The Start of a Home

I've been to several Jewish weddings, and have been told about various traditions by friends. One of my favorite traditions is the chuppah. It is usually a canopy of some sort suspended on four poles. As I understand, the canopy represents a couple's first home together, and the open sides symbolize hospitality towards friends and family.

I love this symbolism, so I'm excited to carry this tradition in our wedding, too. For some reason, it's one thing that I started turning over in my head months ago before many people even knew there was going to be an impending wedding. I had been watching Franklin, of The Panopticon blog, work on a lace christening shawl for his baby niece. He designed it from scratch, using different lace patterns to symbolize different things, then handknit the entire thing from start to finish. I was floored by the thought, the beauty, the effort. A labor of love.

By the time he posted photos of the finished product, I knew that I wanted our chuppah to be a project like that. Something of magnitude, something symbolic; a labor of love.

At first, the image in my head looked very strongly like the shawl linked above. However, I was pretty sure I wasn't quite up to designing and knitting something like this from scratch, and I was concerned about running up against a deadline since I'm not the world's fastest knitter. I thought about the significance behind a chuppah some more, and decided that I'd like to make something we could use in our home to keep the symbol of home. A quilt? A wallhanging? Bedspread? What about a tablecloth? When I thought of it, I knew that it was right. Not only would a tablecloth be used in the home, it's also a symbol of hospitality just like the open sides of the canopy.

I started looking around for a shawl pattern I could use as a tablecloth. I found many that were interesting, but didn't seem quite right; I was worried that some of them might be too thick and bumpy to make a good tablecloth, and still worried that I wouldn't be able to actually complete a huge lace project. After asking around on a few message boards on Ravelry, someone suggested the pattern for Hannah's Tablecloth from Handknit Holidays: Knitting Year-Round for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Winter Solstice.



As soon as I saw the photos online, I knew this was my pattern. It's delicate and lacy, but the large linen panels mean that there isn't an insurmountable amount of knitting and that it will lie relatively flat on the table. Furthermore, the way the elements fit together, by completing each square separately and only grafting together at the very end, this is a project that can be split up and worked on by multiple people. Mom can knit a square or two in Texas, my roommate, Sheila, can work on bits and pieces. Like any good home, it's a community project, and a project of love.

I ordered the supplies and received them this past week.


I've marked the first napkin, whipstitched the edge, picked up and knit the whipstitches, and knit the first three rows. At this point, it looks more like a giant showercap than anything; the lace bunched up on the needles with the linen napkin ballooning out from the bottom. One trick with knitting lace is that it really won't look like much more than a snarl of yarn until the entire project has been completed and blocked.

So for now, as with many labors of love, I start with a few steps and a lot of faith. Eventually, with the help of loved ones and some time, this will become a home.