Wilshire is a contemporary lace top-down triangular shawl inspired by the classic Art Deco architecture of Los Angeles, particularly on Wilshire Boulevard, that captivated me when I lived there a few years ago. The bold geometric forms of chevrons, diamonds and zig zags which are characteristic of Art Deco design have been incorporated into the wide border of the shawl, with diamond bands breaking up the stockinette sections of the shawl body.

Wilshire is offered in one generous size, worked in lace weight yarn. Note that the nature of the design does not lend itself to size customization, but for a larger shawl than the pattern size, the design may be worked in fingering or sport weight on larger needles. A solid, tonal or subtly variegated yarn is recommended to showcase the intricacy of the border design.

Wilshire is offered as a chart-only pattern with large, easy-to-read charts and very detailed instructions on how to use them. Even knitters who have not previously used charts should find these user-friendly and relatively simple to comprehend.

Also included are two additional instruction sheets that may be helpful for knitters who are new to lace shawl knitting: “How to Block a Lace Shawl” and “Lace Shawl Knitting Tips.”

Construction: Wilshire starts at the center back of the neck and is knit down to the bottom edge. There is a three-stitch garter border on each side, four yarn-over increases on each right-side row and two center stitches separating each half. Patterning is done on the right side rows only, with all wrong side rows being purled between the garter borders.

Size and Yardage: The blue shawl pictured used 850 yards (777 m) of a lace weight yarn that was on the heavier side, worked on US 4 (3.5mm) needles. Most of the test knitters used an average of about 800 yards (732 m) of regular lace weight yarn and their shawls were a bit smaller at about 72 x 36” (183 x 91 cm).