A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to brush up on certain (beginner) skills, both in the areas of crochet and knitting, to aid in my own designs and pattern writing.  I’ve always loved shawls, and I hadn’t made one in about 4 years. So I did some Googling for free beginner/easy patterns and came up with a few, all of which I tried. Out of all of the ones that I tried, this one here  Crochet A Simple Shawl is by far the easiest and produces beautiful results. The directions include both written and photo instructions of each step. The pattern is very versatile, as you can use any yarn weight. The only thing I did different from the original pattern is that when I finished my last row I added a trim of sc all the way around the shawl (evenly spaced along the neckline and then 1 sc in each ch-1 sp and dc around the bottom edges of the shawl, and 2 sc in the ch-2 sp of the bottom tip).

Here is the first one I made. I used almost 4 skeins of Lion Brand Landscapes, in the color Boardwalk, and a size J hook. I would’ve made it larger, but I only had 4 skeins to work with. It turned out to be 46 inches wide (wingspan from tip to tip along the neckline), and 25 inches long (from the center of the neckline down to the tip at the bottom), so more the size of a shawlette.

The second shawl I made with Peaches ‘n Cream cotton yarn, almost of full cone (14 oz/706 yards), in the color “Panorama”, and using a J size hook. It worked out a bit larger than the first one, measuring 50 inches wide and 27 inches long.  While I love the rainbow color of the Landscapes yarn of the first shawl, I also love the naturalness of the cotton shawl.

Now that I’ve brushed up on some basic shawl-making skills, and once I’ve completed all of my current WIP’s (too many to count, lol), I can get to work creating my own shawl design 🙂