Corner-to-Corner Lap Warmer or Shawl

note: this post contains affiliate links as well as blatant mom-promotion. But it's all true and my mom is awesome.

Corner-to-Corner is a really popular, easy pattern in the crochet world right now. It's almost not so much a pattern as it is a stitch. You can make just about anything with it. My mom recently had a birthday and she loves bright colors and modern patterns, so I made her a little Corner-to-Corner lap warmer or shawl.

I've also used this stitch to make a cowl for my sister for Christmas and some kind of square thing that I think is going to become a pillow cover.

The free pattern I used is on Ravelry here. It's rated as an intermediate pattern, but honestly all you need to know is chain, double crochet, and slip stitch. It's good if you can read patterns, but there is also a video. It's just one little block that you kind of repeat over and over. With the instructions and video, I would classify it as a beginner pattern. There are also over 1000 projects on Ravelry to look through and see how people have used it.

If you go to the page on the Red Heart site with the pattern, there's also a helpful video. I really recommend watching the video because it explains the stitch pretty well and it also explains how to make variations and do the color changes.  The video stars Mikey from The Crochet Crowd; he's a well known person in the mainstream crochet world.

So I took the basic Corner-to-Corner stitch and instead of increasing it to 96 rows like the pattern calls for, and then decreasing it, I stopped after 44 rows. This resulted in a triangle, and the hypotenuse of the triangle has a sort of peaked edging without me having to do anything special.

If you just quit before you are finished, C2C has a natural edging

I used an I (5.5mm) hook and Purl Essence Rainbow Classic yarn, which I got at JoAnn Fabrics, in a variety of colors. My rules for how to choose the colors were- Go to JoAnn's and pile all the brightest solid colors in the cart, along with white. When I got home, I decided I would do different size stripes from one to the next, sometimes putting white between and sometimes not. That gives it a kind of random and colorful look that I thought my mom, who is a quilt designer and teacher, would like. Her designs are more bright and contemporary and she works really well with color, so I tried to follow her lead. I really didn't use that much of the yarn because those skeins are enormous and the yarn is bulky, so I have a ton left over. All the details about which colors I used are on my project post on Ravelry.

Here's how my mom decided to display the shawl! I hope she uses it a lot too, to keep her lap or shoulders warm while watching movies or doing hand stitching. She laid it across an oak chest that my grandpa built. It's kind of cool that there are three generations of makers reflected in this photo.

Shawl on chest at Mom's house