Hiya all!  Scifi Chris here.  Hmmmm, apparently even the twice a month posting goal was a bit ambitious for me.  Once the school year starts (I'm a teacher) my time gets much more occupied and this school year's schedule is a bit more filled than I've had in the past few years.  Add to that some family birthdays and a trip to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and somehow the entire month flew by without a post.  Excuses, excuses. 

Diane posted a few weeks ago about the Skull Shawl challenge some of the 3RC folks are participating in.  I did get some photos posted over on our Facebook page.   Here's a link.  https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/threeriverscrochet/posts/278272205701743

Since then, a few of the shawls have neared completion.  Original Chris is almost done with hers.  She plans on wearing it on her trip to Paris, when she visits the Catacombs and takes a ghost tour!  Aren't those the perfect places to wear a skull shawl!  Original Chris has said she will send some pics of herself, wearing the skull shawl in Paris.

I decided that I was going to put some stripes in my skull shawl.  Well, that turned out to be a bit more challenging than I originally thought it would be.  I had figured that I'd just make the color change on row 17.  That would mean that the tops of the skulls would be the second color, but no big deal, right?  Wrong.  The longer I looked at it, the more it bugged me.  Finally, I decided to frog it and do the color change around the skull, so the skull would be one color.  Gack.  Unravelling fuzzy yarn.  This was not a fun or easy task.  It took me about three hours.  However, once done and re-crocheted, I was much happier with the results.

It looks like the skulls are wearing little hats.

Each color change I ended up doing differently, as I searched for the best way to do it.  The first color change was simply switching colors as I crocheted the row.  So many ends to weave in.  I couldn't just carry the yarn, because it would show.  On a one sided piece, like a hat, that wouldn't matter.  However, since both sides of a shawl show, I couldn't carry.  It had to be changed.  There had to be a better way.  I also want to note that the fuzzy yarn had the benefit of hiding my sometimes clumsy color changes.

Next, I tried finishing the skulls all at once, then just attaching the second color as I worked my way across each row.  Less weaving ends, but still lots of weaving in.   Finally, I figured out to just finish the skulls and the lace inbetween skulls, working several rows at once.  Then, at the joining row (row 13) do the complete row in the second color.  If that didn't make sense, hopefully the photos will clear it up.   The last color change, from a design stand point, I probably should have made the color change lower, so the tops of the skull stood out more, but frankly I had no desire to do several more rows of color changes.  I can live with the top as it is.  The stripes looks cool, in my opinion, but I'm not sure I'd make that kind of effort again.  If I do another skull shawl, it will be all one yarn.  Although I have a multicolor yarn that might make a cool looking skull shawl, with the idea that it looks sorta like sugar skulls. 





I had taken a photo of new 3RC member Ashley in her skull shawl, but I now can't find the photo. Sorry about that.  Next time I get to 3RC, hopefully more folks will have their finished shawls.  I do have some photos of Carol, wearing a sweater she is almost finished with.  Its not a skull shawl but it does look fantastic!

Don't forget, 3RC meets every Saturday at the Panera Bread near Magee Hospital.  Folks are there from 2pm until 5pm.  Everyone is welcome!