Inspiration Saturday: Royal baby shawls

Now, I'm not an avid royal-watcher.  I will admit to having a coffee cup commemorating William and Kate's wedding, but it's at least 50% ironic.  There's something nostalgic about having a little piece of memorabilia, it makes me think of lovely little old ladies in the UK with the full set sitting in their window on some faded white doilies.  And there's something kind of wicked about imagining what her face would look like if she saw me sipping instant coffee out of my delicate little mug.

So amongst the hubbub of the royal baby, I haven't been on tenterhooks, but I'm also not antagonistically cynical.  Especially when I saw one of the presents baby George will be receiving.  I don't know much about baby gifts, but I'm guessing that a lot of his are platinum and engraved.  At least one, though, is knit.

Apparently in 1982, William had a shawl specially designed, spun, and knit for him by Margaret Stove as his official gift from New Zealand.  The Summer 2013 issue of Spin Off has an article by Stove all about it.  For William's son, a shawl was again hand spun and knit, this time by Cynthia Read, but the design was one of Stove's:

Photo credit: Interweave

It's Filmy Fern, from her latest book, Wrapped in Lace.  It looks simply spectacular.  I don't know that I could ever attempt something like this, but I do love staring at it.  What does a baby do with a shawl like this?  I guess pretty much the same thing as me.

For more information about the shawl, there's a great blog post by Stove's granddaughter at Holland Road Yarn Company.  And as always, for more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.