Toasted Pecan Shawlette

The story: 

Sometimes you make a whoopsie and have to pivot on your plans. That’s this shawl. It was meant to be something vastly different, but this was born of that mistake. The Toasted Pecan shawl is a quick and easy shawl that even an adventurous beginner could make. 

Difficulty: 

Adventurous Beginner - this pattern uses decreases and works with yarn that can be tricky to work with.

What you need:

• 3.5mm hook

• 90 yards of color A in DK weight. I used Baah Yarn Sonoma in Smokes On You.

• 180 yards x2 color B (360 yards total) in lace-weight mohair. You will be holding the mohair double for the fluffy effect, so you will need two balls. I used 2 skeins of Baah Yarn Halo in beWoolen’s Pecan held double.

• 90 yards of color C in DK weight. I used Baah Yarn Sonoma in Toasted Neutral.

• Stitch marker

• Tapestry needle 

• Scissors

• 
  

Stitches to know:

• sc - single crochet

• sc inc - work 2 sc into the indicated stitch

• sc dec - work one sc across the back loops of the next two stitches. See tips and tricks.

• blo - back loop only

• slst - slip stitch

Tips and Tricks:

• In the increase section, place a stitch marker in the 2nd stitch on the odd rows. In the decrease section, place a stitch marker in the 3rd stitch on the odd rows. This will cue you to either increase or decrease on your even rows, depending on which section you are in

• If you would rather have a full-sized shawl, you can continue your increase section until you are almost out of color A. You can then continue decreasing until you have one stitch left in color C. You will need twice the yardage for Color B if you choose to go this route. 

• Safety pins can help you keep your project easy to move around. Just roll up the shawl every 15-20 rows and pin it into place with the safety pins. This will give you less length to manage when turning your rows and doing the color changes. 

• For the color changes, pull the new color through the last stitch as your last yarn over of the single crochet. This will give you a cleaner edge and let you carry your color up the edge of the project. You will crochet over these floats in the border row. 

• For the decreases, you will work them as invisible decreases, but in the blo. You pick up the back loops of the two stitches you’re decreasing over and complete your sc through those loops. 

• There is no right or wrong side to the shawlette, so wear it whichever way works for you!

• For the mohair held double, you can experiment with combining two different colors to achieve a blended, slightly marled look. 

• You can easily work this with two colors, doing one color or a color combo of the mohair held double, and a normal DK yarn for a shawlette with some fun striping. Just work your ball of yarn to the middle row or until you have worked half. To figure out your halfway point, weigh the ball of yarn before the start of the project, then weigh it periodically throughout the project until you get close to halfway. That’s when you should switch to the decreases. A simple kitchen scale will work for this process! 

The ch 1 at the start of each row does not count as a stitch.

Increase section 

Row 1 - with color A, ch 2, sc in the first chain. Turn

Row 2 - with color A, ch 1, sc blo inc. Turn

Row 3 - with color B, ch 1, sc blo across the row. Turn

Row 4 - with color B, ch 1, sc blo until you get to the second to last stitch, sc inc, sc in the last stitch. Turn

Row 5 - with color A, ch 1, sc blo across the row. Turn

Row 6 - with color A, ch 1, sc blo until you get to the second to last stitch, sc inc, sc in the last stitch. Turn

Repeat rows 3-6, carrying your color up the side of the project, until you hit row 116 or halfway through your ball of color A, if you are working with just two colors of yarn. You will end on a repeat of row 4. See the tips and tricks section on how to figure out the halfway point of a ball of yarn. 

Decrease section 

Row 1 - with color A, ch 1, sc blo across. Turn. Fasten off color A

Row 2 - with color C, ch 1, sc blo across. Turn                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Row 3 - with color B, ch 1, sc blo across the row. Turn

Row 4 - with color B, ch 1, sc blo until you get to the third to last stitch, sc inc, sc in the last stitch. Turn

Row 5 - with color C, ch 1, sc blo across the row. Turn

Row 6 - with color C, ch 1, sc blo until you reach the third-to-last stitch, sc dec across the next two sts, sc in the last stitch. Turn

Repeat rows 3-6 until you have one stitch remaining. Fasten off

Border - join with color B, ch 1, work sc evenly around the shawl. It should be one sc for each row except for the points. In those three spots, work 3 sc instead of one. Join with a sl st to the first sc. You may find that putting a stitch marker in the first stitch helps you find it later. 

Fasten off and weave in your ends. Block to the desired size