When I saw baydreamer's Virus meet Granny Square shawl I had to have a go at it. And I love the result.

I still had three cones of red machine embroidery thread left. I knitted a jersey for my granddaughter, a throw/blanket and the SouthBay shawl using 3 threads, see picture 1. Those cones were enormous to begin with, but I number three is now empty, that was of course the one with the thickest thread.
But I was given another, very thin, reddish one, #4. So now I had two very thin single thread yarn and one yarn consisting of two thin ones. So I had to use 5 cones to get the thickness I wanted. Colour 1 and 2 were always in it, I then added 3 others in different order. I ended up with several combinations, like 2x1+3x2, 2x1+2x2+4, etc. see picture 2 It gave wide stripes of colour in the finished article.
I made a 5 d.c. shell along the long side and a "picot"
3 single stiches, 1 hdc in the first then sc in the gaps of the outside.

As you can see cone #2 has slimmed as has #1, but even so there's a lot of all three left.
I think I might try the old knitting machine or I'll never see the end of those.