Azucena, from August to April

Done. Blocked. Ends sewn in. Photographed. I present Azucena, a shawl from a 153 round Christine Duchrow doily (plus a 45 round, 12" border of my own. That makes most of these stitches of my own design, pi and geometry being what they are and the outer rounds having so many more stitches than the inner rounds.) I cast on 612 stitches at the tree tops and knit to the center, then picked up stitches and knit to the outside edge. From an unnamed Italian cashmere/merino blend (60/40) purchased at Stitches East in Baltimore around 2006, on size 5 needles, 70" diameter, 1014 stitches in the final round (It ruffles a little. I could have gotten away with fewer, maybe 942). Here it is unblocked:

It is a mini-travelogue from my youth. The trees are a stand of pines on the drive to Hartman Creek, the borders are the mountains of Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain and Glacier National Parks, in between are little bubbly rows of DYCs -- the ubiquitous little yellow flowers of western National Parks. The center has the symmetry of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. (OK, so to see this connection you have to use your imagination. Love those domes: so unexpected.)

I might take a better picture of it once I have it off the alphabet blocks, but right now the white truck is gone. (The hood of a white car is my new favorite background. So big, so white, so nondescript!)

If I could have figured out a way, I would have included the Devil's Tower, pueblos of Mesa Verde, Yellowstone's mudpots, the hot asphalt of a Kansas A&W parking lot, Oregon's rocky coast and northern California's giant redwoods.

Maybe next time I'll knit some Great Sand Dunes.