Lace Crochet shawl – STEPHANIE HARARI

Saturday, it’s raining for the first time in 6 months in Israel. Heavy rains for a few minutes. The sky is dark blue- gray, beautiful, inspiring.

It reminds me of autumn in France, staying at home on those rainy week-ends, near the fire place, watching through the window the rain out side, drinking hot tea with music in the back ground. Sweet memories. As even though the rain lasted for only a few minutes at the time here in Israel, I had a very autumn day, letting the smell of wet earth perfume the house, listening to music, working in the studio and taking breaks to crochet “meditate”.

I found that working on a repetitive crochet project has a wonderful therapeutic effect. When I feel that I have lost track of what I am doing and for what purpose, just moving throw tasks with out really being connected to them, I stop for a moment. By recognizing the situation, I am happy to take a break to reconnect to the purpose or the inside passion of doing what I am doing. It does not need to be a long break, it just the fact that you stop the empty movement you were in, and “reset” the clock.

So today, all while I was active in my studio, their where times when I recognize that I was spreading myself out and losing track of what I really wanted to do and why. When I felt distracted, I stopped, took on the crochet shawl that I just started and would crochet a long row in repetitive action. My brain would quiet down, bringing my whole body in a meditative state, receptive. When I reached this peaceful state I asked my internal self a question that I wanted an answer to, or a insight. The answers came up clearly, simply with no fuss. The essential would come through, a feeling of coming out of the blur. The process was so pleasant and helpful that I kept doing this on and off all day as I felt the need for a meditative break. I think I have finished five rows of the shawl today. As I was going through this process, I developed a personal friendship with this Shawl which enabled me to leave behind the accessory and bring light to the essential.

It all started this week, when one of my students started crocheting this beautiful shawl from the french Book “Mon cours de crochet*” de Marion Madel Ed. Marabout. I thought the shawl was so beautiful, I started crocheting one myself.

I am inserting the pattern of the Lace Shawl from the book. Enjoy !

Instructions :

The shawl is worked from the large end up ! The pattern is a extract of the whole shawl for you to see how to diminish on the sides. The first row has 289 stiches ! Corrections : As I finished this shawl, it turned out being quite small. I would add more stiches in the first row, I might start with 433 stiches….