The Picot Pi in Progress

In line with my latest obsession with Elizabeth Zimmermann's knitwear designs, I find myself  knitting my own variation of her Pi Shawl pattern / knit recipe. 

My Picot Pi is currently a work in progress and I have yet to perform the particular bind-off, from which my pattern variation derives its name. The construction of the Picot Pi broadly follows Zimmermann's basic Pi design, but I decided to modify it, to turn it into a more beginner-friendly circular shawl project. 

Zimmermann's design calls for Emily Ocker's crochet cast-on during the set-up. Sadly, crochet and me don't get on, unless I have instructions directly in front of me. Consequently, here we have the first modification: I started off with nine cast-on knit stitches (using the Twisted German cast-on method) and divided these evenly on three needles before joining in the round. This modification will produce a little hole in the centre of the shawl, which is shown below.

I followed Zimmermann's increase sequence in the beginning but decided to move through a variety of needle sizes whilst increasing the centre of the shawl. The increases used at the very centre are achieved with 'yarn overs'. As the shawl started to grow, I decided to increase by knitting in the front and backs of all stitches. Following every increase row, I changed the size of the needle all the way from 2.75mm to 5mm. The increases in the outer perimeters of the shawl are once again worked with yarn overs. (I increased the number of stitches approximately every twenty rows.) 

During the rows inbetween I wanted to maintain the frequency of yarn over increases in the pattern and used k2tog-decreases to reduce the number of stitches immediately after the increase row. Currently, I'm in the process of finishing the last stockinette rows, which will be slightly longer than the preceding stockinette sections, before embarking on the picot bind off, which may take a while.

A progress update on the Picot Pi, which is now off the needles (yet unblocked) is available here.

Picot Pi (unblocked), more here