Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl in Progress

After finishing up my Happy Octopus Hat on New Year's Eve... I was soooo tired... but I got my second wind.  I cast on a new project... LIKE I NEED A NEW PROJECT... with some dreamy yarn I received as a gift from my good friend Kerri. The yarn is Zen Yarn Garden "Serenity 20" in an amazing golden yellow color called "Butterfly Kisses".  The yarn is scrumptious, yummy, squishy, soft, plump... amazing to work with and the colors in the yarn are very rich.  When I saw the pattern called "Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl" on Ravelry, I knew it would be the perfect project for the yummy yarn I had.

I have an affinity for the Ginkgo (Ginkgo Biloba) tree.  I remember being impressed by them when I read a blurb about them in a  Botany class a really long time ago and what I read has stuck with me over the years.   The Ginkgo tree is considered a living fossil.  I understand that to mean that trees very similar the now existing Ginkgo trees lived on the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.  It is also a unique species of trees, with no close living relatives.  You can read more about Ginkgo trees HERE or HERE if you are interested in that sort of thing.  

Ginkgo trees are quite ornamental and their leaves have a distinct, graceful shape, as you can see in the photos above.  I remember learning that either the male Ginkgo tree or the female Ginkgo tree (I cannot recall WHICH one!) gives off a horrible odor, so if you are interested planting a Ginkgo tree in your yard, be sure to research that.  (Yet another odd fact that I remember after all of these years!  No wonder I have to write a grocery list if I am shopping for more than three items... my brain is full of random, useless information).  Ginkgo may sound familiar to some as it is the source of an herbal remedy which some belive enhances memory, among other things.

I am not sure if the "leaves" in my current knitting project are just like the Ginkgo leaves found on a tree, but whatever the case may be, I think the colors in the yarn are amazing, the yarn is an absolute treat with which to knit, and I think the shawlette will be pretty when it is done.