The books have lived here all along, belonging

For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence

Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,
A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.
— from Tracy K. Smith’s ‘My God, It’s Full of Stars’

As a middle school bookworm, my first “job” was as a volunteer at Central Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, looking up at the towering Zigzag Moderne windows once a week as I walked in and up the stairs to the fourth floor children’s section to scan and shelve books. I’ve never been far from one library or another since, whether as a student writing papers in cramped carrels or as the librarian for a one-room subject-specific library. I love looking through the dates inside the cover of a yellowing volume, wondering what the person who borrowed it on April 10, 1974 thought and felt as they read it. Remarkable Lies is an ode to the libraries I’ve loved and the people who’ve browsed, borrowed, and napped in them, a quick and cozy crescent shawl with striking zigzag lace motifs.

10% of the proceeds from the sale of this pattern go to 826 Valencia, a San Francisco-based non-profit supporting children and teachers in under-resourced schools with creative and expository writing programs.

This pattern has been test knit. Thank you to Matt Patenaude for photography.