Pi(e) Shawls

I was recently testing some yarn for wool content before rehoming it to a local elementary school.  A big ball of black fingering weight came back wool.  It must be merino from the feel of it. It's so wonderfully soft.  It's been calling to me that it wants to be a Pi shawl.

Before I started, I wanted to finish some things.  I got some of them finished and some are half way done.   The soft black yarn finally won.  

In my version, I started with 5 size 3.5 mm wood done. Using a magic ring,  I cast on 4 to each needle.  I knit a round.  I knit 1 and yarn overed for a round.   I knit 2 rounds.  I repeated the knit 1, yarn over round.   I knit 4 rounds.  I repeated the increase round.   I'm currently working on the next 8 rounds of knit. I moved the work to a US size 5 (3.75mm) 16 inch circular needle.

Then I thought to look at Pinterest to see what others might be doing with this.  I thought about various lace patterns I could include. All I need is the right number of stitches for the repeats to work out.   But back to Pinterest...

Donna Druchunas has some beautiful pi shawl patterns.  Brooklyn Tweed also has some great ideas and patterns for the pi  shawl concept.   Were I using any color other than black,  I'd be all over them.  Sadly black doesn't show stitch patterns to their best advantage.  I continued looking.  

Surprisingly,  there are a number of methods for working the Pi shawl.  Some make the increase round the 3rd round. Others use the 4th round.   Depending on the number of stitches cast on and the size of the hole left in the center,  you could start with almost any number of stitches.

There are 2 different versions from Elizabeth Zimmermann.  One is the almost solid knit with the increase rounds at 1, 4, 9, 18, 36, 72, 144, 256, 576 or something like that.   The other one is the concentric circles of yarn overs coupled with the k2tog unless it's an increase round, following the same numbers as the solid.

The only thing I wouldn't recommend is cables.  Cables tend to draw in the work. Sometimes it can take in the knitting 30 to 50%.  Smocking stitches will do the same.  Some slip stitch patterns will also.   Indian cross stitch comes to mind.