Galapagos knits

We went on holiday to the Galapagos earlier this year, and as well as having a wonderful holiday I came back with lots of ideas for knitting patterns based on the animals and natural phenomena we saw.

I was inspired to start writing some of these up when I got the idea to sell the patterns and give a proportion of the sale costs  to the Galapagos Conservation Trust.

One of the most amazing places we saw was the island of Santiago where there is a huge expanse of swirling lava fields - like this:

So, I've been working out how to get something of a similar effect with knitting, perhaps using short row shaping. The first result of this is the Bartolome cowl, which isn't quite the full thing but uses the basic short row shaping technique to make swirly shapes. The next step will be to combine with a more textured knitting design to get a little closer to the lava.

I'm also looking at a mangrove shawl and of course some tortoise themed knits!

The cowl is available for £1 on Ravelry. 50p from each sale goes to the Galapagos Conservation Trust (and 24p to Paypal less charitably). I'm quite excited to have made my massive 4 sales so far, which is £2 for the Galapagos and £1.04 for me...