Getting Shawls on Shoulders!

Thursday in Dunnet Church Hall was one of those quiet celebrations that represents the culmination of a lot of work as we got the shawls that have been made, displayed, and blessed in packages with labels and care instructions.

Now they are ready for distribution throughout the areas covered by the Central Churches of Caithness. Thanks to our partners, Central Churches and Project Linus UK, we can concentrate on the knitting in the confidence that our knitting will go to welcome homes.

As we knit and stuffed and chatted, I was reminded that no one knew the whole history of the shawls that led to the shawl ministry for Northern Loops.

It started with a book. Angela had the book, but Ruan (being a librarian) is often the one who brings books to us, so it might have started with her. This book was about knitting for peace. That was perhaps the first thread in the shawl ministry.

Another book -- one of very few about knitting collaboratively--had a pattern for a shawl made out of triangles. Now if this were a panto, I would expect to hear boos and hisses from the crowd because we did an awful lot of triangles, and then as a consequence, an awful lot of sewing up. I might not have mentioned triangles --folks rightly are a bit twitchy on the subject--if I had not run across the original paper templates I used to try to design with in the boot of my car. No one will be surprised to hear that I find forgotten things in the boot of my car, but just to let you know that this was found because I was tidying up--honestly!

Olive and Angela are shown here working to get the shawls into the packages. As with triangles, it sounded easier than it turned out to be.

Lastly I include here a photo of the wool recently donated to Margaret. It will start the cycle all over again because the shawl ministry will keeping putting shawls on shoulders.

Oh I forgot to mention another thread of the shawl ministry. When we started down this path, I put Northern Loops on the map of the international shawl ministry from a reference in Angela's book to the ministry, the first in Scotland! So the shawl ministry is one of the ways a handful of knitters in the far north of Scotland help make a better community here in our own backyard and beyond.

It was a busy Thursday. Tomorrow I'll blog the latest in Patreen's pockets.