Last year, someone I know suffered a miscarriage. She had been nine weeks along. She hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy, so she didn’t tell anyone about the miscarriage for several days. When she did finally tell her story, this was how she said she felt – lost, adrift, with the storm all around her and no shelter or safe port in sight.

I decided to recreate a shawl to capture that feeling. There are five stages of grief, and I will not claim to have represented each of them accurately here. But each motif is designed to represent a different part in the journey towards healing. The first two sections, with its raindrops, bleeding hearts, sea monsters, and storms, symbolizes the initial shock and pain of grief, where the third and fourth sections, with their motifs of waves and currents represent the feeling of being lost and drifting aimlessly. The lighthouse in the border section embodies healing. As there is no right or wrong way to grieve, each section provides the knitter with two pattern options, and the shawl may be knit as a either a circle or half circle. The exception to this is the border, which is knitted on sideways. Any of the charts may be repeated at the knitter’s discretion if a larger shawl is desired.

Yarn: Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 by JaggerSpun (50% wool, 50% silk, 630 yards), 3 skeins

Recommended Needles: 4 mm, US size 6, or whatever needle will give you the fabric you like

Gauge: approximately 18 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches. Exact gauge is not critical for this project

Pattern Notes: Always slip markers as you come to them. Their locations will be indicated in the first section, but after that, you will need to remember.

The half circle version includes a garter stitch border on either side. These stitches will be included in the directions, but not in the stitch counts for each row.

N.B. Pay attention to the row numbers! Some of the charts have patterning on both sides, and some do not!

Techniques required: chart reading, increasing and decreasing, lace, working in the round.