No, not “fiesta virus” … although that sounds distinctly more fun than corona virus (olé!). This is my latest finished project, a virus shawl made with Red Heart’s It’s A Wrap (Rainbow) in the colourway Fiesta.

When I made my mini-lotus blanket back in April (now lending my nightstand a splash of colour), I still was left with an entire second skein of the same yarn. I didn’t want to make another lotus — it’s a great project but doing two of anything in a row is pretty boring — so I set it aside for a while and worked on other things.

The virus shawl pattern has been around for a while, but as you can perhaps imagine, it’s gained a lot of popularity recently due to the name. What’s more apt than spending your quarantine/self-isolation crocheting something with a viral name. As my feed filled up with virus scarves an shawls and blankets, I figured, hey, why not hop on this bandwagon too?

There was only one problem: there isn’t a written pattern for the virus. There’s a printed pattern, and there are a lot of videos, but that’s it. Now, I far prefer written patterns to printed ones, which I still have trouble deciphering. And I’m not crazy about video tutorials because you’re always either rushing to catch up or waiting around for the next step… not to mention how few content creators include useful things like timestamps for their videos. But what can you do? Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and… watch the video. I know, I know, the sacrifices I make!

Much to my (pleasant) surprise, the pattern turned out to be much easier than it looks, consisting of a simple four-row repeat that was easy to memorize. It’s also seriously customizable in terms of yarn weight (any will do) and overall size (since you just keep repeating until you either decide to stop or run out of yarn). This is definitely a pattern I’ll keep in my back pocket to make again.

(With many thanks to my model, Perpetua, who loves to be fancy.)