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It’s funny how time slips away. It seems like I only recently made my last post, but then I look and see that it was back in January. Alas.
This whole knitting obsession has officially spun out of control. My mom and I were consignment shopping while she was here. We left the Sparkle Girl at home with her Daddy. While we were waiting for Bella Stella (at about 28th and NE Broadway) to open we hit the coffee shop just down the street. There was a young woman knitting by herself at a table. I’m always drawn to people knitting in public and want to talk with them about their project, their yarn, etc. I noticed that she was knitting without using tension. This is a technique for holding the working yarn in the hand so that it flows smoothly and evenly. It’s much easier on the hands than picking up the strand to make a stitch every time. It’s faster and the knitting looks much better, the stitches are more consistent.
I wrestled with myself for a few minutes. Do foist myself on her to show her how to use tension? Do I leave her alone and let her seek out the knowledge she wants at her own pace? Finally, the knitting teacher in me won out. She had mentioned that she was a new knitter and that her stitches weren’t even. She had ripped the project back and was starting over. I asked if she knew about tension and if she wanted to learn. Poor thing was very gracious and accepted the guerrilla knitting lesson well. She got the hang of it pretty easily and I helped her as she practiced. Eventually she ripped out her knitting to “start it all over right”. Good Girl! My Mom jumped in and told her about my blog…. if you are reading this I hope you didn’t mind my foisting knowledge on you too much~
It’s so hard not to jump in when you know that you can help propel a nascent knitter up to the next level. That impulse to help is so hard to resist. But sometimes you just have to. I try to read people’s body language and energy. She was chatty, which made it easier to strike up a conversation. She was a new knitter, which made it more likely that she would be open to some instruction. If she had been knitting that way for a long time she probably wouldn’t be excited about some stranger butting into her technique. I asked her first if she’d like me to show her something. Her response was positive and open. If she kind of grudgingly said, “sure, I guess.” Then I would have cut it short and left her alone. She seemed glad to learn a new skill that would help improve her knitting and keep her from getting a repetitive motion injury.
So, I made a neckwarmer as a birthday present for our fabulous coffee lady/baby sitter. She is such a positive woman, gorgeous, and she loves my baby. For her birthday I made her a gorgeous baby blue and camel neckwarmer (camel on top and bottom, blue in the middle). I found the yarn on sale at Close Knit… 60% off silk and cashmere. I knew when I saw it that it was destined for Leslie. It looked gorgeous on her with her blond hair and blue eyes. She says she’ll wear it skiing! Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it. DANG!
It is the Ridged Lace Cowl from Elinor Brown found on her www.exercisebeforeknitting.com blog. The pattern knit up easily and it was pretty easy to make adjustments for gauge. I did 9 repeats around instead of 11 and worked the pattern probably 5 times instead of 7. I put it on and it was nice and soft and warm.
Next up: booties for a colleague of my husband who just had a baby girl. Also still have the inherited sweater project and my vest.
Last Saturday a giant group of Seattle-area knitters hopped on Amtrack to Portland for their annual Yarn Crawl. This is such a boon to our fabulous local yarn stores during a traditionally slow month and it is a fun day for everyone involved. I joined a big group of local knitters to welcome our kindred spirits to the Rose City.
My main agenda was meeting a new friend that I met through Ravelry after she “liked” a project of mine. I got to know her via Twitter and found that we have a lot in common. Weirdly, this includes things like having furnace troubles at about the same time. I had asked her if she was hopping on the Knitting Train and she wasn’t aware that it was happening. She bought a ticket and we had a fun day together.
One of the more interesting aspects of the information age is that it is possible to make friends without ever actually meeting them in person. This can often be a mixed bag. The trashy day time talk shows are full of people who met their “true love” online only to find themselves taken advantage of and hurt. As with all relationships, common sense has to trump wishful thinking and fantasy. Having followed this woman’s Twitter posts for almost a year I had a pretty good idea that she wasn’t a grifter set on bilking me out of stash and home. Plus, we were meeting each other among about 200 women armed with pointy sticks. I felt pretty good about the situation.
I had seen a picture of her from her profile and she knew I was going to have a cute 10 month old with me. It took us a while to find each other in that sea of fabulous scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, socks….. Finally, she approached… “Are you Soupygirl?” and we were off. First to Dublin Bay. As the closest LYS (knitterese for local yarn store) to the train station it was packed and hot! They have some fabulous yarn there and they were very welcoming. V (my new friend) found some good stuff and we headed off to the next spot. Unfortunately, that’s where we discovered that she forgot to grab her purchase back at Dublin Bay (cut her some slack, she’s about 2 1/2 months pregnant—I couldn’t even remember how to read patterns at that point). So we trekked back where she recovered her purchase and discovered that she had also lost a fabulous scarf knitted by a good friend. Luckily someone had found it and reluctantly returned it (it was a great scarf). Back out and a detour to Cupcake Jones for red velvet and peanut butter and jelly cupcakes taken to go.
We decided to head over to the East side to hit Twisted and Close Knit so we hopped in the car. At that point H was needing a new diaper, lunch and a nap quality time with Daddy, so we dropped her off first. Twisted was crowded but not oppressively so. We grabbed some tea and hit the couch to eat our cupcakes. I’ve got to say, yarn shopping with a sugar buzz is a good time. You should try it. I picked up some yarn for the Christmas stocking (very pretty Noro) and did some enabling/rationalizing/goading so V could feel better about buying more pretty yarn.
Over to Close Knit and Bolt. I ended up buying a very cute pattern for knit poppies. At this point it was 4 and we were crashing from our sugar buzz. Where else could a self-respecting Portlandite take a guest but Burgerville? We hit the one over by the Yarn Garden, you know, just in case we had time to squeeze in another store. Unfortunately, we maxed out and it was time to return her to the train station so she could head home.
This was such a fun day and it was great to meet a fellow mom and knitter. This is the Internet at its best: connecting with nice people who share common interests and growing a friendship.
So, I started a post the other day but then Little Miss Grabby Hands thought my keyboard was the most interesting thing in the world and kablooey the long post was gone. My fault because I didn’t save along the way. And it was a little overlong anyway. Let’s try this again!
The New Year is upon us and it’s time to think about what I’d like to accomplish in 2010. Sparky and I have an ongoing conversation about where we want to be in 1, 5, 10 years as a family, professionally, personally, financially…. It is so wonderful to have a life partner who has such enthusiasm and vision for our future together. We complement and challenge each other in important ways so together we know we can accomplish all the things on our list.
In this spirit of goal setting I’m looking ahead with my knitting as well. This year I plan to master knitting with color. I’ve done a bunch of projects where I’ve added stripes or created blocks of color. But I really haven’t done a lot with specific techniques like intarsia (inserting a block of color on a solid background) or fair isle (using several strands of different colored yarns simultaneously). Additionally, it’s time to tackle entrelac (it’s easier just to show you what this looks like: http://knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/afghans/entrelac.htm ). I did take a color work class a long time ago and have made little attempts at utilizing these techniques, but haven’t really tackled any big projects.
As luck would have it, I’ve got a couple of projects lined up that should give me just the push I need to master the art of knitting with color. First up is the inherited polka dot sweater ufo (knitterese for unfinished object) handed down by my college friend Michelle. This is the perfect example of intarsia. This is definitely going to be a challenge and I’ve frogged it twice already. By the end of this project I’ll be an accomplished intarsia knitter for sure.
The next project is a special request from a friend who wants a Christmas stocking. This pattern utilizes minor fair isle elements and a lot of entrelac. It’s going to a be a lot of fun and will also present a pretty big challenge. Bring it on! This pattern is found in “Knitting in America” by Melanie Falick. http://www.amazon.com/Knitting-America-Patterns-Profiles-Americas/dp/1885183275 Unfortunately, I don’t have a great pic to show but will post as I make progress.
I’ll continue to make things for H as well as for any new babies that arrive to friends and family. There are a number of different doll patterns that I’d like to try, which has the added bonus of using up the stash. It would be nice to make something for myself (maybe finish up that green vest?).
Additionally, my intention is to continue to develop this blog and learn more about the technical and artistic ways to make this a forum that extends beyond just my own development as a knitter. That includes improving my photographic skills and staging my pictures better.
What are your goals for 2010? What are you excited to try/learn/improve?
So when I wrote that last post I was going to write about a scarf I had just made as well as a hat and booties. These are all gifts for people and that got me thinking about the nature of gifting and then I just dove headfirst down that rabbit hole. It’s funny that sometimes I know exactly what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it. Other times I start in one place and find that I really want to talk about something slightly different. I can’t fight it, just surrender and go with the flow.
This scarf is one I made to donate to the Red Scarf Project.
http://orphan.org/index.php?id=40 This is an amazing organization that helps foster kids once they get to college. These are kids who essentially have no family and no support network. The fact that they are pushed out of state care and left to fend for themselves as adults is a huge challenge for them. Personally, I know that I required an inordinate amount of parental support–emotional, financial, etc–during my college years. I can’t imagine trying to find my way all by myself and try to make a success of my adult life and relationships. I love the idea that my handmade gift will keep one of these kids warm and cozy. When I knit things for other people I often feel like I am knitting a spell for them. Knitting my intention and energy into the object as I imagine the person wearing or enjoying it. When I was knitting this I definitely felt myself putting in surges of compassion, love, and hugs into this scarf. We included a note telling this unknown recipient that we hope s/he finds his or her passion and that we have confidence that s/he can achieve whatever s/he sets his/her mind to accomplish. That plus a $10 Target gift card.
This kind of anonymous gifting feels so fantastic. There is no agenda beyond providing something pretty, cozy and warm plus a little encouragement to a kid who really, really needs it. I don’t need thanks. I don’t need to see the expression on his or her face. I don’t need to receive anything in return. It is gifting for the pure pleasure of gifting.
The next gift is a hat/bootie combo for a brand spanking new human named Ruby. She was born just a couple of weeks ago to a dear couple who have been waiting a long time for her to enter their lives. The booties are the standard ones I always make. They crank out pretty fast and look cute. Plus, they stay on because of the ankle ties. The hat is one I’ve made a lot before and is really, really cute. http://www.straw.com/cpy/patterns/baby_pixiehat.html
It is knit flat and then I use a three-needle bind off to create the point at the top. What’s funny is that you start with 2×2 ribbing all the way across. Gradually you start doing a horizontal ribbing on each side moving in by one rib until you get all the way to the top. The side horizontal ribs become vertical ribs on the back. Hard to describe without the visuals so here goes:
That triangle in the middle becomes the front of the hat and the pieces on the sides connect to become the back. The bottom corners become the ear flaps where the ties attach. Then I do a three needle bind off from the middle stitch working out. This makes a nice clean seam and I don’t have to sew (which if you’ve been following this at all you know I HATE). I add I-cord ties and it is darn cute~
This is H wearing the hat but it will definitely fit the newborn pretty soon. All that ribbing makes it super-stretchy. Ruby’s mom is a knitter and both parents are artists so they was able to appreciate the work that went into it as well as the hand painted yarn. The yarn looked a lot more pinky-purple at the yarn store but I do like the gold to tone it down. Once again, I finished the booties just under the wire so there is no picture of them (again). Alas.
Ok. Now to turn my attention to the cashmere neck warmer for my mom. It has been cast on and should not take too much time to work up. I can knit while we’re in the car going up to my in-laws for the holidays.
Have a fantastically wonderful holiday, whichever Winter holiday you call your own. This is the season of light and love and renewal. I hope you are able to incorporate all of these ideas into your New Year.
This is the time of year for gifts. It seems easy enough. You make a list of the people in your life to whom you want to show your appreciation by giving a token of your affection. But it really isn’t so simple. All too often it comes down to who expects a gift and we weigh the relative dollar amount (we give relative to what we anticipate receiving). In some families the gift is a big signal telling you where you stand emotionally. It’s no surprise that so many buy a passel of gift cards and call it good.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you need to get a gift for nearly everyone who touches your life. This turns gifting into a financially and emotionally stressful experience. $5 tokens for teachers, hair dressers, favorite waiters and waitresses, cleaning ladies, neighbors, members of clubs, on and on and on….
Some people like to give funny/joke gifts. This is can be funny, but sometimes the giftee is left wondering what to do with the funny item after the moment is over. Some people go to painstaking lengths to find that perfect item and put a lot of thought into the whole process. Problems arise when a “Perfect Gifter” receives something from a “Whimsical Gifter”. I’ve seen this play out in a wide variety of settings. The WG is delighted by their fun gift and the resulting laugh, the PG is wondering what they did to deserve it. When reversed, the PG is excited to see how much their present is appreciated and the WG just doesn’t respond like that. It gets dicey.
I’ll never forget spending time with a former friend right after Christmas. She had two piles of opened gifts. The “Good” pile and the “Bad” pile. She went on, at length, detailing who gave her which gift and exactly what she thought. The bad pile was treated like a big fetid pile of trash. Why on earth would something think that she would want, much less like such a thing? They offended her on multiple levels. This attitude offended me on multiple levels.
Another person who is no longer in my life refused all Christmas gifts no matter who they were from or what the gift. As an atheist he did not want to participate in the guilt-ridden mass commercialization of a holiday he did not believe in anyway. He was much less than gracious about his attitude and felt that these malicious gifters were not respecting his belief system. What he failed to appreciate was that the people in his life who cared for him were not gifting out of guilt or obligation. Also, that people were celebrating their own belief system and that it was NOT ABOUT HIM (something he failed to realize about nearly every other aspect of his life). This turned people’s heartfelt expression of affection into a sour experience for everyone.
Many folks want the people in their lives, especially their partners, to magically know what they want. This can result in disappointment and bad feelings. Working in retail I’ve seen this over and over. Men want to get the perfect gift, they want to pick it out themselves without help, but then get intimidated and leave empty handed. They are so afraid of getting it wrong and so afraid of getting oversold by an unscrupulous clerk that they freak out. One year, an older man was in the store with his wife and another couple. The women were taking their time and exclaiming over the different things in the boutique. He came up to me and asked me what she’d like for Christmas. I was floored! How the heck should I know? I gave him the best advice I could: “Follow her around the store and make notes of the things she says she likes.” He looked at me like I’d given him the secret of eternal life. His expression said, “You mean the answer was right in front of me all along?” I watched as he did as I suggested, notebook in hand. He smiled broadly as he left the store with his list of ideas. This was probably the best Christmas she ever had with him.
My favorite gifts are the hand made ones I received as a child. They are treasured to this day.
As a knitter/crafter I often end up giving homemade gifts. Yarn can be expensive and my time is definitely worth something. When a knitter puts her time and money into a gift for someone whether it is for Christmas, birthday, baby shower, or other occasion, it is hard not to want the recipient to be awed and wild with joy. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. I’ve given things where the size is wrong, the color is just not right or the person flat out didn’t really like it that much. It’s hard not to have hurt feelings or be disappointed when that happens. But you go forward and hope to do better next time.
Also as a knitter, sometimes people want to give you something relating to the hobby. When someone gives yarn it is such a sweet thought. However, when a non-knitter gives you yarn it is usually not enough to make a decent project. They have no way of knowing and I usually appreciate the gesture and try to find something in my stash that will go with it or go buy more if I like it. The Yarn Harlot has done some great blog posts recently with great suggestions on gifts for knitters. Knitters usually give each other gift certificates to the local yarn store.
My attitude: If someone goes out of their way to give me something, no matter how small, tacky, inappropriate, off, or wonderful… they deserve a heartfelt thank you, preferably in writing. It doesn’t matter if their approach is different from mine. It matters that they thought of me. Even if I’m not especially grateful for the item, I’m very grateful for the thought behind it. This has gotten much easier as I mature (in the past I may have shown disappointment to family members, I apologize for this lapse in etiquette). I try to find gifts that the person wants/needs/loves. I like to think I usually hit the mark, but know that I’ve missed with people too. I hope that they look past it to the thought behind it.
Happy Gifting! Here’s hoping that the loved ones in your life find the most magical and amazing things possible (whether it is a plate of cookies or the one thing you treasure above all else). And, don’t forget to write your thank you notes.
I get a daily newsletter from Interweave Knits. Most days it is just promoting the pattern archives, new books, their magazines, etc. Often there are articles on specific patterns in the new magazines or techniques. Today’s talked about weaving in ends. An end is what happens when you finish one skein and need to add another. The end of one and the beginning of another leave “tails” that need to be secured and hidden so that finished item doesn’t have these unsightly pieces of yarn hanging out everywhere.
They also talked about when you should rip something out to fix a mistake. A quick re-read of a previous blog post on the turquoise dress for H will reveal my mind-boggling mistakes with the cables. Since I didn’t discover it until I was completely done and fixing it would have required redoing the entire bodice (filled with cables and lace) I decided to screw it and leave it there. I won’t fix it and you can’t make me. After all, there are no knitting police. Read about it here:http://soupygirlknitting.com/?p=143
Nine times out of ten (or more) I’ll rip back to fix a mistake. (often called frogging… rip it, rip it, rip it). I have a perverse perfectionist streak that will not allow me to knowingly finish a piece with a mistake in it. It bothers me. My eyes instantly go right to the flaw and it sits there whining at me (fix me! how could you leave me like this? don’t you know everyone is going to see how you screwed this up?) Also, if I wasn’t re-knitting that I’d be knitting something else. Knitting is knitting after all and who cares whether it’s to fix a mistake or make a whole new project. The main thing is that if I am spending the money on nice yarn and have gone to all the trouble to find a good pattern why on earth would I not spend the extra time to make sure it looks nice? If something is a gift there is no question that I’ll rip it out no matter what. It is simply disrespectful to give somebody a hand made gift that is less than perfect.
The few times I do leave a mistake in situ there are good reasons. For instance, the KidSilk Haze scarf I made was riddled with mistakes. But it was a complicated lace pattern and someone would have to look at it pretty closely to find the problems (and really only Sparky and H get that close and neither has any idea of what a missed yarnover looks like). Not to mention the fact that ripping out mohair is so close to impossible that I would be a quivering, swearing, ball of rage by the time I ripped back to the mistake– and ripped out mohair looks like ass. The issue is that all that pretty halo of fur that makes mohair look so fuzzy binds to itself as you knit. It binds completely and irreversibly. I made this before I began keeping this blog so there is no entry on this project…alas.
What’s funny is that a simple knitting pattern often shows a mistake more readily than a complicated one. If something is just straight stockinette stitch an errant yarnover, decrease, purl or whatever stands out like a sore thumb. But with a really busy lace pattern a simple mistake gets lost. Sometimes a mistake creates bigger problems. Like when I forget a yarn over or a decrease. It throws off the stitch count and everything that comes after will be wrong. This is usually how I discover that there was a problem.
Sometimes there is a problem with the pattern itself. You frog something, reknit it and wind up in exactly the same situation as before. So annoying. I’ve run into this problem more than once. It takes some creative problem solving and often a big piece of paper.
Then there was the time I ate a giant slice of crazy pie (in my defense I was in my first trimester and my brain had gone to Mexico for a few months, the temp brain the agency sent was just not up to par and she was fired as soon as I hit the second trimester). While there were one or two actual small problems with the blue lace shrug (again with the mohair!), there were not in fact epically huge problems like I thought. I went to great lengths to “fix” the pattern to make it work with the stitch count. In my defense, considering how mushy my brain was it was rather brilliant that I was able to make it all come out in a way that looks right. Much to my embarrassment, I actually wrote a scathing blog post and wrote the designer. Ugh. I’m cringing, but here is that post: http://soupygirlknitting.com/?p=44
So…. when to frog, when to just get the sucker done? It’s a fine balance between how bad will it look when it’s done?/how hard is it to go back?/how much will it drive me crazy? Usually the balance tips towards getting it done correctly. Every once in a while… let sleeping frogs lie.
I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration. What inspires me? Where do I find those sparks and flashes of ideas? How do those little shards become tangible item?
One place is my family, which is full of creative people.
My paternal grandmother (for whom my daughter is named) was an amazing seamstress. I have two of the dresses she made. One of them she made to wear to my parents wedding and it became my wedding dress. The other is a gorgeous dark navy taffeta and I love it. She made needlepointed chair cushions as well as kneelers for her church and many other such projects, she made felt churchmice that wore choir robes (adorable), knit slippers for an old folks home at a time when she was well older than most of her recipients, made pretty tissue holders for handbags, and used to latch hook while listening to baseball games on the radio.
My Mom is the ultimate crafty housewife. She painted, she used to knit, she made these adorable little mice that slept in milk weed pods, made quilted pillows when we were kids, and is an amazing seamstress in her own right. She used to make these cool corn husk dolls. Some she made as scarecrows and put them on old wood shingles. She also dyed some husks red and made kitchen witches. Every year at Christmas we made different projects. Wacky things like using broken windshield glass in test tubes as icicles. She used old cashmere coats from Salvation Army and turned them into teddy bears. My grandmother (her mother in law) taught her how to decorate eggs and she makes gorgeous dioramas inside eggs as well as painting them and gluing ribbon and tiny pine cones and whatever else she finds on them. This woman can look at the most mundane thing and figure out how to use it in an arts and crafts project. It’s astonishing. However, I can tell you that my sister and I spent a lot of time picking up milk weed pods, pine cones, and whatever else she saw from the highway. Embarrassing is not a strong enough word! We HATED doing that. But these things were always used in something (or stored because it “might” be useful someday).
My sister definitely inherited the crafty bug. She doesn’t take it to the same place as my mom…it manifests in other ways. She has a type-A driven personality that gets the project done. She pours it into decorating her home and smaller-scale craft projects. She is an amazing seamstress as well. One look at the pink lame ruffled prom dress she made in 1987 is all the proof you need! She is the go-to gal among her friends when they need a creative solution.
My Aunt used to make us incredible things for Christmas. I posted previously about the hand-made doll that I still love and the quilted dress. She also made us each a gorgeous appliqued quilt. The top of the quilt is a girl who is asleep and the rest of the quilt is her blanket that has a night scene. She made us a scare crow and a clown one year. She needle pointed Christmas stockings for us and we still use them today. I was the willing recipient of all her knitting patterns, needles, and tools, which also included my grandmother’s items as well. (I posted on this previously too). There are sketched out intarsia patterns of fraternity crests that she knitted into socks for my father’s friends. An undertaking that makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I still have the poncho she knitted for me in 7th grade and now have the pattern for it too (it came in the big box of knitting goodies~).
When we were in 4-H my mom was club leader as well as the arts and crafts leader. She made sure we had all kinds of opportunities to try different types of crafts by seeking out local artists who could teach us. We did stained glass (we both still have our stained glass mirrors). We whittled (the little boot toothpick holder is at my mom’s house). We did ceramics…casting into molds, painting and glazing the item. I learned to knit which spawned this lifelong passion. The list goes on and on and on.
Growing up watching these creative women spawned a deep appreciation for the creative process and the specialness of those things made by hand. I continue to draw from these experiences as inspiration in many different aspects of my life. I’m so very, very lucky to have them in my life and in my family. I ardently hope that my daughter and any other kids that become part of our family enjoy creative expression as much as I do.
I’m loving the new look of this blog. It’s so much fun to crop pics of different projects and yarn to use in the header. There are about 20 different pics that rotate a
s people log in. I find myself just hitting the refresh button just to see which one will come up next. I still haven’t figured out why this template won’t link to other pages on the site. So there is no more “About Me” page, which is disappointing. It needs more research and playing around to get the issue resolved.
Following a tip I read in “Artful Blogger” I’m going to try a different way to post pictures in here. I don’t like the way I’ve been doing it since the pictures are either ginormous or tiny. Aesthetically, neither is pleasing to me.
This was H’s Halloween costume. It so fits her personality and she was so adorable in it. You can’t see the cute little tail in this pic. She was so funny crawling around in it. She looked like a fuzzy pink little dog running around.
I’ve loaded a new template that I like much, much better. It allows me to change the pictures in the header and I’m still exploring that.
I’m also exploring the way other photos look in the body of my posts. This goes hand in hand with my goal of learning how to use my camera and photo-editing software. Time to just plunge in!
I made a really cute keyhole scarf for H out of the leftover Koigu from SIL’s booties. It looks really cute on and she mostly left it alone when I had it on her today. She got it off once but it wasn’t a disaster.
Also managed to enter ALL my stash on my Ravelry account. I had no idea it was going to be so helpful to do that. While I like digging through the stash bins and touching everything it is so much easier to see it all in one place. When you can link to other projects made from the same yarn it’s a great way to get ideas for projects.
Still having issues finding the right pattern for that great chunky green. It definitely wants to be a vest (cue Mr. Burns singing “Be my vest, be my vest” while talking to little puppies). The search goes on. Alas.
Also made a post on one of the Ravelry groups about knitting for foster children. I decided that I’m going to knit a twin of the orange lace yoked one I made for H before she was born. I put it on her almost every day right now. I can see it on a needy child. It’s acrylic, which means that it won’t get ruined. I would like to make a couple of scarves as well. The best part is that a woman had a bunch of scarves already made up and took them to the donation spot!!! Another woman has items ready to go as well. That makes me feel so great that there are foster kids who will have hand-knit warm clothes this winter because of my post. Yay me!
http://blog.oregonlive.com/knitting/2009/10/knitting_for_foster_children.html
After the foster care knitting, and my vest, I need to make a Pretty Thing cowl for my mom for Christmas. I bought some pretty cashmere on sale at Yarn Garden and it will be perfect. Even if she can’t wear it all the time in Arizona she can wear it here when she visits. Am also thinking of making a crown for H for Christmas.
Keep your fingers crossed that I find a good vest pattern (or can create one).
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