Find your Fade Shawl

I made this Find your Fade shawl over the last few months. This shawl is an extremely popular pattern by Andrea Mowry. It was designed as a stash busting project- a way for you to knit all the little bits of yarn leftover from other projects. I started doing that, but it became its own thing and I ordered new yarn to finish it.

I used yarn from Indie dyers that I have followed on Instagram for years.

Here is the list, in color order:

I wanted it to match the meadow flowers. Of course, when it was finished, I had to find a patch of flowers to test it on! (I stepped in poison ivy there, too!)

There is a story behind the shawl. I started knitting it at the start of 2007. It was going to be one of the hardest years of my life. I brought the shawl with me that spring as my father-in-law was very ill. He died that day. I continued to knit it the following week- through his shiva. It took on a special feeling connected with my father in law.

Later that year I got a TBI and was bedridden for most of the summer. Consequently, I spent several weeks finishing the shawl. At the end of summer, we took the kids to the beach for the first time. It was dark when we arrived. However, I couldn’t help myself. I hadn’t seen the ocean in years. It was a full moon, so I took the kids down to the beach and sat on the beach while the kids collected shells in the moonlight. When they got cold, they came and sat beside me. I wrapped us all up in the shawl together and we watched the pounding waves. It was one of the most ethereal moments of my life. I can’t quite describe it. It almost felt like a hug from my father-in-law.

Anyway, it has been a few years since I finished the Find Your Fade shawl. It is still one of my top favorite things that I have ever knit.