Lake Baikal (in Russia) has always been fascinating to me. When I was little, I thought the name was interesting because ‘bajka’ means story or fable, and I imagined that the lake is the home of fairies and magical creatures. Later in school I learned that the lake is even more unique than that – it is the world’s deepest and clearest lake, it holds the largest amount of fresh water, and at 25 million years old it’s also the oldest lake. Baikal is home to numerous unique life forms, and since its depths are largely unexplored, who knows what new magical creatures are still waiting to be discovered.

The lake is shaped as a crescent and the shawl is a crescent as well to reflect the inspiration. The shawl is worked from the top down and shaped with an easy set of garter stitch short rows. To keep things simple, the short row wraps can be left unworked, hidden within the garter stitch texture.

Garter stitch sections worked in a beautiful hand-painted yarn flow between bands of simple lace worked in a matching solid color. I added a few beads to the lace to reflect the shimmering surface of water (195 6/0 4.00mm seed beads), but the beads are optional and the shawl can be worked without them. Lace is written out and charted.

Yarn
MC: Any fingering weight yarn, approx. 356 yards; the original sample was completed with 2 skeins Cloudborn Highland Superwash Sock Twist Hand Paints (178 yds / 163 m per 50 g skein; 80% Superwash Wool, 20% Polyamide) in Aurora Borealis
CC: Any fingering weight yarn, approx. 178 yards; the original sample was completed with 1 skein Cloudborn Highland Superwash Sock Twist (178 yds / 163 m per 50 g skein; 80% Superwash Wool, 20% Polyamide) in Navy

Danish translation is available here - thank you, MarianneHo!

Questions or comments about my designs?
Interested in KALs & MKALs?
Join Susanna IC group on Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/susanna-ic