From Prayer Shawl to Baby Blanket

Diagonal Pattern Baby Blanket: This is an example of what happens when a project is started during one phase of your life and not finished during the same phase. It started out as a Prayer Shawl using a pattern from the Prayer Shawl Ministry: http://www.shawlministry.com/ . At the time, I liked the ideas of comforting expressed by the ministry, and the circumstances of my life back then were such that I couldn't think of anyone who needed such comfort more than I did. During that time, things were so dark and desperate and the spiritual warfare so intense that I was praying every day more than I had ever prayed in my life before. So, I bought some of the yarn recommended for the pattern in a colorway that was a combination of pink, blue and white--pink and blue having been my favorite colors for a long, long time.

Through the subsequent years, my life changed, especially my spiritual life. First, I discovered that the tallit (Hebrew prayer shawl) had been around for millennia and when I had my own, I discovered that it was a lot more practical for use as a prayer shawl than the heavy bulky one I had been knitting off and on for the previous three years or so since it is much lighter--a single layer of woven fabric. While the one I was knitting could end up being a tallit by adding a tzitzit to each of the four corners when it was finished, it seemed it would still be too hot and uncomfortable to be under for long periods of prayer time. Also, because of its size and bulk, it would not fit into a tallit bag and be easy to take along in my Scriptures case as with the traditional tallit.

As time went on, I didn't even need a traditional tallit because I came to wearing a headcovering full-time, so the shawl in progress had become obsolete for the originally intended purpose. I thought about just completing it and using it as a regular shawl for warmth purposes, but I've never been a shawl wearer. Besides that, pink and blue weren't even my favorite colors anymore! Somewhere along the way I've come to prefer soft purple colors like lavender and violet. When I thought about completing the shawl and giving it to one of my loved ones, the pastel pink and blue colors of the shawl didn't seem to fit any of them either--too babyish.

Finally, after a few more months of thinking about it, I decided to frog the Prayer Shawl. (The knitting term 'frog' comes from 'rip it, rip it'.) Then I actually did it and ended up with four skeins of Baby Clouds yarn absolutely perfect in every way for a soft cuddly baby blanket and immediately started knitting it up. That's the great thing about yarn--it can always be unraveled and you can start again. I kind of miss the Prayer Shawl and the way it reminded me of my spiritual journey of the past few years, but the baby blanket has the same effect as I'm knitting it.

Dance War: I have been wondering about the point of this show from the beginning--How can a 'team' win this 'war' unless one team never has anyone eliminated? Is that the point--to have one of the original teams stay intact while the other team dwindles down to zero week by week? But then what if, next week, the dwindling team wins the audience vote, and so that the so-far-intact team has to finally lose a member? In that case, you'd have no intact teams, only reduced teams, and does that mean the show is over? If not, and the point is to get down to only one person still standing, then how can that be a winning 'team'? Winning 'side' maybe, but not really a 'team'. What if there are 3 people left on one team when the last member of the other team gets eliminated? Is the show over then, or will they then fight amongst themselves to be the last one standing? I guess that's why I still pay some attention to this show--to see how it's supposed to play out--because the singing and dancing sure aren't good enough to keep my interest.

Today's Scripture Reading: Shemu'el Alef (1 Samuel) 6:1-9:14

Dinner Tonight: Final appearance of Dad's Super Bowl Chili.