2024 Calendar

Step 1: Stitch!

We begin our response with knitting as an act of healing and prayer. Click the links below to get the instructions on what kind of knits we need. The instructions pages will tell you where to send or drop off your squares. If postage is an issue, please reach out to connor@knittinginsolidarity.org.

Step 2: Sew!

Once we receive the knit squares from across the globe, we stitch the squares together into prayer shawls that are 9 by 4 squares, or 54” x 24”. You can see the process in the images below. Reach out to connor@knittinginsolidarity.org if you are local to the Los Angeles area and would like to participate or host a stitching event, we try to have one once per month. If you have a group outside of Los Angeles who would like to stitch a shawl together, we are currently working on stitching sets that can be sent out so others can stitch squares together.

Step 3: Show!

Once the prayer shawls are stitched together, we add embroidery and fabric edges. Before being sent to their receiving survivor communities, we exhibit the shawls in a sculptural installation to allow the community to interface with the shawls and input their own prayers into the shawls. The spiral shape with the blue knits represent both the downward falling of tears and grief, and the upward relief of tears evaporating and spirits lifting.

The next exhibition will be traveling to La Plaza United Methodist Church and the Museum of Social Justice July 22 to August 6, 2023 before being sent to Echo Park United Methodist Church to have a Sending Ceremony on August 13, 2023. The Sending Ceremonies are performed by a group of interfaith leaders and local community members in Los Angeles as a chance to bless and pray over the shawls one more time.

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida receiving their prayer shawl in 2019