O, woe is me

I haven't had much to report because I've been working my way through Ditsybead orders.

I don't know if I'm gradually getting worse at beadmaking or if I'm struggling in some other way (my absolute pillock of a fussy brain) but I've found the past couple of weeks' lampworking to be extremely difficult and stressful. I've closed orders for the flower beads now and I don't think it'd be wise for me to do the taking bead orders thing again. I have a couple of orders outstanding which I will get done, but not today. Today is a day off after yesterday when I attempted one single flower bead eighteen times before calling it a day. There's no point in me sitting there wasting glass, electricity and gas so I decided to take a breather.

If I'm to carry on lampworking, from this point forward it's going to have to be one hundred percent me making what I feel like making.

This is totally about me, not people who want to buy my work.

For years I've prattled on about how my pickiness and perfectionism can be an utter pain and in the past I've always embraced it but it's honestly got to the point where it's debilitating. And not just with beads. At the foodbank warehouse the other day I wrote a box label that said 'BEANS 2026' four times because I wasn't happy with how it looked. That's mental. It's a label in a warehouse and I was irked because it wasn't centred and the '6' was squished etc. This past Christmas I bought sixty cards as I knew I'd end up rejecting loads for similar reasons and sure enough, I sent twenty-four and had just five left over. That's not right.

Anyway, enough of my self-obsessed whining. Pull yourself together, Laura!

In crochet news

The pattern for my 'Joan' shawl is finally totally done. Hurrah!

Originally I toyed with the idea of making this a free pattern but a nagging little voice kept asking "You get annoyed when glass publications want your tutorials for free and you turn them down, so why is this any different?" and in the end I listened. When I sat and thought about the hours that went into making the shawl pattern, the drawing of the charts (it was like the beans label and Christmas cards multiplied by three), the liasing with testers, and the pattern edits, let alone me making the shawl five times in various yarns, I just couldn't give it away for nothing.

So yes, the PDF pattern is available on Etsy for £2.50 plus any VAT applicable in your part of the world.

About the pattern

Named after my late grandma, Joan is a lacy triangular crochet shawl that is worked from the top down. The seven row pattern repeat is straightforward but not too tedious and the pattern would be good for an adventurous beginner or for anyone wanting a relaxing project that uses non-fancy stitches.

The finished and blocked white-to-black gradient shawl pictured measures approximately 170cm along its top edge (the wingspan) and about 83cm from the centre of that edge down to its point.

• Written pattern with step-by-step photographs
• Charts
• Printer friendly written version
• You will receive versions in both UK and US crochet terms

Materials

Approximately 1000m of fingering weight or 4ply yarn. For the white-to-black gradient shawl pictured I used a 1000m cotton and acrylic mix 4ply 'Stratford' yarn cake from Crochet UK. The plain blue one took five skeins of Drops Flora in shade 10. I've also made this shawl with YarnArt Flowers and Hobbii Twister yarn cakes. I've crocheted it with DK yarn too so pretty much anything goes. You'll also need your chosen hook and a needle for sewing in your ends, plus blocking mats and pins

The pattern has been fully tested.

Available on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1741126096/joan-crochet-shawl-pdf-pattern-digital