The Prayer Shawl

This past summer we took a three and a half week camping trip to Bryce Canyon, Zion, the North Rim, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We ended up spending a couple days in Flagstaff visiting our oldest daughter Maria. I couldn't resist the temptation to visit Barnes and Noble, a real bookstore. While browsing in the spiritual books section, I saw a title that grabbed my eye -- Knitting Into the Mystery by Susan Jorgensen and Susan Izard. I bought the book (along with five or six others) and started reading it almost as soon as I got back to the camper. I found the idea of knitting prayer-filled items to be very compelling. After all, when we're knitting for someone else, aren't we already putting good thoughts, wishes, prayers, etc., into it already. The prayer shawl ministry seems to be a logical, more formal extension of what we are already doing.

I had never heard of such a ministry, although since then I have run across a couple people who have. The ones they knew of were back in the eastern US. I decided I wanted to try making up the recommended shawl pattern, just to see how it would turn out. It is done in a modified seed stitch, knit 3 purl 3, and I do enjoy patterns where the knits and purls alternate. I don't like garter stitch, and I haven't done much plain stockinette, but I do enjoy pattern knitting. I ordered four skeins of Encore Worsted from Patternworks in a multicolor called Butternut (7301), which for some reason they aren't showing anymore, and cast on. I took it to a retreat with me in the beginning of October, and worked on it fairly constantly during the sessions (I was sitting in the back, helping with the book table, so I wasn't distracting anyone). Several people came to ask me what I was working on, but only one lady, who wasn't even from our area, was interested in the ministry concept. I was thinking that if I found enough people interested in the ministry aspect, I would look into starting a group. But it doesn't look promising right now.

Besides, even though I'm only working on this part time, I've only gotten through one skein of the yarn in what seems like an awful long time, so I don't even know if I could get up enough productivity to make a ministry feasable. I'm just not a very fast knitter, I guess. I'm a thrower, not a picker, and maybe that makes a difference.

Sorry that the picture doesn't show much detail. I've figured out how to format the pictures but I need to work on the quality of what I'm posting! And speaking of doing stockinette knitting, I'm really thinking about doing the Prisoner of Azkaban scarf from atypically.knit, but do I really need another project now?

In closing, here is a picture of my November garden, for all of you who are already in the grip of winter.