Little Virus Shawl

I've been intrigued for some time by the crocheted virus shawls that I see popping up on my Pinterest and IG feeds. In a classic case of avoidance, I used the tediousness of unpicking the quilting on DS's quilt as my excuse to start one.  Makes no logical sense whatsoever, of course, but never mind.

I'm not a very experienced crocheter by any means.  At most, I dabble here and there and stick to relatively uncomplicated things.  I think crochet is all about getting the flow of the pattern in my head.  If I can't get that, then I'm stuck trying to remember which number on which line of the pattern I'm supposed to be at and spend more time counting and re-counting than stitching.

I'm happy to say that with a little help from two sets of UK terminology instructions (24 Carat Crochet and straightcurves.co.ukhttps://www.straightcurves.co.uk/community/crochet-virus-shawl-uk-translation/) and an incredibly helpful video by Bella Coco on Youtube, I did manage to find the flow, to understand where the pattern was going, and I really enjoyed the stitchy 4 row repeat that grew my virus scarf (not really big enough to call a shawl) relatively quickly.

Once stitched, I rinsed the scarf through in some warm water, squeezed out the excess (don't wring it!) and pinned it out on a towel on my bedroom floor to block it.  The hardest part of this process now, is just finding a time when and a space where CT cannot access it (or the pins) while it's drying!

Ta da, I now have a gorgeously soft virus scarf for the spring - although it currently feels like spring was that week two weeks ago when we had three days of warm air, and now we are back to winter.

I wish I could capture the colour of this yarn for you, but it is impossible to get it right.  Most of these pics looks like hot neon pink instead of the more coral shade it really is.  I think it was called geranium.  It is so very soft and not even the teeniest bit itchy.  I REALLY struggle not to itch with fibres on my neck or arms and lost interest in knitting and crocheting in my twenties because I could never wear anything I stitched!  I live in hope that gorgeous yarns won't make me want to scratch all day, but with little success.  I'm finding that really I need to stick to cotton or acrylic yarns and rarely can I get away with any wool content at all.

This yarn is Stylecraft Malabar which is a blend of cotton 78% and silk 22% and I adore the feel of it.  Being cotton, I'm not sure how warm it would be for a winter scarf/shawl but with just two balls, I've stitched up a decent sized neck scarf for the spring/early summer.  It's a DK weight yarn and I worked it up in a 4mm hook, though I suspect I would have achieved a drapier feel if I'd gone up a hook size.

Next time I crochet a virus shawl I really would like to keep going and make it a proper shawl size.  From what I read most folks are suggesting it takes between 500g and 800g of yarn for that size.  I will need to think carefully what yarn I could use so that it won't itch and be relegated to the non-wearable pile.  I also definitely want to use a variegated or colour changing yarn next time.  It's the only regret I have about the little scarf but I was just using up a couple of balls I had in my box, so that's ok.

Well, that was an itch well and truly scratched (pardon my pun). Only now I'm trying to figure out what excuse I can come up with for starting a shawl sized version when I have still two other long term/large crochet projects on my WIPs list. Hmmm ...