Wedding Prayer Flags

Whenever I saw pictures of Tibet or of the Tibetan community in exile in India, I was fascinated by the strings of prayer flags. From one small string flying outside a dwelling to thousands of strings flying from stupas or shrines.   Dan has brought me several sets from India over the years and I even made a set of art quilts that are prayer flags.  (See photo above. )  Dan has a little set that I made and I made a little set for Dan's friend Ravenna when we went to hear her sing at Duke.

Traditional prayer flags are printed with a mantra or prayer and Tibetan Buddhists believe that the flapping of the flags in the breeze carries these prayers away from the flag to spirits greater than their own.  The prayers written on Tibetan prayer flags always express positive intentions for happiness, enlightenment, and protection of all beings.  When we were thinking about decorations for Anna and Matt's wedding, it occured to me that I could make prayer flags in all different purple fabrics. To make them even more special to the occasion, I'm making family strings of flags with the names of the family members written on the flags.

These are all the flags cut from my purple fabric stash.

So that the flags won't bunch and fold up on each other when they are hanging, I decided to zigzag them to the crochet cord.

Here's a detail of that happening.

The first string is finished. It's for our family. Anna and Matt will have their own string of flags as their family begins.

Quick update:
Frieda Oxenham also has a post about prayer flags today!  Thanks for the heads-up, Frieda.