Today I released the Pulsar shawl pattern on Ravelry. It’s the second installment in the Astronomy Collection. it is an accessible garter stitch shawl knit up in two colors of fingering weight yarn. The bands of color are inspired by the pulsed emissions of a neutron star.

Last month I released Penumbra - a semi-circular mini shawl that features ripples of eyelet-punctuated garter stitch. Drawing inspiration from the shadowy rings of an eclipse, the smaller size is just right for allowing a lovely single skein of precious hand-dyed yarn to shine. You can purchase both from my Ravelry shop.

Pulsar Shawl / knit from Swift Bliss Sock in colors Uptown Graffiti (dark speckle) and Downtown (white speckle)

Penumbra / shown in Wol met Verve Merino Singles in color 7250008

In high school I spent many afternoons at the public library, a short walk from my school, doing homework and then reading until my mom picked me up on her way home from work. In tenth grade I became enamored with astronomy, astrophysics, and quantum mechanics. I read pages and pages about red shift, blue shift, time dilation, pulsars, quasars, quarks, relativity…and so on. One of my favorite elective classes in college was the Philosophy of Space and Time. Years later I’m still fascinated by many of these concepts, many of which are not directly observable.

Staring at the stars in the night sky, and thinking that light was made millions of years ago, by a star that may have already died, is truly awe inspiring for me. I’ve tried to translate just a bit of that wonder and awe into this collection of patterns; little allegories of the cosmos.

I have plans to add two more patterns to the Astronomy collection later this year. Stay tuned for updates.