A while ago, I found a beautiful pattern called Solace, but it is complicated--an end edging that I just can’t seem to make work (I think the pattern is wrong), and the main body of the shawl consisting of three different (and non-coordinated) patterns. So I broke it down to its component parts--did the flame chevron pattern in a previous shawl to practice that stitch, and here, I rehearsed the two border sections of “Solace,” the purl-only border with a central stitch running the length--which I ended up really liking and will definitely use again-- and then a venerable yarn-over pattern called “fountain,” simply multiplying it by four to make for sufficient width.

There is a lot of heart and soul in this shawl, since I was knitting it throughout my husband’s diagnosis with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer, sitting in quite a few waiting rooms at the hospital and the various doctors with this shawl. So perhaps this one is meant for someone coping with cancer…?