My Pollevie Wrap…

I’ve been teasing people over on my Instagram and Facebook during the last couple of weeks with little progress photos of my ‘Pollevie‘ wrap which I’ve been crocheting on and off since September last year.

Well… it’s finally finished and it deserves a blog post all of its own… I love it!

I’ve been following the Dutch crochet designer Ellen from Pollevie over on Instagram for sometime and was so excited when I discovered she was hosting a workshop last year at Closs and Hamblin in Brighton, a yarn shop close to where I live. It had been organised by another fellow designer Katie from Katiejo_hookandsew seen here together with Ellen…

I booked a place on the workshop for both my mother and I and on 8th September 2018 we enjoyed a delightful day of crochet!

That’s me there below, next to my mum!

You could choose to work on either a wrap/shawl design or bag and I really wanted to do a shawl… I could see myself wrapped in one when down on the beach on cooler summer evenings! I chose some Stylecraft Special Aran, only because it was inexpensive and readily available on the day in the shop…

I was totally inspired by Ellen’s completely freestyle approach to crochet! I’ve become accustomed to designing and writing patterns that have every single stitch, row or round accounted for and instructions that involve counting! Ellen doesn’t count when crocheting and her designs are based on a simple base pattern but then rows are added and increases made to suit your own preferences… so every single shawl really is truly unique!

Here’s a group photo from the workshop back in September and a photo of Ellen and I together…

I then didn’t pick my shawl up for a long time. Other crochet commitments meant there was little spare time to give to it. But then I discovered that Ellen was again returning to Brighton in February and I thought if I booked onto another workshop I’d have the motivation I needed to pick it up again and have some precious time during the workshop to crochet. Well it worked… because I got going with it once more…

This time three generations came along as I treated both my mother and my daughter to a place on the workshop! My mum enjoyed doing the flowers and my daughter started a scarf…

And I enjoyed hours of uninterrupted crochet!

It’s always so lovely to attend crochet workshops or groups. You know you’re spending time with like-minded people who also love to crochet and it’s always special to finally meet in person people you may have had contact with online.

And in the recent workshop I absolutely fell in love with a new cardigan design by Ellen…

Isn’t it gorgeous?! And I was so lucky to be able to try it on!

More group photos..

And this very special photo of me with my mother and daughter…

It was such an enjoyable and relaxing day of crochet… And since then I’ve been determined to get my shawl finished!

And my daughter’s been working on her scarf… We enjoyed some unseasonably warm spring weather last week and I knew all the elements for a good photo opportunity would be there on the beach after work on Tuesday… high tide, clear skies and sunset all at the same time. So I rushed down with two of my children and Salty and was really pleased with these photos…My daughter helped me to get the shawl into position… whilst my son took the photos!😊❤️But the shawl looked almost too at home, blending in with the surroundings, especially against the blue waters and seaside backdrop with sunset lighting! So I took another opportunity earlier this week to photograph the shawl with a more contrasting background!

If you look at Ellen’s work her shawls are stunning… real pieces of art! Mine is modest in comparison. But that’s the beauty of this design… add as little or as much as suits you! Yes, I could keep adding flowers (and I probably will over time 😉) but for now and for me, it’s just enough!

Happy Crocheting… 😊