedroom

Scrappy Patty side view