The Truth and Reconciliation Hearings are coming to Edmonton at the end of March.
They are a response to the horrors of the Canadian Residential School System that brutalized the children that were forced into them.
The survivors are invited to speak at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, and each one will be given a prayer/healing shawl as a symbol of being heard and cared for.
The call went out, asking for 500 prayer shawls from the crafting folk of Edmonton and area.
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.crone-findlay.com
I’ve knitted 3 shawls, with love and with hope for healing…. may they bring peace and be a visible reminder that even though the person who receives each one will never meet me, that I do care about what happened to them.
I wish them peace and healing, and all the best, in all ways…. always…..
Tottie Talks Crafts Blog 
What a wonderful idea and such a nice gesture you’re making, contributing shawls. Would you share a picture of the shawls open?
Thanks-Jan
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Sorry, Jan, I didn’t take photos of the shawls opened up before I submitted them. The grey and ‘northern lights’ (black shot with irridescent colors) are rectangular stoles, about 72 inches long by 24 inches wide. The white one is a large triangle. I felt very peaceful and still about them when I was done, and taking a picture of them all folded quietly up felt right to me. They were knitted with love and wishes of healing in every stitch.
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What a beautiful idea. We attended the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings locally and spent most of the time in tears. We were asking to make birthday cards and cupcakes for the adults who hadn’t ever been allowed to celebrate their birthdays as children in residential schools.
Bless you for doing this.
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Thank you so much. It was very powerful for me to knit the shawls. It was deeply contemplative, and I was careful to keep my thoughts gentle and positive while I knitted them, because I wanted them to feel full of tenderness and compassion. As I was knitting, I kept thinking of a homeless man that I gave my gloves to- they were brand new, and a color that I loved, but I saw that he was really cold, and had bare hands. When I asked him if he wanted some gloves, he refused at first, but when I pulled them off my hands and handed them to him, he accepted them and then asked me if I was sure. I said that I was, and that I had more gloves at home. He thanked me and said that no one had ever given him gloves before. I was horrified to think that he had lived his whole life without someone noticing that his hands were cold…. I know that the survivors of the residential school system (I suspect that he was one) were not wrapped in love when they were children, and I wanted to reach out and express some tenderness to at least three people who have suffered much, in the way that I know how- which is through my love of yarn…….
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