San Juan Bautista Shawl

Now available as an individual pattern as well as in the beautiful book, Hitch.

When Alfred Hitchcock first saw the San Juan Bautista Mission south of San Francisco, he knew he had found the perfect location for the climactic scenes in Vertigo (1958). The Spanish mission, built in the eighteenth century, projected just the right ominous air for his main character’s confrontation with death and acrophobia.

The famous tower from that film, however, like Madeleine’s apparent suicide from its top, is—spoiler alert!—entirely fabricated. The mission’s steeple had burned in a fire years before, so Hitchcock used scale models, studio sets, and trick photography to create the illusion of a tower.

Taking a cue from Hitchcock, this shawl creates its own illusion, using a very simple lace pattern to reproduce the graphic look of Vertigo’s striking movie poster. This is easy knitting that won’t make you want to jump from a steeple.

Materials Shibui Knits Stacc