family leaves

This project has been a long time in the making. I decided to make a prayer shawl for my mother-in-law soon after her sister's funeral back in January. The pattern was easy. She has a framed quote, given to her by my sister-in-law, which says:

Our family is a circle of love and strength. With every birth and every union, the circle grows. Every joy shared adds more love. Every obstacle faced together makes the circle stronger.

The background is a tree, and leaves were on my mind to embody this artwork and its sentiments. Nikol Lohr's Woodland Shawl was perfect.

The yarn took a bit more trying, but at the end of February I found this beautiful MadTosh yarn at Loop in Philadelphia, colorway Magnolia Leaf.

The perfect embodiment of fall leaves. It was just a matter of knitting, and knitting, and knitting, after that.

I finally finished it up mid-summer, but then became stuck on how to do the beading. The shawl was intended to be a true sister shawl to the prayer shawl I had made many years ago for her sister. Her sister's shawl had ten beads on each side, so the wearer could use it to say a rosary if she chose.

The leaf-shaped beads I found were larger than the seed beads I am used to knitting with. The color and theme were too perfect not to use them, so I stewed for months over the best way to attach them to both ends. I finally made myself sit down during our power outage after Sandy, and work it out through trial and error.

I'll explain how I did the beading tomorrow!