The United Kingdom is a land dominated by water, from the rain that falls from the sky in every month of the year, to the ocean that surrounds the island country to the streams and rivers that cover the landscape. It seems like there is water everywhere I look in this place. Venturing out of London, the character of the water changes; the sluggish tidal River Thames upstream breaks down into smaller and smaller rivuletss until by the time you hit the country side, there are tiny rills and larger streams cascading down every hillside, plunging and leaping, spraying droplets across the rocks that pen them in.

Rhaeadr grew out of playing around with texture, cables and top-down shawl design at the Plug and Play Pembrokeshire retreat in October 2012. The cabled body of the shawl reminds me of the ripples on the surface of a brook as is meanders over rocks in the streambed. The water increases in speed as it nears the edge of the cataract and finally spills in a fluid sheet, droplets spraying from the edges -- the deep knit/purl ribbing and picot bind off evoke the rushing waterfall and misty spray as it cascades down to a deep still pool at its base. The name of the shawl is the Welsh word for waterfall.