It pays to be good with scraps. This weekend at a quilt retreat, one of the participants had a last minute idea to make a prayer shawl for the retreat organizer, who recently got some bad news health wise. We had one evening and a box of tiny batik scraps to do it, and a few bigger bits of yardage.
I made the wonky stars, set others to piecing the little bits together without a pattern (this was a new experience for some) and by 9 p.m.Friday we had this 34 by 72 inch prayer shawl. It took 12 quilters, an hour of knotting, a quick trip home for one person to get the flannel backing, and the combined efforts of a bunch of us to handsew the binding and the label, but we were finished completely by noon Saturday. The person it was intended for walked in two hours before we were done, but we carried on in front of her and she claims she didn't notice what we were doing. The photos above show the shawl in progress, a full length view, and the new owner wearing it.
Over and over, some of the other retreat folks told me this was the first time they had made something without a pattern and that they had learned they could just sew pieces together as they fit and puzzle it out.
One quilter carefully made a paper pieced block to fit into the shawl, and then went back to her sewing machine and quickly whipped up a wonky log cabin. The nice part of the whole experience is that a bunch of quilters learned they could do this without a pattern. A true lightbulb moment. And yes, the shawl was appreciated with tears and a smile, and even napped under.
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