According to Ysolda, "When Miss Babs asked me to design a shawl inspired by my home town of Edinburgh, the first thing I did was exchange my bike for a camera on my commute through the city centre, slowing down to notice details I usually speed past. When I went through the photos I’d taken I began sketching, looking for simple abstract shapes. Over and over I was drawing sweeping arches coming together above intricately detailed windows. I started swatching, attempting to combine cables, lace and ribbing into a combination that would echo those shapes in an intuitive, knitterly way. I wasn’t sure how to end it, until I came across a photo of the Thistle Chapel inside St. Giles Cathedral. The elaborate stone ceiling features columns that spread out into separate ribs — on the ceiling they’re decorated with clusters of carved leaves, but I ended mine with a picot bind off, arranged so the picots are perfectly aligned with the ribs."