"Wherever people have been working, living, telling stories, and celebrating, there have been people wearing shawls, wrapped in blankets, draped in lace." Cheryl Oberle in FOLK SHAWLS

In 1999, a few weeks after we moved away from Denver and the mountains  and settled in Omaha, a new television commercial hit the airwaves and rocked my world.  I had never paid much attention to commercials if they didn't involve cute cats, but this was different.  Picture this.....

An SUV (probably the subject of the commercial--who knows?) loaded with a cheerful couple, three excited kids, and their cute cat (hmmm...) winds slowly up a snowy mountain road toward a log cabin with smoke curling from the chimney.  There are skis on top of the SUV and a sled on the cabin porch.  Inside the cabin, the table is set, dinner's in the oven, and Gran stands at the picture window overlooking the mountainside and watches the approach of her family.  She is the achetype of today's grandmother--a crone with a long silver braid and laughing eyes, wearing Wranglers and Birkenstocks and a Red Shawl, with a cup of steaming cocoa. 

Did you catch the Red Shawl part?

So this is my dream, my fantasy, my goal--I'll be that kind of grandmother, that kind of crone.  I have the silver hair (somewhat shorter) and laughing eyes, I have the Wranglers, I have the Birkenstocks, I have the steaming cocoa--I need the Red Shawl! 

I started spinning all the red fluff 'n stuff I had collected in the months since Maggie (in Boulder)  had taught me to spin.  And I kept collecting and dyeing and spinning red fiber into red yarns for years.  That shawl became a metaphor for wisdom, peace, and grace--all things to which I  (still) aspire.

In 2005, we moved back to California and I retired, except to teach a few knitting and spinning classes.  It was time.  Having knitted very little lace before, I chose a simple feather-and-fan pattern--the Shoalwater Shawl by Evelyn Clark--and my Red Shawl was born.  I've knitted lots of shawls since then, but this is still one of my favorites--and it's magic!

.....And the story goes on.....