Zingiber is an asymmetrical, triangular shawl which is worked sideways from a small cast on to a lacy cast-off.

The shawl’s lace is based on the Ginger stitch pattern created by Naomi Parkhurst (gannet). It is one of her secret code patterns and the word ‘ginger’ is encoded into the lace. I’ve built on the original arrangement to create transitions in the lace and it becomes more complex as the shawl is knitted.

The lace is unconventional and the shapes and arrangement of stitches are not like most stitch patterns. This pattern is great for people who are comfortable with reading their knitting and who are looking to become absorbed in the process.

Zingiber looks great in tonal or solid colourways and a long run striping or gradient yarn looks rather good too. One of my testers used a rainbow yarn. Because the lace is detailed, variegated yarns with strong contrast between colours won’t look so good. A yarn with a yardage of about 400 m (440 yds)/100 grams is recommended.

The stitches which are used are single and double yarnovers, single and double decreases. Wrong side rows are purled, with the exception of the double yarnovers.

The pattern is fully charted and also has line-by-line written instructions.

Thanks to my excellent test knitters: yarna, Canberra, hvitsyrin, Turtleback, justJnet, OPKnitter and katisha.