Like a siren’s call it sings to you, tantalizes you from across the room. It draws you in with its lure of so many beautiful colors. It teases you with how one shade will ever so subtly blend into the next. It taunts you; it beckons to you; it demands that you claim it for your own…

…the skein of variegated yarn.
The perfect symphony of colors in a single length of fiber.

You know from the beginning that the conclusion is inevitable; you surrender to its temptation and walk away with two or three skeins in your bag. But now what do you do with it? You want to show it off, to display its beauty for all the world to see! A shawl, flowing down your back or draped around your neck, is the perfect form to flaunt your skein of beauty. You browse through pattern after pattern of incredible lace pieces. Nonetheless, although they may be stunning in solitary colors, a variegated yarn always seems to produce a striped effect that dominates any pattern. Its very beauty seems to be its own curse. You persevere on, determined to find the perfect pattern for your perfect yarn. Finally you believe you have found the solution – the mitered square. The mix of colors blend together in each square harmoniously, balancing itself throughout the entire shawl.

However, the traditional solid mitered square, whether worked in stockinette or garter stitch, still isn’t quite the perfect solution for you. You yearn for the lightweight quality of lace that will appease those fairytale memories that still wish for gossamer wings draped across your shoulders.

So here I present to you the Allegory shawl. Its unique construction consists of mitered lace squares each knit from the bottom up with mirrored decreases, assembled into an overall triangle form, with a leaf-motif border added by picking up stitches along the edges. The lacework allows for an open, airy feel to your shawl while the mitered square construction provides the ideal vehicle to display your variegated yarn without dominating the overall pattern.

The perfect answer for your perfect yarn.

This pattern contains instructions for four different shawl sizes.
The pattern is listed under fingering weight, but it also contains sizing and yardage for DK weight (the green and purple shawl in the photographs). Wingspan can range from 42 inches to 78 inches, depending on the size made and yarn used.

MATERIALS

For DK weight shawl (the green and purple shawl):
Touch Yarns Merino DK 100% Merino; 440 yards per 200gram skein; colorway 683; 1(2, 2, N/A) skeins

1 set US #9/5.5mm straight needles
32 length-inch (or longer) US #9/5.5mm circular needle

For fingering weight shawl (the purple and blue shawl):
LittleFreak Yarns LittleSocks 75% Wool, 25% Nylon; 460 yards per 100gram skein; colorway: Sandra; 1(2, 2, 3) skeins

1 set US #5/3.75mm straight needles
32 length-inch (or longer) US #5/3.75mm circular needle

NOTIONS REQUIRED
Yarn needle
Stitch markers
Waste yarn
Pins for blocking

GAUGE
13 sts/17 rows = 4” in pattern stitch (after blocking) in DK weight
16 sts/22 rows = 4” in pattern stitch (after blocking) in fingering weight
It is recommended that you knit and block one square of the pattern to use to measure your gauge.

The pattern contains both written instructions and charts for all elements of the shawl.