This shawl, which I started on the plane on my way to Niagara Falls, Ontario, for my 5th wedding anniversary, was a welcome respite from the slog through my first cardigan.

I picked up the yarn just a few days before the trip with the vague plan of picking a free shawl design from my favorites. I looked at several shades of green yarn before settling on this one because of its unabashed cheeriness. I chose the pattern because it had been in my favorites for a very long time, it was free (offsetting the higher-than-normal-for-me cost of the yarn), and so many people have knit it--I can’t help but feel like knitting a popular design at least once reinforces my feelings of belonging to the knitting community. Plus, once I downloaded the pattern I realized that what I’d always taken for large budding flowers around the border (tulips, perhaps?) are in fact leaves, which felt like the perfect match for the yarn.

Although the Pediboo’s ball band said “Sock,” it became clear pretty quickly that it was knitting up larger than your average fingering weight. While I was aiming for a smaller shawlette that I could wear bandana-style, I can’t really complain about getting a larger shawl with no extra effort. And somehow, despite going up a needle size to offset my normally tight knitting, I ended up with a small cake of leftover yarn. I don’t think I could have added any more repeats to the pattern, however, so I’m happy to keep the extras for some scrap project down the road.

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Okay, so I just checked the pattern again, and apparently this came out exactly the size it was intended. I guess I assumed because it was designed for fingering weight that it would be more the size of the Holden Shawlette. My mistake. But as I said, I’m still quite happy with the result.

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In case anyone is interested in the curious project name, it’s a play on Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a novel by Salman Rushdie. It’s at once a charming and provocative story, and I especially appreciated it because it seemed more accessible than Rushdie’s other works.

Finished Measurements
Width: 40 inches
Drop: 23 inches
Wings were blocked into a gentle crescent.