Knit on US 6 instead of 8 (what the pattern calls for) to make up for the lighter weight yarn. After the last repeat of the of the Garter/Eyelet section in the written pattern, I added another 7 repeats of the Stockingette section, another Garter/Eyelet section, and then the beaded picot bind off that Ice Queen uses.

This shawl is meant to represent ‘lightning’ in two ways. The first is that steampunk, which the colors I picked and the pattern of the shawl evokes, is very closely tied to electricity in my mind. Steam may be the power source for the everyday man - but electricity is the new frontiers of science, the wild dreams of Nikola Tesla and his contemporaries. As I myself am a scientist (albeit in biology), I do feel the need to pay homage to such a great figure.

The colors also match the coppery-orange of copper wiring, which is frequently used to conduct electricity, and the picot bind-off evokes the jagged edges of lightning. The darker beads hidden in among the picots are a little ‘flash’ of color and shine, like a spark of electricity.