Charlize is an elegant yet modern, crescent-shaped shawlette that knits up beautifully in both semisolid and variegated yarns and can be worn casually or formally. Worked from the top center and outward to the ruffled edging, the lace portion is simple enough for someone new to lace, while engaging enough for experienced lace knitters looking for a quick, fun knit. The rapid rate of increasing gives this unique accessory enough length to be worn as a scarf and also creates a curved shape that will wrap easily around the shoulders when worn as a shawl.

A yarn crawl. A dyer’s trunk show. A generous hand reaching back to pull out a second skein just for me.

That’s how Indira began.

I walked into the first yarn shop of my day looking for something I wasn't even sure existed yet—the perfect yarn for a cable and lace shawl pattern I’d been sketching and swatching in other yarns that weren’t quite right. I grabbed what I thought was the last skein of a striking, plum-colored fingering weight yarn and two coordinating skeins of mohair/silk lace, and I started talking to an indie dyer who was having a trunk show there. She looked at the yarns in my hands and said, “Those are perfect together.”

I told her I thought so too but, sadly, the shop only had one skein of the fingering weight.

She reached back behind her table, pulled out a second skein of the same yarn that she’d set aside for herself, and handed it to me. “You clearly love the color and have a project in mind. Take it.”

That moment made my entire day. I left that shop knowing I’d found the right combination, and I knew exactly what it was for. My dream shawl.

It became my travel project. I worked on it during lunch breaks at work, at my first trunk show as a designer, throughout that memorable trip to Victoria that sparked the Aslyn hat pattern, even by flashlight during a power outage that lasted a few days. It was the project I was making when I hit 1,000 Instagram followers. And it was the pattern I was working on publishing when a season of unexpected grief and loss met my family.

All those moments—the in-between times, the pockets of creativity, the milestones, the memories—they’re woven into this shawl.

It all started in spring 2021, just days after I finished knitting the Nydia pullover. With one skein of that beautiful yarn left, I imagined a matching hat with the same textured stitch and lateral braid detail. I excitedly cast on, expecting to finish it by the end of the weekend.

It didn’t work out that way. Another project called—a sweater!—and the hat got set aside. Weeks became months, and when I rediscovered the nearly finished hat in early 2022, I picked it up to work on the crown shaping, but it didn’t come together the way I wanted. Back into the project bag it went.

Then, at the beginning of 2023, after test knitting the Nydia Cardigan, a few testers asked if there’d be a matching hat. That question sparked something, and my initial excitement came rushing back. Unable to find my original project, I cast on again with the details still alive in my mind. And this time? Everything clicked. The crown shaping came together in a single day.

I cast on another, then another, and just kept going—working with different DK weight yarns, adjusting stitch placements, and fine-tuning every detail. Each hat flew off the needles. Before I knew it, the Nydia Hat had evolved into not just one but two variations in sizes graded to fit the whole family.

A generous group of test knitters helped me confirm the pattern worked, and several made multiple hats for themselves and loved ones too. And just like that, after all those years, the Nydia Hat was finally ready for the world.