[craft chronicles] This is one Virus I’m glad I caught.

I auditioned so many crochet patterns for a blanket this past February and March, I hit a wall and almost gave up.

To be fair, the problem was more the texture of my yarn than anything else. All yarn colors, weights, and textures do not compliment all stitches and/or patterns, heavens no, and none of my sample swatches lit a fire under me. They didn’t present as crisp, clean, and pretty as in the video tutorials, perhaps because I’m using a much older worsted that’s special to me. Or, maybe my stitching wasn’t up to par. (Personally, I’m thinking I need to update my hooks.)

In any case, I laid eyes on a Virus blanket on YouTube late last month for the first time. Fell in love. Had to give it a go.

Things jelled, and I was off to the races. Yay!

As far as I can tell, the Virus blanket and Virus shawl aren’t new patterns, rather several years old and I’m only now stumbling across them. “Virus” is in the name because the stitches in all but one round in each repeating section are tall double-crochets (called treble-crochets in Europe and Australia), which means your project grows pretty fast as you go. It works up quickly and we all like that, don’t we? And, after a few repeats, you’ll be able to put down the pattern, remember it and end the project whenever you want.

I might add a third color to the vermilion and the creme. Haven’t decided yet.

My blood pressure and pulse have been at their steadiest while I’m working on this thing. No joke. The numbers in my BP cuff (and in my BG meter) prove that.

I’ll post how my Virus blanket turns out when it’s done.