WIP Wednesday: Fire And Light Shawl for St. Anne's Church

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 Welcome back to another WIP Wednesday; this one with some less-than-happy news, I'm afraid. 

Patrons may have already read my post about what happened to St. Anne's Church in Toronto.  What most of you who are not Patrons may not know, is that, I am, in fact, a parishioner of that church, and arrived Sunday Morning, June 9th, to find the church in flames.

I knew, immediately, I had to do something.  This is a 100 year old historic church - a heritage site under Parks Canada. . . . and a place that had become my spiritual home.  I had found this queer-positive church (yes, such things do really exist, I promise!) after I'd stopped attending my previous church due to the pandemic, and, well, I needed to do -something- to support this community of wonderful people I'd found.

So once the initial shock wore off (and I stopped crying), I came up with the idea of a Prayer Shawl, based loosely on motifs that had covered the back central wall of the church, behind the high altar.  My initial idea was some absurdly complex, three colour intarsia lace. . . that I quickly realized no one would knit, and didn't capture the open and accessible spirit of St. Anne's Church.  I wanted something that even a beginner could pick up and knit, rather then something that would intimidate people.  So I tried again.

 I know it doesn't look like much now, since it's all scrunched up on the needles, but this shawl pattern is based on the idea of a starburst, a light that will cut through all things. "The light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness cannot overcome it." (John 1:5)

The starburst motif starts as a series of rings, done in mesh and stocking stitch at the centre back neck of the shawl, before heading down the shawl in five points, with the tips of those points cutting across a lace motif designed to look like fire.  (I've tried to sketch this several times and failed, otherwise, I'd share my sketch here!)

Yarn is Dye-Version's Merino Lace, in "Windstorm" and sadly, Dye-Version seems to have gone out of business, since the time I bought this yarn (it was a number of years ago, I think at one of the local festivals!)  But, I knew that I wanted to use a Canadian Dyer for this one.  Given the importance of Canadian art and the connections that St. Anne's Church has to the world of Canadian Art (both historical art and contemporary art), I knew it absolutely had to be a Canadian dyer.  Now, I'm 100% sure there are Canadian yarn dyers out there who would have been happy to give yarn support for this pattern - but I also wanted to use what I already had, and cast on as soon as possible; because, the faster this pattern goes out, the more money it can (hopefully), raise for the church's rebuilding fund.  And yes, all the profit from this pattern will go towards helping rebuild the Church.  So, I went with a yarn I already had, because, the quicker this all comes together, the quicker I can get the pattern published and out to the world!

Needles are my 2.75 mm *Nickle-Plated Circular Needles from Knit Picks.   I did do an initial test swatch on my *4 mm Bamboo Circulars, but, I really didn't like how loose the lace mesh was at that size.  I'm much happier with this on the smaller needles. 

Stitch Markers are Dolphin Stitch Markers from *NotionsEmporium.  I specifically wanted stitch markers with larger charms for this one, because otherwise I knew I'd miss them as I was knitting.  The markers are marking the three 'spine' stitches.  The shawl has 5 wedges, and, so the three spine stitches form the edges to each wedge.  Originally, I actually hooked the markers right into the spine stitches, but, these markers are bit heavier, so they pulled on the stitches and distorted them.  Plus, if they weren't right on the needle, I had a bad habit of missing my marker as I worked!  So, I've put them so that each marker is just before the spine stitch if I'm knitting the Right Side of the shawl.  The Wrong Side of the shawl is entirely purled except for a garter stitch border, so it doesn't matter on the Wrong Side. 

 I'm currently on Row 86 of, well, however many rows there end up being.  I'm not exactly sure how big this shawl is going to get, but there's almost 1000 yards in this skein of lace, so I'm in no danger of running out of yarn.

So, yes, I have a new cast on.  I didn't plan to have a new cast on, but, I have one. (Isn't that the cry of many knitters?)  Have you cast anything on?  Finished a project?  Share your projects, (new and old), here in the comments, or, on Discord!