How wonderful is it to finally feel the warmth of the sun upon your face, to see the beauty of the clear blue sky’s, the calmness of the summer breeze, and the mouthwatering smell of a neighbours bbq.
Summer days are a little slice of heaven, which hopefully will stay a while longer.
Summer has been a long time coming, it’s joyful arrival means that hopefully my new found love from making shawls will pay off, as the sunsets, the air cools and I can wrap myself up it my “Tea Flower Shawl” I’ve just finished making.

Shortly after I finished my, “V For Vintage Shawl”, which was designed by Johanna Lindahl from Mijo Crochet, I set about making another.
I had the perfect yarn and pattern in mind and gathered up the essentials, my clover soft touch 3.5 hook, a Cotton King Twirl, yarn cake in colour 02, Black Diamond, a bead and the “Tea Flower Shawl” pattern by Johanna Lindahl from Mijo Crochet.

I hadn’t used, Cotton Kings Twirl, before and was a little concerned about the loose twisted threads. My concerns soon became my battle as I struggled to not snag the threads as I crocheted.
I was fine if I slowed to snail pace but unfortunately I was already against the clock with a holiday deadline fastly approaching and knew there was no way I could use this gorgeous yarn for this project,if I wanted to finish on time.
Thankfully I had a little left over Scheepjes Whirl in the colour 755 Blueberry Bambam, from the Treasure Net shawl by Johanna Lindahl from Mijo Crochet, that I had made my mum and a Scheepjes Whirlette in colour 868, Bilbery.

I set to work on the very easy to follow, calming, “Tea Flower Shawl” pattern, which was pure delight to stitch away on, in between my secret project.
After the first few rows, the pattern has only two repeats and it a dream to memorise.
Unfortunately I knew I wouldn’t have time to make the pretty flower edging and would have to go with the patterns second simple option for the border and decided to add beads of some sort, something I have never done before.
With a quick visit to Amazon, I had two different shapes and sized beads on the way to me.
The Glass 4mm faceted bead, were the size I had envisioned but the thread holes were so tiny, there was no way I was getting the yarn through them so I would have to use the 6mm Panahall Caribbean Blue mixed beads, instead.

After I had used most of the skein of Whirlette, I spent what seemed an age, threading all the beads on to the leftover Whirl.
They were a tight fit and didn’t slide down the thread easily, which really slowed things down as I had to keep stopping to move them further down the yarn.
I than hit a snag of a rather large knot in the yarn, which was no way going to fit through the bead eye, so I ended up cutting the yarn, somehow managing to keep all the beads in place and knotted the end.
I would have to work out later on, how I was going to retread them.
As I came close to playing yarn chicken I knew it was time to cut the yarn and retread all the beads, while secretly hoping it would work out.

I only had one more round of the pattern to complete before I started adding the beads, thankfully my hubby sat beside me a moved the beads along the yarn so I wouldn’t have to keep stopping. (He’s a keeper.)

For the final row of the shawl I broke away from the pattern, making the following steps.

Turn, Chain (Ch) 3, place bead (PB) chain 1, Slip Stitch into the same Dc, chain 1,
Slipstitch (Sl st) into the next chain 3 space , chain 1,
Slip Stich into the next chain 3 space, chain 1, Place bead, chain 1,
Slip Stitch into the same chain 3 space, Chain 1
Slip Stitch into the next Chain 3 space

I repeated the following until I had two spaces either side of the centre chain 2 space and placed a bead in the next 5 chain 3’s and 2’s (The Chain 2 being the 3rd space)

Chain 1, Place bead, Chain 1,
Slip Stitch into the same Chain 3 space, Chain 1
Slip Stitch into the next Chain 3 space, chain 1,
Slip stitch into the next chain 3 space.
(Basically I put a bead in every other chain 3 space.)

I then repeated the repeats up until the final Chain 3 space, then made a double crochet, placed a bead and Double Crocheted in the 3rd ch in the beginning of previous round.

After a light blocking my “Tea Flower Shawl” was finished

and all ready for our holiday.
The beading and final row is far from perfect but I’m quite pleased with it considering it was my first ever attempt at using beads in crochet.

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I have already started my next shawl and am totally smitten with it. Once again it’s one of Johanna’s patterns.

If you haven’t checked out Johanna’s breathtaking pattern please pop on over to her website and have a gander.
She also can be found on Ravelry, Instagram, Etsy and Facebook. Also you can share all your own makes of her patterns on her friendly Facebook group and of course Instagram. (don’t forget to #)

Please pop back soon and see what my trusty hook and I have been up to.

Too-da-loo for now.

🧶🧶🧶