Warlock Virus Shawl

My friend Edel is currently battling breast cancer.  While her prognosis is great, and it was caught early, I'm still worried about her, and wish I could be there to give her a hug.  Since I can't, I decided to whip up a shawl to hug her for me. 

The pattern is the same Virus Shawl, that I made for myself a few months ago.  There is no written pattern for this one, but there is a chart and lots of Youtube videos to get you started.  Once you do the repeat of the same 4 rows a few times, you can coast along on autopilot and ignore the chart. 

The yarn is Lion Brand Mandala, in the colorway Warlock, and was $4.97 a cake at Walmart.  I wish I had gotten a better picture that more accurately shows off the colors in natural light, but I was in a rush to get it shipped to her before Jim & I left for Christmas.  The yarn is listed as a 3 weight, but I'd swear I've used 4's that are the same thickness.  (It's definitely thicker than Lion Brand's Shawl-in-a-Ball, which is listed as a 4.)  It's 100% acrylic, and not as soft as sCaron Simply Soft, but it was not scratchy on my hands as I worked. I liked using this slightly thicker yarn, since the project worked up so fast.  I actually managed to finish it in just 1 week!

More about the yarn: It's a beautiful set of colors, but they don't blend into one another gradually.  They just jump from 1 color to the next.  I had read that in an online review, so I bought 2 skeins, afraid that the jumps would be in lousy places when I was working, and that I might want some room to spare.  I'm really glad I did that.  (Especially at $4.97 a piece, they were a good deal.)  I unwound the first part of my the cake, which was a deep purple, because I wanted to start with the creamy tan color. 

I got the first 5 repeats out of the tan and taupe, and could tell the color would jump in the middle of the next row, so I cut out the remaining taupe and moved on to the next color, mustard.  I did the same thing again with the green and teal, and when I was working I could tell that I would run out of the first skeins total length of teal before I would be done as much as I wanted to do, so I jumped over to the second skein (which just happened to start with teal), and continued.  I ended up doing the same with the deep brown, rust, deep purple and light purple, jumping back and forth between skeins to get enough yarn of each color. 

When I was running out of yarn in light purple, I switched back to the creamy tan, and did a row of single crochet around the whole thing, to give it a finished look.  I would have liked to do another whole round of the repeat in tan, but I would have needed another 1-2 cakes to get that much tan, and would have had all the rest leftover.  As it is, I have a quart ziplock bag full of mini balls of the remaining bits of color!  It measures 30" from the center back, down to the point; 60" across the top; and 42" along each side. 

Prism Virus Shawl

I know I'm late to the party, but I finally got around to giving the virus shawl pattern a try.  I have always been afraid of working off a crochet chart rather than a written pattern, so  I started by printing off the chart, then pulling up a video on how to crochet it on Youtube. I used the video to help me learn to read the chart, and by the time the video was done, I was able to work solely off the chart with the repeating pattern.  It was a huge help, and I feel much more confident about trying to work solely from a chart in future. 

The shawl was made with 1.5-1.7 skeins of Lion Brand Shawl in a Ball yarn, in the colorway Prism.  It is labeled as a worsted weight yarn, but I found it very thin for worsted.  I used a 4.5mm hook.  It is hard to see in the pictures, but it has an electric blue metallic strand running through it. I bought the yarn months ago, specifically for this project, but had put it aside to finish some other projects that came up, including a pussyhat and a baby blanket, both made with Caron Simply Soft Party, which also has a metallic strand.  In working on those I became very frustrated, because the metallic strand frequently broke, and was finicky to work with.  When I finally got around to this shawl, I was afraid the metallic strand would behave the same way, but I was pleasantly surprised!  It behaved much better, and I had no breaks in it at all, over the course of the entire project.  I would highly recommend the yarn.

I think I might make another one, since this one was so much fun.  For reference, this last photo isn't distorted.  The shawl is laid across my king size bed, so you can see just how long it is.  I made it to cuddle up in while working in my studio, which can get cold, so I wanted it plenty big.  While the yarn is thin and the overall effect is lacy, it does provide some nice warmth, and can be bundled up and worn as a triangle scarf.  I wore it to the theatre with a thin sweater on a cold day, and it really helped keep me warm, while also looking dressy enough for the event.