I’ve always marveled at the drawings by the 19th century naturalist, biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel who illustrated, in gorgeous detail, hundreds of animals and sea creatures.

The repetitive natural forms captured in his drawings offer a lifetime of inspiration for designing repeating shapes and swirls and patterns. The Fossil shawl is reminiscent of one of his ammonite sketches (shown at left.)

It also happens to be a warm, bright and cozy autumn retreat - soothing to knit and delicious to curl up in.

Beginner friendly!

This shawl uses simple stitches to create an unusual shape. An adventurous beginner, or beginner-with-a-friend, can make this!

Construction

You’ll start at the small end and work a growing number of eyelets on just one side, creating a skewed spriral. The result will be a shape that looks like a fictional fossil or shell from some unknown creature.

Yarn

Fossil is made with a bouncy Aran weight wool, but you can make the shawl in Worsted or DK. (An extra bit of instructions are included to lengthen the shawl if working with finer yarn.)

The shawl can be made all in one color, or in two colors as shown, and would be beautiful in tonal yarns as well.