Amphorae Shawl

I can't believe I published this pattern a year and a half ago! Never got around to writing a blog post about it...better late than never, I guess.

At the time that I got the idea for the Amphorae Shawl, I was working on several different ideas for shawls, all including different ways of shaping the shawl into a long, narrow crescent (rather than a triangle), so that it would sit more comfortably around the shoulders. Most triangular shawls are worked from the bottom up, and shaped with decreases along both the center and the ends; to create a long crescent, the decreases either have to happen faster, or short row shaping can be added (or substituted). For this shawl, I rapidly decreased the stitches along the ends, and also worked them into the lace stitch border so that the ends taper to a point. Because of the way the shawl is constructed, it is easy to make it smaller or larger by simply working less or more pattern repeats.

For the yarn I chose Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL Sport (100% Bluefaced Leicester*). This yarn comes in gorgeous hand=dyed colors and huge half-pound skeins (660 yds!)-- more than enough for this shawl!

As for the name, I thought the lace motif looked like an amphora: a ancient vase form, with a pointed base, rounded body, and narrow neck.