Crocodile Stitch Triangle Shawl

Last post I talked about how I started and then scrapped a shawl... Here is what I did instead.

For such nice yarn, I felt that the humble granny square, was a bit on the drab side. Lately I have been seeing a lot of crocodile stitch patterns become trendy and having done a few for details from it on Otachi, I figured I could give it a go for a full shawl.

On Etsy I came across a lovely pattern for a Crocodile Triangle Shawl by Bonita Patterns. Since it is just the one stitch I figured it would be a perfect foray into making full pieces from this amazing looking stitch.

I purchased the pattern in a three pack along with the Crocodile Wrist-warmers and a Crocodile Cardigan. Once I had the pdfs I read it over and discovered that it started from the point at the bottom and worked it's way up. That was perfect for what I had in mind because I wanted to use up both leftover yarns like I would have in the granny square. This made it easier since I could start at the bottom where I wanted the darker yarn to be and be able to gauge where to add the transition rows of colors as I ran out of the dark blue.

A few rows in and I was in love.

I managed to get 7 rows in when I started feeling the need to start switching. Next came a row of light blue. Then two rows of dark, leaving enough yarn I thought to do one final dark row, after another two rows of light. It was almost perfect, in that I only had maybe a foot of the dark yarn left after the final row. With so little left I could feel comfortable throwing that last length of yarn away...

Two stripes of light blue done, one more, then solid light blue.

The rest of the pattern then was completed in the light blue and I was able to use up both leftover skeins from the open air shrug.

The pattern itself is so simple that once you have a good understanding of how the two repeating rows work together, you can do this with no reference to the pattern at all. Perfect for on the go crocheting or quick breaks. Her pictures made it especially easy to follow and understand.

In case you make it and want to know, my finished product came out much smaller, even with having about three skeins of yarn. That just means my skeins had less yardage than hers. My last row had 21 scales from tip to tip. It is about 38 inches wide and 16 inches long down the back. Since I did not have enough to end with a full row of scales I ended on the foundation row and then did 2 sc in each chain space across. I finished it off with another full row of sc across and one more of a lace chain, to give a nice flat edge to lay against my neck and shoulders. Plus I can unravel the last few rows of the shawl if I ever find more of the same yarn. Since it is about two thirds the size it should be it would be really cute for a kid.

Done for now.

The final result made me think more of blue bird feathers or dragon scales than a crocodile and it kind of makes me want to make a whole costume out of these scale stitches... but that would be so so warm to wear and in Texas; that might be dangerous actually.

I cannot wait to make that cardigan pattern too! And I have a wonderful variegated yarn that would be perfect for the wrist-warmers.

Difficulty: Easy, once you master the stitch, if you know how to double crochet you are most of the way there!
Time to complete: 20 hours or so... estimating based on working on it for about two weeks, in roughly 2 hour sessions.