Crochet Shell Cowl and Shrug

Just a few days ago I have finished this gorgeous crochet shell cowl and shrug, using the pattern design by  www.cre8tioncrochet.com.

I made it for a friend that is moving to UK with her new job in order to have a fresh restart in her life. So, I thought that this shrug will be a nice good-luck present 🙂 with all the rainy London.

I used a yarn with 40% mohair and 60% acrylic.

The results are next:

The pattern is a written one.

The cowl will have 33 rounds worked continuous. It is formed by two borders of front post triple crochet stitches and in between are the stacked shell stitches. The final form will be a rectangle one (in flat position). The used stitches are the next ones:

My tips for crocheting this shrug:

• for both borders use a smaller hook size and for shell pattern use the regular hook size that fits to your yarn. I used for the borders the 5 hook size and for the shell pattern the 4 one (but, unfortunately I realized that I should do it quite late on my cowl, so I makeshift a little 🙂 );
• from the middle of the shell pattern start decreasing for each shell round. I wasn’t content about the rectangular form (in flat position) because for me it seemed too wide. See the next detailed instructions for decreasing.
• make a crochet cord (3 rows of single crochet) and insert it in the first rounds of the up border (in the first front post triple crochet round). This lace will offer the possibility to tighten the cowl and what dimension do you need.

I suggest you to do 2 decreases in the middle and at the end of a round, starting from the cowl’s middle. In this way, the decreasing will come nicely on shoulders :).

The decreasing methods:

• doing double crochet 3 together (dc3tog):

dc3tog

In this case, the decreasing will show like this:

double crochet 3 together (dc3tog)

double crochet 3 together (dc3tog)

So, instead of 3 loops you will have 1 loop

When you reach the decreased shell from previous round, you should skip 3 stitches, instead of 2 like the pattern indicates

In this case, you should decide, as you welcome, if you decrease each shell round or not. This depending on how much do you want to tighten the cowl.

• doing 2 double crochet shell for the first round of decrease and 1 double crochet for the second decreasing round.

In this case, the decreasing is not tightening so rapidly, so you can repeat it for each round.

The second way of decreasing the crochet shell

 This second way of decreasing the shell stitches will look like this:

for the first decreasing round: double crochet 2 together (dc2tog)

The second decreasing round: 1 double crochet

The third round, after the decreases are made

If you want to download the cowl diagram (higher resolution) please do so here: