Ali Baba

Ali Baba is the third shawl in a set of three shawls released as part of  the Fairy Tale KAL (following Marushka and Princess Cottongrass). It is based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from Arabian Nights. Ali Baba and his brother find the golden treasure in the thieves’ cave, which can only be entered when the password “Open Sesame!” is spoken.
Ali Baba’s brother is trapped in the cave and when the thieves catch him, he’s hung up and quartered. They also realize he has an accomplice, and set out to find Ali Baba.
When the thieves attempt to discover where Ali Baba lives, the first thief marks his gate with a chalk mark, but Ali Baba’s trusted servant marks all the surrounding gates.
The second thief cuts a chunk out of Ali Baba’s gate, but the trusted servant again marks all the surrounding gates in the same way.
Finally the leader of the thieves attempts to kill Ali Baba and sneaks in all the thieves hidden in oil barrels, but Ali Baba’s trusted servant smothers them with heated oil.

The Ali Baba shawl is knit in a rich red colour called Ruby Port that reminds me of opulent Persian carpets.  The gold coins Ali Baba found in the thieves’ cave are depicted on the shawl. There are also forty of them – for the forty thieves. Underneath is a set of gates, all with an extra yarn-over. This represents the first time the thieves tried to find Ali Baba’s house and marked his gate with chalk. His trusted servant then marked all the surrounding gates with the same chalk mark, so the thieves could not find him.
The second set of gates all have a missing yarn over, representing the chunk that the thieves cut out of Ali Baba’s gate the second time they tried to find his house. Again, the servant marked all the surrounding gates by chipping them as well.
And then along the bottom edge are the flames from the burning oil that the servant used to smother the thieves hiding in the barrel.

The shawl is knit from the neck down. The pattern is charted, and the lace pattern is only on every other row.

$8.00

Finished measurements: wingspan: 180 cm (71″), height: 90 cm (35.5″)

Yarn: 1000 yds of Silk Lace from Sundara Yarn (100% silk – 1,000 yds/914 m per 100 g) in Ruby Port or similar colour
Needles: 3.0 mm needles

It is available in downloadable pdf-format in English, French and German (you will receive 3 pdfs – 1 in each language).


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