I have a confession. I love knitting big ass shawls. These are not just your average shawl, or your big shawls. This are BIG shawls. And I love designing them.
My friend Nikki of Dark Harbour Yarns (DHY) lives in New Zealand and dyes some amazing yarn in colours I often find myself needing. So when I had a the idea for Vexillology, she provided the yarn for the shawl version.
Vexillology is a fingering weight design in an elongated diamond shape with the points at either end notched out. It comes in two sizes, scarf and shawl sized and is knitted in two to four colours. I worked the scarf using Madelinetosh 80/10/10 and stash dived for two colours (Tern and Pansy) and used four colours of DHY in Port. Three grey (Velvet Scooter, Snow Petrel & Wrybill) and one blue (Pull Me Down).
This one is knit in sections. The first section uses intarsia (a tutorial is included with the pattern) and is knit from point to point using two colours and changing colours at the centre/widest part. After that the two edges are worked separately but do use intarsia since colours are changed in the middle. The effect though is worth it. You get squishy garter edges and an unusually shaped finished accessory that is lovely to wear.
When I was still writing this up, the design reminded me of flags, so I had to call it Vexillology, which means the study of flags.