While hiking the Appalachian Trail on an April morning, leaving from a valley lush with the green of spring, it was hard to ignore that the higher the trail climbed, the less green it got and higher up trees and branches had fewer and fewer leaves, some not having put forth any growth at all.
The shawl depicts the tulip tree as it starts to burst into life in early spring. Starting with the leaves, the unopened buds higher up and finally the border representing the highest branches with the flowers in all their splendor!

Tulip Tree is a top-down triangular lace shawl knit in fingering weight yarn and can be completed using just one skein of most sock yarns. Designed to use a bit more substantial yarn to keep the spring chill at bay, it will work up much quicker than a traditional lace shawl and while being a bit less delicate will look just as impressive!

Materials:

Yarn: Fingering weight yarn, 400-440 yds (365-400 meter)

Shown in Tosh Merino light ‘Tern’ (grey)
and KnitPicks Stroll (teal, darker color)

Needles:
US 6 (4 mm) or US 5 (3.75mm) circular needles, 24” (60 cm) or longer (use appropriate size for your yarn)

Gauge:
Gauge not essential, but yarns lists as 7 to 8 st per inch, over stockinette stitch. (changes in gauge will change yardage required)

Finished Sizes:
Approx. 45” (120 cm) tip to tip, 28” (72 cm) center back. Measured relaxed after blocking.

Skills needed: Intermediate Lace knitting, reading charts, various versions of directional increases and decreases (such as s2kp, sk2p, k3tg, p3tg, skp, k2tg, etc) yarn overs, slipped stitches.
Most of the pattern is plain purl rows on the wrong side, but there are 2 rows that are ‘true lace’ where a simple pattern is worked on the wrong side as well.

For more from Owl Cat Designs visit owlcatdesigns.com

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