Last year, I made a blanket covered in four-leaf clovers for my sister. Earlier this year, I decided to continue along this line and make a shawl with even more lucky clovers for her birthday.

At the end of 2020, I made some shawls for my sister, niece and nephew. Of course, I could not leave out my brother-in-law, so I asked him if he wanted a shawl as well. He was enthusiastic about this idea and we quickly decided on a shawl with blue shades and round shapes. Not unlike the shawl I made for his son.

I love delving into a new weaving technique and expanding my understanding of the technique with every project I make. My journey into weaving led me to experiments centered around the shadow weave technique throughout 2019. In my woven world, 2020 was characterised by explorations of advancing twill and echo effects. I have a feeling that 2021 will be the year of turned taquete.

Recently, I made a shawl for my sister in advancing twill with echo using an advancing point twill sequence in warp and weft. This shawl really got me inspired. For my sister, I used only two colors throughout the shawl. I wondered what it would look like using more. I did not have to wait long before the ideal opportunity for this experiment presented itself.

As a hand weaver, I do not need much of an excuse to start a new shawl. There is a myriad of good reasons to weave a new shawl: trying out a new yarn, experimenting with a weaving technique, weaving the perfect shawl to accompany a new coat or weaving a shawl as a gift. In my latest project, all of these reasons applied: I used a novel yarn in a new weaving technique to make a shawl to go with my mothers new coat.