Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Flags and Shawls




It's a prayerful sort of day.
My good friend Melanie (check out her blog- a beautiful combination of art, spirituality and knitting: http://handstosoul.wordpress.com/ ) sent me some Tibetan Prayer Flags to hang on my back deck (under construction- note that the grass is still green, which tells you that we've had a very wet, mild summer and a long intro to fall). Tibetan Prayer Flags (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_prayer_flag ) are pieces of unhemmed cloth, strung outdoors in the wind and elements. The squares of cloth are hung in a specific order: yellow (earth), green (water), red (fire), white (air) and blue (space), and as they slowly unravel, good thoughts and prayers are imprinted on the wind, generating peace and harmony and good wishes. It's a lovely sentiment, and I will send my good thoughts out with the bits of thread from my flags.


And my copy of The Prayer Shawl Companion arrived!!!! With my shawl design right there on the cover!!! Which means that Frida should e-mail me (kathleentaylor1952 at gmail dot com ) with her address, so I can send her winner's copy to Iceland (Iceland. Iceland. Iceland. Not Finland).


The book, compiled and written by Janet Bristow and Victoria A. Cole-Galo, founders of The Prayer Shawl Ministry ( http://www.shawlministry.com/ )and published by The Taunton Press, is beautiful. It has 38 lovely shawl and wrap patterns, each by a different designer, including Kaffe Fasset, Nicky Epstein, and Brandon Mably. The patterns range from easy/simple, to lace and mosaic patterning. The pictures are lovely, and the stories that accompany each pattern are inspiring. It's a gorgeous book, and I am proud to have contributed to it.


(Amazon link to the book on the right side of the page)

4 comments:

Karen said...

Oh, I am so glad your book came! It looks stunning, and now I'll have to watch for it at my LBS.
Funny, too, because I was just thinking about prayer shawls, in preparation for my morning blog post. Clearly, great minds do indeed think alike!

Unknown said...

Congratulations, Kathleen!
How exciting to have a pattern in the same book as Kaffe Fassett.

Samtal från min trädgård said...

What a nice blogg you have! I saw the book about prayer shawls which I just ordered from Amazon and I'm waiting for it to arrive. Take a look at my blogg eventhough its in swedish! I surely will return to your blogg, its on my favorites.
Have a nice weekend!

Anonymous said...

I love this book! The designs are unique and original, yet classic, and was much more than I expected . I generally get more out of the Taunton-published books than I do others. The website www.craftstylish.com has a lot of other ideas and patterns too.