On Monday, I told you how I love making lace shawls.  You’ll notice that I didn’t say I love wearing lace shawls.  This is because I am a pretty big tomboy.  I love how lace shawls look, and I love making them, but I always feel like a monkey in a top-hat when I wear them.

So, I had a whole stack of gorgeous shawls that did nothing but sit in my closet, waiting for moths to show up and start munching.  Something had to be done.  How could I display them?  I tried hanging them over my closet door, but then I couldn’t open and shut the door without them falling all over the place. I tried putting one over a table lamp, but that looked like something from a palm-reader’s office (and I was paranoid about setting the whole place on fire).  And, so my lace shawls went back into the bottom of the closet again.

Until I realized something.  These lace shawls were basically great big art pieces.  And my house was full of empty walls, begging for art to be put up.

I grabbed my Panache shawl and a dowel I had laying around (because I am a pack rat and have dowels lying around, just in case.  You never know.)  I carefully sewed the flat edge of the shawl to the dowel using a little bit of matching scrap yarn, and tied a big loop from one end of the dowel to the other.  I pulled out a sticky hook, and I  had filled my wall with lacy, yarn-y goodness in no time.  (And yes, I know this is a terrible photo.  Apparently I have forgotten how to take a decent picture that isn’t a close-up…)

My Panache is a medium sized shawl (about a 40 inch wingspan), but my Aeolian shawl, is a monster.  It’s at least 60 inches from point to point, so sewing it to a yard-long dowel wouldn’t fly.  I thought about it for a long time, and then the perfect solution came to me while I was doing yard work.

I cut some long (6+ feet) switches from one of the trees in my yard, and lashed them together with twine.  I added a loop of twine and hung them from a nail in my knitting studio.  Then, I looped the Aeolian shawl over the ends.  I really like how it turned out.   It’s pretty, and rustic, and if I ever want to display another shawl (or scarf, or sweater, or blanket) I can switch them out easily.