I'm sure everyone who knits has heard of the prayer shawl. My husband's co-worker's wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer and though she is responding to treatment, everyone knows it is an emotional roller coaster for the supportive spouse. So in their honor, I designed a simple prayer afghan knit in Lion Brand Homespun. You can use any other type of yarn b/c a friend gave me a lot of this yarn. Just use similar colors. I combined the idea of a prayer shawl, the Lion Brand two hour scarf and a variation of the "Easter Jelly Bean Prayer". I call it the Creation Afghan.
You'll need 14 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun. Two in each color. All stitches are knit--no purls.
Color A: Deep blue
Color B: Red
Color C: Yellow
Color D: Purple
Color E: Green
Color F: Cream (or white)
Color G: Dark gray
Each stripe is knitted with 2 strands of Homespun held together throughout.
Using size 19 circs with 32" cord, cast on 100 stitches with two strands of Color A. Do not join as this is not knit in the round. Knit until you almost run out of Color A. At the end of a row, join Color B and knit with Color B until that stripe is the same width as the first stripe from Color A. Do the same with Color C and Color D and so forth
Bind off and weave in end. If you want, add tassels.
You end up with a 7 striped afghan in blue, red, yellow, purple, green, white, and gray.
I send a note with the afghan that explained the signifigance of the colors.
Creation Afghan (or Shawl)
“to remind us of God’s plans”
Gray: In the beginning, the earth was a vast wasteland
White: God separated the light from the dark.
Green: God brought forth the fertile land.
Purple: God called the darkness at sunset “night”
Yellow: The sunlight drenched the earth during the day
Red: God made all life—beautiful in its color and diversity
Blue: God rested in the heavens as the earth teamed with life.
This is based upon the creation story in the first book of the Bible.
Please feel free to knit it differently--stockinette, ribbing, etc.
You can also use only 7 skeins (one of each color) and make a smaller version and call it a shawl.
Also please let me know how yours turned out or even send a picture.
Pax.
9 comments:
What a cool idea--combining a Bible story with knitting! Thanks
I have heard of using colors to tell of God's love--
gold--God's love and holiness
black--man's sinfulness which separates him from God
red--Jesus' blood shed on our behalf
white--our hearts if/when Jesus' blood cleans us
green--growing in Christ-likeness
--but I had not heard this before. Very neat!
(sent here from Knitting Patter Central)
:o)
Hi Carrie, I hope you don't get this message twice. It just disappeared so I do not know if it went or not.
The idea you gave above is called "The wordless Bible". It is usually made out of felt in the above colors, sewn down the middle and folded like a book. They are usually small. Kids love them and are used a lot for mission trips to other countries. Cool idea I think I might try making a blanket with these colors.
I am from Wyoming and Love the Lord.
Have an awesome day. Kay
Hi, your afghan is beautiful. Can you tell me what stitches you used? Thank you.
Hi Eileen,
I don't know how to get a message to you so I'm trying this.
All stitches are knit. There is no purling involved. Of course, you can modify it and do a K2, P2 ribbing or whatever. Good Luck!
This is beautiful! And just the kind of thing I'm looking for right now as a gift for my best friend's parents! :)
One quick question though: could I trouble you to post the finished dimensions, please? I know for afghans/prayer shawls like this that gauge is not drastically important, but I am pretty new to knitting and I've gone down a needle size (17s) because I couldn't find 19s near where I live...and I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, so I like having those finished dimensions to compare to as I go along! :)
(If you don't remember what they were, maybe you could suggest a number of stitches to cast on with my 17s that would be about the same as your 100 on the 19s? I've been told that I knit tightly, also, so if you go this route, keep that in mind!)
Thank you SO much!!
JiNX
I'm glad you like the afghan. I don't know how else to get a hold of you so I'll try this...
If you want a shawl, go ahead and cast on 100 with your 17s. For an afghan, I'd cast on about 120.
Of course, another way is to knit the stripes like scarves and attach them together (like crocheted, sew, pick up stitches, etc). To do that, cast on 16 stitches with your 17s with one color and knit until you're done with the skein. Bind off. Cast on with another color and so on. Just make sure the stripes are the same length.
Good luck. If you need anything, contact on my Ravelry under hissyknit or email me at se_texas_girl AT yahoo.
Oh my goodness, that took half of forever!! HAHA But I'm FINALLY done!
Not sure what I did "wrong" here...I found the size 19s and used them...and I kinda just cast on till I got tired and counted later...I used 152 c/o, and each color had 20 rows to it. It wound up being a LOT bigger than I expected it to be from your picture! haha But I love it. :) I can't wait to gift it! :)
Here's a pic of how mine turned out:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/Dreams_Unspoken/Craftiness/creation.jpg
Thank you so much again for your "pattern" and all of your help! :)
This all came up on my computer on a morning when I was feeling so low I wasn't sure how to carry on - you all encouraged and refreshed me to the extent that I am now ging out to buy yarn for my new knitting project. Thank you and God bless all of you!
from a grateful housewife in South Africa.
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