Last week the Scheepjes CAL 2017 finally started. Ever since I saw the photos of the finished ‘Hygge’ scarf I couldn’t wait to start making it. Besides being excited I was a bit apprehensive too, since I hadn’t really done any crochet-projects for the past 10 years or so, and the ones I had made before that time had been rather simple projects. Was this CAL maybe a bit too difficult for me?
On the other hand, I really loved the design and the pastel colour way, so I took the plunge and ordered my kit and waited patiently for the 15th of March and start the CAL.
On the 15th, I downloaded the tips & tricks and the pattern for the first week. I started by making the gauge-square which ended up looking rather nice and of the correct dimensions. This actually surprised me, as my stitches are usually too tight! The cross-stitch practise on the gauge-square was actually quite easy to do as I am very used to cross-stitching, however usually on Aida instead of on yarn!
Once I had finished the gauge-square, it was time to start my scarf. This first part was mostly a repetition of bobble stitches and double-crochet stitches. The directions for the bobble stitches sounded very complicated so I decided to watch the how-to video by Esther from It’s all in a Nutshell Crochet for this week on the Scheepjes website. She demonstrated the patterns really clearly and patiently, making it very easy for me to follow the pattern correctly. I will definitely be watching the new video every week as it gave me a lot of confidence that I was doing it right!
Following the advice of various members of the International Scheepjes CAL Facebook group I did change the way of picking up the coloured Catona yarn as the official way showed too much of the coloured Catona through to the front, which doesn’t look very nice. I only picked up the Catona on the first yarn over of the bobble stitch and not at the end of the previous double crochet. I also did not crochet over the Stone Washed yarn when making the bobble stitch. I found that this way my bobbles popped and the coloured yarn did not show through to the front.
I finished week 1 yesterday (only a day late!), without any frogging at all, and I cannot wait to get going with the pattern of week two.
In case you are wondering about the accessoires in my pictures, the ergonomic crochet hook is by Clover and part of a set, the yarn bowl is by Scheepjes which I bought together with my kit from Het Wolhuis and the cute little sheep stitch marker is by Wol zo Eerlijk. They do lovely cute cat stitch markers as well!
I will keep you up to date on my progress. I will try to blog again next week, but I will definitely be posting some pictures on Instagram and Facebook. So please follow the Stitching Sheep on its social media accounts too!
The Stitching sheep 