About Pandemic in Pink

COVID-19 has its bad points, but it has also given knitters time at home alone to finish some of those WIPs. I myself have a collection that includes a Hurricane scarf, a Power Outage hat and a Snowstorm Sweater. So I got out a kit ordered months ago (shout out to Bristol Ivy’s Throughstone Knit Along sweater), which I planned to make my Pandemic Sweater. But not long after casting on, I began to wonder how I could make this a REAL Pandemic Sweater, one that captured this moment in time with some of the images we have all become familiar with, starting with the iconic microscope closeups of the gray and red virus itself. I began to build a chart that would fit into the yoke pattern of the sweater, starting with a 10-stitch repeat. Working from the bottom up, there’s the virus, the “flatten the curve” graph, a hospital mask and the stock market crash.

I decided to try out the chart first as a hat before going back to the sweater, and you see the results above. I think it will also work as a chart for just about any yoke sweater with a chart that starts with a 10-stitch repeat and is 46 rows high.

I share the hat pattern and the chart with you in the spirit of the Pussy Hat, as a lighthearted break in a very serious, very tense time of crisis. You can even use the pink yarn left over from that project.
 
Size: Small adult (circumference 19 inches)
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease or any worsted or aran weight (#4) yarn (197 yards/85 grams)
1 skein Rose Heather (MC)
1 skein (or less) Ranch Red
Small amount Gray Heather
Small amount Gold
1 skein (or less) Succulent
Needles: US No. 11 (8.0 mm), 16-inch circular and double-pointed or size needed to obtain gauge
Gauge: 18 stitches and 20 rows per 4”/10cm in St. st.