for you to make

Dancing stitches and an abundance of yarn overs. Starting with an Emily Ocker cast-on and working in the round the elegant and fine ‘mandala’ grows with ease and speed. The rhythm of the yarn-overs will hypnotise you.

The idea behind pi knitting is to evenly space the increases properly, so that your circular knitting will lie flat. This is more tricky than it sounds. If you increase too fast, your knitting will distort the design. If you increase too slowly, your knitting will pucker.

Zimmerman's pi increase formula achieves flat circular knitting. It uses exponential growth (every increase row you double the stitches, and to match that the number of rows between increase rows doubles) but it takes full advantage of the fact that knitting stitches are so malleable.

YOU WILL NEED
3 x WARM MOONSHINE (400m/100g, 70% alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere)   
4mm crochet hook (for cast-on), 4.5mm double-pointed needles for beginning of shawl, 4.5mm circular needle (100cm), round counter,  sewing-up needle

GAUGE:  19sts to 10cm over stocking stitch on 4.5mm needles.

FINISHED SIZE:  From centre to border-edge 58 cm, diameter 116cm

ABBREVIATIONS
k: knit    |      p: purl    
Rnd: round   |   st(s): stitch(es)
yo: yarn over, starting at front of work pass yarn over needle to back. When you reach a yo on next row, k as directed.  This should create a hole.
ssk: slip next st k-wise,  slip  following st k-wise, insert tip of left-hand needle into these 2sts (right to left) and k together as one
k2tog: k 2sts together to make one st
k2tog tbl: k 2sts together to back of loop to make one st

PATTERN NOTE
After completing 10 rnds, or after each pattern repeat section, thread a piece of coloured yarn or cotton around all sts. This will enable you to revert back to a known ‘safe’ position in the event of dropped sts or any other error.