Circle of Friends Comfort Shawl Project

The Circle of Friends Comfort Shawl Project’s mission is to hand knit shawls for those in need of the comforting hug and warmth a hand made shawl provides. We will knit shawls for people who are in nursing homes or hospice, or in the midst of a life crisis. We welcome your participation! For a limited time, Pocket Meadow Farm will provide yarn for the shawls. We hope that as the group grows, we can get support for our work from yarn companies. We also welcome donations of yarn from individuals (machine washable worsted weight, natural fiber blends if possible, please).

Shop hours

Tues, Wed, Thu 11—4
Saturday 12—4
and by appointment

Shawl ministries are a movement that is growing in the US. They are sometimes referred to as healing, or prayer shawl groups, reflecting the positive energy, caring, meditation and love that go into the work. Knitters know that their hopes, good wishes, prayers and healing thoughts can be directly channeled into the tangible items they make. When created with mindfulness and care, these knitted items can give comfort to the user. Shawls in particular are comforting by their very nature, from the physical embrace and warmth that wrapping or swaddling can bring. In addition, we believe that the tactile nature of fine fiber combined with textured patterns can have a meditative and calming effect that can best be appreciated with the hands, hence the textural patterning in our shawl designs — they are designed as much to be stroked, as to be looked at. This feature was designed specially for recipients with low vision or cognitive impairment.

Your part of the project, if you choose to have us provide you with yarn, is to sign our pledge form, knit the shawl and bring or send it back to us. We will display them in the shop for a short period of time, then distribute them to individuals in need.

If there is any reason that you can not complete your part of the pledge, we ask that you send the project back to us so we can pass it on to another knitter to complete.

We'll list participants with their geographic locations and show finished shawls on this page.

Monetary donations to the project are most welcome. All funds will go towards purchase of materials. No salary, reimbursement, or other payment goes to the Sponsor of this project.

Participants [as of 1/15/08]

Mary M - Silver Spring, MD
Jane F - Silver Spring, MD
Debbie L - Baltimore, MD
Kate L – Berkeley Springs, WV
Katie V – Berkeley Springs, WV
Clara C – Silver Spring, MD
Pixie Z – Fair Oaks Ranch, TX
Sunny W – Berkeley Springs, WV

Pledge Form, Info Packet and Pattern (pdf)

Press Release(pdf)