JAK Miles's Shawl

    This is the shawl I designed and knit for our youngest grandchild,  JAK Miles.

    I have written some  notes  about the design and construction process.

Here is a close-up of the border:

At the corners, you can dimly descry the thistle of Scotland. The next large motif, moving left, is one that Sharon Miller calls "sprouting seed" -- the notion seemed rather a nice one for a baby shawl, and the Paisley-like shape of the motif fitted nicely with the Indian theme of the shawl. For in the middle, clearly to be seen, is the swastika, a Hindu symbol of good fortune.

The center square is Rose Trellis Lace, a nod to the baby's country of birth (the Rose of England).

It is hard for anyone who remembers the mid-20th-century from an American or European point of view to look on a swastika with equanimity. Even the word, which is from Sanskrit, seems tainted with evil.  But the symbol in fact is ancient, and occurs in many cultures, so I decided to go with it. Here is an example from a pavement I photographed at the Summer Palace near Beijing in April, '03:

There was a movement afoot recently to declare both swastika-display and holocaust-denial to be crimes. I'd better watch out.