Designer Donielle Oliver Showvay has always admired Helen Keller’s determination to overcome her difficulties, and she has had to deal with vision loss since childhood, as well as her mother’s hearing loss.
The Helen’s Heart Braille Shawl calls for a lot of different techniques, which we’ll get to in a minute, but there’s a section of the shawl that uses bobbles to spell out in braille a quote by Helen Keller: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”
The designer says the cable hearts and lace hearts surrounding the Braille quote were chosen specifically for their tactile nature as visually impaired people would be able to feel this stitches easily. They also happen to be fun to knit and add to the expression of love found in the pattern.
In addition to cables, lace and bobbles, you’ll also find a bit of brioche knitting in this pattern, and an I-cord edging. Video tutorials are included in the pattern for those who might need help with any of these techniques.
The pattern uses three colors of superfine yarn and is a long rectangle with short ends that come to points. In some photos of the project you can see tassels added at these ends but that’s totally optional.
Elements of the design are shown in charts in the pattern, but there’s also a line by line written out pattern for the visually impaired who might want to create this pattern.
Of course if you know braille or get a copy of the alphabet, you could make the center section say whatever you like, just chart it out in the same way the original pattern was done.
You can find this pattern on Etsy.
[Photo: Donielle Oliver Showvay]
