Red Shawl and Blocking

Yes, another shawl for church.  I found this pattern for free over on Ravelry.  It was originally called Cheche a la Sauce, which is French for something or another.  I have no idea.  I tried to do a google translate and it came up with Fez sauce.  Okaaay.

I thought the chart was confusing for the directions at the beginning of the row.  I just winged it and made it so each row had the same amount of stitches or spaces.

The pattern is quite vague on how many rows to make the first motif.  I wanted this shawl to be on the large side, so the first motif has 24 rows.

The yarn I used was nearly 2 skeins of Autumn Red by Caron Simply soft.  I used a H hook.

I was running quite low on yarn so I made the final motif with only 3 picots and 4 triple crochet instead of 6 picots and 7 triple crochet.

 When I finished the shawl I realized that I was going to have to block the shawl to get the final motif to look right. 

Blocking is when you wet your knit or crochet item and pin it down so it will retain its shape when it drys.

The above picture shows unblocked parts on the left.  See how smooshed looking they are?  I like how open and lacy they looked once they were pinned to the towel lined bed.

I was amazed how different the finished product looked once it had dried.  The whole thing was much larger too.

 The whole thing goes almost to Blockette's knees!

I just love the rich vibrant red.  Blockette chose the color for this shawl.  She sure chose wisely.  Hopefully it will put a smile on someone's face.