You can now choose the downloadable PDF version of the pattern or the hard copy printed out and mailed -- it is your choice.  

*****

A new beauty!

A lovely lovely shawl, perfect for either lace weight or fingering weight yarn and with beaded embellishments to evoke the sun shining on the "waves."

I'll let Sivia tell the story:

"The Harbour Lights Shawl is designed for fingering or sport weight yarn and requires 800 yards of yarn. I used a US 5 (3.75 mm) needle for this project. This shawl is a top-down triangle with an added centre lace panel, and a side to side edging which is worked around the bottom edge.

"The story of the Harbour Lights shawl: This shawl was designed as a tribute to the beautiful harbour city of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The centre panel is meant to portray the lighthouses that flank the harbour, beaming light down to the waves that circle the bottom edge.

"The sample shown above is done in Alberta Rose fingering weight alpaca in natural. The pattern features beads placed with the crochet hook add-as-you-go method and requires 377 size 6/0 beads. For the sample, I used silver lined crystal beads."

Sivia used Silver Lined Crystal 6/0 beads. You might want to use these, as great neutrals, or go for beads that work with your yarn's color. If you'd like some help, just email.

We are including a number of photos here so you can see the shawl close-up and even a swatch of it at its beginning.

There is also a somewhat dark photo of a lovely option (better photo to come soon we hope) -- the same pattern done in a blue -- here is what the knitter (Marilyn G) wrote:

"I was one of Sivia's test knitters, so my first shawl looks almost identical to hers -- but then I decided to knit another one for myself with two additional repeats and using crystal beads. I knitted my little fingers off for the past two weeks to get it done for the FibreFest, and succeeded! The night of Sivia's talk I draped it over the podium just for fun, and one of the participants in the audience took this picture ... "

So remember that there is no need to stay ivory or neutral -- this design will look wonderful in any solid or almost solid yarn.

And I just saw a photo (on Ravelry) of someone's work on this using a handpainted yarn. Which looks fantastic. So I am now of the opinion that there is no limit to what you can choose for this beauty.

I also queried Sivia about the possibilities of making this using lace weight yarn and size 8/0 beads instead of fingering/sport weight yarn and 6/0 beads. Here is what she wrote:

As for Harbour Lights, I would recommend that the (knitters) add extra repeats of the body pattern to suit, and on the last right side (stockinette) row before the side to side edging, correct whatever the stitch count is to be a multiple of 18, plus one additional stitch. I would also recommend that the correction be only increasing, not decreasing, even if it ends up being almost 18 sts to increase.

Good to know!

This one is glorious glorious glorious! A true heirloom-in-the-making.