Preciousss is a shawlette for every fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. This will be a mystery knit-along that runs through the month of January, with four clues each inspired by an aspect of the fandom of Middle-Earth.

Clue 1: Gold-- The Precious
Clue 2: Green-- Leaves (and more)
Clue 3: Grey-- Mithril
Clue 4: Edging-- Mountains

This is the thread for the knit-along (hosted by the Lord of the Rings group), where you can ask any questions you may have about the pattern and post your progress: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/lord-of-the-rings/topics/2...

The name of the shawl was inspired by Nerd Wars’ own Team Precious, the team which represents Middle-Earth in all its incarnations, book, film, audio, toy, music videos, and just about everything else you can imagine.

Therefore, in keeping with the traditions of Nerd Wars, in which knitting projects are meticulously Shoehorned and tied back symbolically to the team which submits it, this shawl has several layers of symbolism.

First, the three main sections of the shawl are each inspired by one of the three team colors adopted by Team Precious: Grey, Green, and Gold. Each of those colors was directly taken as a representative of Middle-Earth and all things Tolkien: Grey for the elves, Gold for the Ring, and Green for… just about everything else.

In the shawl, each of the first three pattern sections takes the inspiration for its texture and shape from the same source as its corresponding color.

Each color represents a Thing, each shawl section represents a color, and each shawl section also portrays the Thing that the color represents.

The finished shawl was designed specifically with hand-dyed variegated yarns in mind, so the shawl looks equally good in solids, tonals, and variegateds (though I would still use caution and choose a yarn without exceptionally striking light/dark contrast, like black and white).