I don't crochet clothing or accessories much anymore (mostly because I hate having to worry about gauge and fit), but it's getting to be that time of year again where the outside temperature is unpredictable and my office building tends to be on the chilly side since they don't want to turn on the heating system just yet, so I thought it would be nice to make myself a work shawl!
While looking for crochet kits on eBay, I found the Graceful Blossom Shawl kit from Herrschner's, a company I hadn't tried before, which piqued my interest. The price was good ($15.99 + $5.00 shipping), and the shawl looked cute, so I went for it!
After purchasing the kit from eBay, I ended up exploring Herrschner's website and...buying more kits. All of the kits I purchased, including this one, came in a light-weight plastic bag and include the yarn and pattern. The pattern feels like a little bit of an afterthought as it's just a piece (or two) of heavy-weight glossy paper in a plastic bag. The pattern for the kit I bought on eBay arrived fairly creased and pocked, but the patterns for the kits I bought directly from the website looked much better.
While looking at the website, I also read reviews for the kits, and I discovered that this kit had some potential issues with not including enough yarn finish. A few reviews expressed concerns that the stitch count in the pattern was incorrect and, because of this, they ran out of yarn when they got to the yellow-colored section. As I am very impatient and don't like running out materials and waiting to get more, I purchased a second shawl kit to make sure. Unfortunately, the price of the kit went up to $24.99 (it had been on sale for $15.99 on both eBay and the website; the price for the kit on eBay had also gone up).
I'm not sure if the pattern had been updated since those reviews as I did not have any issues with incorrect stitch counts or coming anywhere close to running out of yarn, but they were fairly recent (April 2020), so if so, it was updated only a short time ago. I will say, though, that the statements about the discrepancy in the finished projects listed measurements, 90" × 42" (229 x 107cm) on the website vs. 77" × 32" (196 x 81cm) on the pattern, are still correct.
My shawl is quite a bit smaller than the sample one in the picture on both the website and the pattern (even after using a bigger hook since I know I tend to crochet tighter and need a larger hook for the correct gauge), and I believe those who have run out of yarn/had incorrect stitch counts were following the pattern for the larger version. I may try to make another shawl by tweaking the pattern slightly as I have an extra kit and have plenty of yarn left over from this one.
All the yarn in this kit is from the Herrschner Garden Party collection; an acrylic, 2/fine weight, very slightly fuzzed yarn. The colors are very vibrant, and I do enjoy the feel of this yarn, soft and lightweight.
I'm not entirely sure, though, how I feel about pairing the rainbow colors with this light stone grey. I think a black or charcoal grey would have been much more interesting, though higher contrast. This grey does tone down the colors somewhat, making a more gentle color story. It's still cute, but not necessarily something I would done on my own.
Size issues aside, I am happy with how my shawl came out! I did switch two of the colors (for some reason it started with pink and ended with red, so I switched them since that made more sense to me) and I added a border along the top edge with the grey since I thought it looked unfinished otherwise.
I apologize for the lame pictures; my lightbox is on the smaller side so I had to squish it and crop off some parts so the edges of the box weren't showing. I could have avoided these issues if I took a picture of it on either myself or my dressform, but I'm quite shy and my dressform is covered in random things (including an apron my brother-in-law bought me as a souvenir from a musical, a World Series baseball cap, and my cat's feather wand toy). Even though the pictures aren't great, I think the main points of the shawl (the colors and stitch texture/design) still come across alright.
Overall, this is a fairly solid kit, with the yarn being the highlight (...to be fair, though, the kit really only has two components, the yarn and the pattern). I really liked working with the Garden Party yarn (I'm very happy I have so much left over to experiment with!) and my finished shawl is cozy, but not heavy (I could probably wear it for 8+ hours while at work without overheating or feeling stifled).
There is the issue with the sample image and website description being quite misleading about the size of the finished project and there is the potential that you will run out of yarn if you attempt to make the larger version (you won't run out, though, if you follow the pattern as it's written). $15.99 + $5.00 shipping is a good deal, but I'm more reluctant to fully recommend this kit at the full price of $24.99 + shipping (it changes depending on how much you order on the website, and seems to be a static cost on eBay. The website has an annoying shipping calculator where the price goes up based on how much you spend, instead of weight. The percentage of shipping cost probably decreases with the more you buy-I haven't calculated it-so you are likely spending less on shipping per item the more you buy, but it is disheartening to see your shipping cost increase with the more you spend instead of less).
If you think the shawl is cute and matches your style, and you're aware of and accept the flaws of the kit, I'd say go for it. Otherwise, this kit is a gentle pass.
Thank you for reading! <3
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