prayers

For a few weeks now, I have been making, then frogging, a prayer shawl for a friend who recently became an interfaith minister. Great inspiration has come from Janet Bristow and Victoria Galo's Shawl Ministry: http://shawlministry.com/.

I have used different sized needles, different yarns, different colors, different patterns. I *think* I have settled on crochet size D hook, Red Heart Soft Baby, with small pockets knit on size 3 needles in different colors to be sewn onto the finished shawl which will be 613 rows long (well, stitches because I'm working it sideways) and will have fringe. I think the fringe may be in strands of two or five to use those numbers and what they symbolize. I am trying to incorporate as many of these numbers as I can, and represent as many religions as I can: http://www.crystalinks.com/numerology2.html. The pockets will be all of the colors listed under the shawl ministry's "symbollism" section. I haven't tied tzitzit in many years, but I may put them on the corners.

I'm still not sure that I like the shawl as is being crocheted, but I may feel differently after I'm done... I know that my friend will love it no matter what. The goal is for it to be a shawl in which she can wrap herself to find inspiration and comfort and through which she can help heal others. The colored pockets will be to accommodate written prayers, amulets or prayer beads, and I hope she can run her fingers through the fringes, as I often do with my own prayer shawl.

Ms. Bristow and Ms. Galo have prayers sprinkled throughout their website, and I have tried to read some of them as I began this process even though I am not traditionally a "prayer" person. For my friend, whom I love a great deal, I read them.