Two designs in one: a shawlette and a shawl!

The inspiration for these two designs – Rushing of the Waves: shawlette and shawl – came about from a poem by Menella Bute Smedley (1820-1877). This excerpt of the overall poem explains about the terrors of sea voyages for those left at home:
The wind bloweth wildly; she stands on the shore;
She shudders to hear it, and will evermore.
The rush of the waves, as they rose and they fell,
Evermore to her fancy will sound like a knell!

The shawlette is for the short voyages, when the sailor was only out for a couple of weeks, maybe a month. It’s mostly the frothy crest of the waves, but the wife knows that the sea is dark and may steal her happiness.

The shawl is for the longer voyages … the months of waiting to spot the ship coming back to port. The shawl starts out light, but the long months stretch out, creating fear that the sailor is not coming home. The bit of white extending down the edge of the waves represents the bit of hope that remains even in the darkest hour.

PATTERN NOTES
For both designs you will knit a portion and then attach a lace border as you BO those sts. You will then pick/up and knit sts and repeat the lace border again. The charted lace pattern, Ocean Waves Lace, is a 13-stitch/14-row repeat that BO in multiples of 7.