See The Light Shawl – English

I designed this shawl, which I named the “See The Light Shawl”, in remembrance of my mother-in-law. She passed away peacefully on the 19th of December, 2010, at the age of 89.

Pattern: See The Light Shawl English

Additional See The Light Shawl Charts in Excel (equal square size)

Errata: Leave out Setup Row B and C

Errata Row 63: there should be two yarnovers instead of one on each side, so the outer k stiches in the middle should be yarnovers, leaving just k12 in the middle and then 2 yo on each side.

The shawl begins at the center top starting with my mother-in-law’s favourite knitting pattern, the Feather & Fan. From there open out rays, sun rays, and, further down, cornflowers. The edging comes in two versions. I started knitting this colourful shawl with the wool I spun on my handspindle during the week my mother-in-law made her way to the other side. The first is pink and green.  The second is cornflower blue. A cornflower is painted on her urn, and she would have picked that flower if she had seen it next to a path. In the photographs, the colours don’t resemble the way they really look in the light that is outside right now.

The pattern will be free, as all of my patterns, but I hope for donations for eye surgeries for people in developing countries. That is why I named the shawl  the “See The Light Shawl”. My mother-in-law had cataract surgery performed on both of her eyes, and she was happy to see colours again. On her 80th birthday, she asked for donations to pay for eye surgeries for other people so that they, too, could see the light and the colours again. To honor her we asked for the same instead of flowers for her funeral.

It costs only 30 € or $40 to do cataract surgery on an eye in Bangladesh. If some knitters who knit this shawl donate a small amount of money, many other people will see the light again. Click here to see how you can donate by credit card to “Christoffel Blindenmission”, CBM, which has already done more than 10,138,000 eye surgeries and on average does one every minute.

Here you can read how to donate

My daughter modeled again