When Valerie Romanello was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012, she was determined to beat the disease. And she found an unusual ally in that battle -- a hand-knit shawl. "When I got my first ...

The original shawl is designed to be worked in six colors of fingering weight yarn, with a solid black background, although I recently saw a shawl knit in a worsted weight and was no less impressed.

Knit three, purl three ... the blessed trinity. Her sisters in stitching, Catherine Kitty Shreiner and Kay Neff, sit with Fry in a semicircle, their knitting needles moving in concert as they turn ...