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My cousin and his wife in were expecting a baby in Brazil! What a flurry of crafting that set off in both hemispheres. I wanted to try out my new short row slide technique, and picked a tessellating 8 pointed star pattern to use it on. All I needed was a name that combined stars, the number 8, and the Southern Hemisphere. Octans is a Southern Polar constellation named for a navigational tool that is one eighth of a circle.

Do you have someone to make a blanket for? How about a shawl? I hope you have fun saying, “I made that ribbing slide sideways!” then snuggling in the finished object.

The self-edged Octans is knit in one piece. The alternating stockinette and reverse stockinette stars are shaped by increases and decreases, with a narrow edge of ribbing in between them. The nearly horizontal parts are made with reversible “Short Row Slides.”

You can knit it as a Small Shawl (Large Shawl, Infant blanket, 2 & 6 years, 7 & 11 years, Lapghan, 12+years, Adult). You will need 6 (11, 5, 7, 11, 11, 19, 19) balls of Valley Yarns Haydenville

Thanks to Kelene Kinnersly for working on the photography, to WEBS for yarn support, Talitha Kuomi, Saxarocks, gannet, picnicknits, pamslu, and Blue-eyedCrafty for pattern writing advice, to Loni, for saving me tissue boxes with star patterns on them for inspiration, to Jody for telling me to do a shawl version, and to Tabitha and Corrina for Technial Editing.