Pigeon’s Neck is an asymmetrical, reversible, triangular shawl knit from the bottom up, with contrasting stripes in intarsia (color blocking) and kicky bits of knitted-on fringe. The remarkable texture is produced by each row having a random sequence of knit and purl stitches. It is suitable for an advanced beginner, and it is a good introduction to simple intarsia. This version is 74 inches from side to side, but it may easily be made larger or smaller; it uses most of two 100g skeins of the main color and a small amount of contrast color for the stripes. The pattern is written, not charted.

Why call it Pigeon’s Neck? The lovely Viking Yarn I used is a light tonal gray with bits of other colors; the dyer calls it “Petrol,” which made me think of an oil slick on wet pavement. The contrasting stripes accentuate one of the bits of color in Petrol. I remembered when George Carlin commented many years ago that pigeons had been in the city so long they ended up with oil slicks around their necks …