Shawl We?

This summer, Michael had the opportunity to be the assistant to his favorite teacher while she taught one of the funnest classes (I think) hes taken thus far. He would pick her up everyday so she wouldn't have to take a cab and the class was all about going to different design studios in Portland and taking tours.
A lil side story on Mrs. Richardson - she was never a designer herself but wrote about design and the people doing it. and, she-knows-every-one. A clip of the most recent conversation I had with her was as follows:
"Oh I know honey, I was saying the same thing to Donatella (Versace!). The problem with Rachel (Ray!) is that she dosent really cook. You're right, darling, not in real life......"

mmhmmm. I know. She is probably the most wonderfully eccentric women I/We have ever some across. And I would almost have a fear of M spending so much time with her, If it werent for the fact that shes 75 years old :)

anyways, long,long story short- we went out to lunch with her at the end of the term and I made her a shawl. Well, as you can imagine, she is one of those people you cant out-give. So after lunch we went back to her place (Mara crawled all around her bazillion dollar furniture) and she gave me a shawl back.
But not just any shawl, oh no. A friend of hers had done the branding for this line of shawls called Generous Gesture and he gave her two of the shawls .... Shawls that are made of hand woven sink, printed, and embroidered by Balaniese women in their homes to raise money for thier families.

mmmhmmm.

you can check out the site to learn more but it's point blank amazing.
below are the pictures (that dont do justice) of the shawl and the merch that comes with it.

all across on side it reads "Wonderful Woman"
here you can see the hand embroidery.

Now, on to my lame attempt at blessing Margarete (Mrs. Richardson) with something I made.
Its out of the turquoise linen I have in my shop. I edged the sides and then moved in and did the same on the short ends of the shawl. Then I purposely raveled it to give it that shawl-look :P
I appliqued an abstract flower on one end. Difficult (for me) to say the least.
I really like the look of applique, if it's done well, but I'm beginning to re-think how "well" I want to get at it.
So I dont believe I will be making another one any time soon. but not only for the difficulty, and the fact that these Balaniese broads have my butt beat at it,

but, who really likes shawls besides me and 75 year only women?

~n