A Contest

A contest as a thank you for contributing to Aaron's Afghan - a project meant to comfort a family whose little two-year-old son and brother recently passed away.

Contest details

prizes include: one set of my favorite type knitting needles, clover bamboo, in size 10 (new - I removed them from the packaging just to take the picture); one set of five stitch markers (hearts - as this is a project of love); a pretty yellow pottery bowl made by a local potter - it is the perfect size for little candies, pocket change, or just about any other small item; finally four 50 gram hanks of a beautiful cranberry-colored Flureece yarn from Knit One Crochet Too's Gourmet Collection. This yarn is 75% merino wool, 25% nylon and very soft.

how to enter: simply send a 7x7 inch knit square to Jen (email her at njbush at netins dot net for the mailing address). The squares should be knit with a soft acrylic (I recommend Caron Simply Soft) in shades of green, blue and also cream. Then leave me a comment telling me how many squares you sent. For each square you knit and send you will receive one entry.

deadline: Squares need to be postmarked by March 13th (that's a Tuesday) to be eligible. The contest is retroactive for squares that have already been sent.

winner: I will post the winner within a few days of the contest and ask that they contact me by email (for some reason blogger does not include email addresses for comments on my blog, I could probably change that in my settings somehow but I don't know enough about computers to figure it out).

Please join us as we reach out to a hurting family.

*** a little addendum - I've heard that my silly blog won't let some people post comments. To remedy the situation, I decided to open an email account in case you'd like to email your name and # of squares: aarons_afghan at yahoo dot com ***

framed

Mom's needlepoint flowers are now framed and hanging in her newly remodeled kitchen. I think they look great! My mom and sisters were pleased as well.










It took me a while to get them to our friends who do framing but our friends were quick to get them in the frames and back to us. The flowers made it on the walls on time for Mom's Valentine's Day open house last Saturday.

knitting is a beautiful thing

As you may know my mom has a fatal illness. Today I learned that someone I am related to by
marriage was just diagnosed with a rare and terminal brain disease. The progression of my mom's illness has brought a lot of sadness with only more to come. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the "what's the point" mindset. This is not unique to me. People were writing about it thousands of years ago:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

What does man
gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come
and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

This was taken from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes so no, I am certainly not the first person to wonder, "What's the point?"

While pondering this thought I was reading through some of my rambling files on the computer and happened upon this bit I wrote about a year and a half ago. It was inspired by a simple grave marker not far from our little Lucy's own grave. This particular stone reads simply, "Sister". I thought of how the person in the earth below my feet was no less real than I am. No less passionate, no less alive. And yet what remained for most of the world to see was a
very plain stone marker that gives no more information than she was female, had parents and at least one sibling. Sister.

life and humanity are so much bigger than my little world.

I belong to the present. The little details of my life are here and now. I am not promised tomorrow and there is no certainty that tomorrow will even know my name. The only moment I can live is now.

My worth is in this very minute. If my life should end tomorrow, my worth would depend on whether or not someone else continued for me, remembering me. And after 100 years the truth is there will not likely be anyone to remember more than maybe my name. I would only hope that the impact of the moments that made up my life would have reached down through the time that left me behind and embrace the lives of those in the future. Whether or not they know the ins and outs of my life, I hope that the substance of who I am will be passed along through lives of people to come.

Time will leave me behind and continue on without me. The clock does not need me here to keep on ticking.

I was thinking about how knitting is such a beautiful thing that can be used to reach beyond not just our own little worlds (when we send preemie hats and booties to warm little heads and feet of babies born too soon, infant bereavement sets for someone we'll never know, or afghan squares to be made into a tangable form of comfort for a family in grief) but knitting can also span time. In our home we have an afghan that fits such a description. We have cross stitch and wall art and numerous other items. We have so many things left behind from people who remain on earth only in our memories of them.

What are you doing that will live beyond yourself?

Aaron's Afghan
Emmazing Grace
Project Compassion
Heavenly Angels in Need
The Preemie Project
25 Things
LucyBug

(the photo to the right - some squares for Aaron's Afghan)

Stitch Markers Show & Tell

I have long admired homemade stitch markers like the ones found on the Good to be Girl or Purple Duckie blogs. The other night something struck in me, Hey! I could probably make those! (I tend to have those light bulb moments from time to time about something fairly easy that I should have already realized - like knitting cable braids - I should have been able to figure out how to do them. I remember watching Amy's video clip about knitting cables and how she mentioned that braids are just cables within cables. Huh? I didn't get it. However I knew at some point I would - and I did! It dawned on me one day so at that moment I sat and came up with the braided cable square for Aaron's Afghan.)

But back to the stitch markers... I picked up some of the circles today when I went into work to get my check. I came right home and promptly forgot all about everything I had planned to do today (mainly painting green stems for the flowers that will soon adorn the walls of my daughters' room) and went to work. I have a bunch of beads already from my brief infatuation with jewelry making and was able to make two nice sets of five before I was ready to quit and start taking pictures.

Now I notice that the light wasn't very good. I hope you can see them anyway. My nine-year-old daughter pulled out her own beads and made some stitch markers for her knitting projects. I should get a picture of those but that will have to wait as she was summoned by her younger sisters to go play Care Bears.

curtains!

A few days ago my husband came home with a curtain rod for the little girls' room. There had been a white shade in the window, but he doesn't like shades. At all. When he set the rod down on the kitchen table I knew what it was for. I asked, "Didn't you get curtains?" He replied no - figured I could go get some fabric and make some.

Hm. I would have never even thought about making curtains! Sure, I could give it a try. I remembered that I had bought a bunch of cute fabric last summer when it was $2 a yard thinking I'd make backpacks or something that I never got around to actually doing.

The stripes in this fabric match the little one's comforter almost perfectly. I was particularly excited about the pom-pom trim. I had seen it on clearance for almost nothing a yard (maybe a quarter?) so I bought what they had. I was so excited to be able to add that cute touch to the curtains.

Tiger, as you can see, likes to sit in the window. She enjoys hissing at Pepper when he's playing outside.

Headed for the Frog Pond

One of my little nephews is a frog maniac. Of course being his aunt I am entitled - nay - obligated to buy/make/find any and every frog item I possibly can for him. Last summer I made him a frog backpack that he loves and took to his first day of Kindergarten.

A month or so ago the newer version of the movie Cheaper by the Dozen (2003?) came on TV. We thought the movie was just ok. I noticed the character Sarah wore a knit frog hat for much of the movie. It occurred to me that I could make one for my nephew and decided his 6th birthday would be the perfect occasion to present him with such a gift.

It knit up quickly - in just one evening. I used up stash yarn and knit it on size 7 needles. I didn't really use a pattern, just started knitting and eventually I had a hat. The eyes were knit flat (the backs are green). I sewed the fronts and backs together then attached them to the
top of the hat. Not really a precise science.

I'm thinking about knitting some frog mittens. I'm not sure I have enough of the yarn though.

Adding to the Stack

Mama Bear posted an entry on her blog about an afghan project by our mutual friend Jen. The afghan is being made for a family who recently lost their little son, two-year-old Aaron, due to injuries sustained in a New Year's Eve car accident.

For my squares I used several different stitch patterns from Vogue's Stitchionary, including; #83 - pair of eyelets, #58 - dimples (in the blue to the right) and # 172 - alternating diagonals (below, dark green).

I also did a few generic garter or seed stitch squares as well as a braided square. I put the pattern for the braided square on my pattern page. My favorite square though is a pretty simple eyelet pattern.

My thoughts and prayers go out to little Aaron's family. I am often reminded of Job when he had lost all of his money and his children were killed. The first thing he did was tear his clothes and fall to the ground in worship saying, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

Job was never happy about what was happening, but he worshipped God anyway. Sometimes that choice to worship anyway is very painful.

what kind of yarn are you?

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Dishcloth Cotton.You are a very hard worker, most at home when you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly born to clean. You are considered to be a Plain Jane, but you are too practical to notice.
Take this quiz!








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Umm... I'm not sure I really agree (hardworking? born to clean?), but that's ok. I like cotton anyway.

Yarn Dying

Another of my daughter's very cool Christmas gifts
was sent to her from my mother in law. They sent her a yarn dying kit
for kids. Oh my, did she ever have fun with that! Yarn dying is
something we definitely want to do again. I didn't help her much (only with the heating, really)
but it was certainly fun to watch the process and especially to see her
get so excited about the project. She hasn't knit the yarn yet, but
I'll be sure to post a picture when she does. (the picture of the yarn was taken before she had added all of the colors. It looks much like a ball of rainbow now that it is finished.)

In addition to this yarn dying kit, they sent each girl a poncho my MIL had made, a hand art book for the three-year-old, a tiara making kit for the six-year-old and for the eight-year-old there was a Disney Princess learning to crochet kit. A final gift for all four girls was a craft bag with knitting needles, children's cookbooks, children's sewing project kits and other craft items. They really had the girls pegged!

Oh and one other thing, I put up the pattern for my cable socks here.

knitting at home

For Christmas my husband bought me a cool knitting bag/ basket/ thing. I had seen them at work and liked them a lot but didn't mention it to him because I really don't like telling someone what to get me for Christmas (or ever, really). I guess it doesn't really feel like a true gift that way. So much to my surprise on Christmas morning I opened up the very same bag/basket/thing I had secretly admired!

It is even better than I expected because when it's open it has all kinds room, with pockets even. Currently I have a knifty knitter hoop, a partially used ball of eyelash yarn, a mostly used ball of cotton, a skein of caron simply soft currently being knit on size 9 needles (also in there) into a seven inch afghan square and my copy of Vogue's Stitchionary (vol. 1). All of that stuff in there and still it folds up and fits between the couch and end table. I think I'm in love!

I was really impressed. I hadn't expected anything knitting under the tree because, frankly, he has no interest in yarn and needles. I figured he wouldn't have the faintest idea what to make of those few isles in the craft store, much like me at Lowe's or something.

Speaking of knitters in a home improvement store, the other day I read a funny article about one knitter's adventures at the hardware store, which can be found here.

Finally here is a picture of my dad's finished Christmas socks, or rather New Year's socks. The stripes matched pretty well on the cuff but not at all on the feet. *sigh* Oh well. This is why I'm not a big fan of self-striping yarn. I used to like it when I was knitting my daughters crazy socks. But now? I don't know. Maybe it was just this yarn? It is dark and was hard for me to even see the pattern until I had knit three inches or so. I don't like pulling my work out, so perhaps that was the frustration? I thought they were going to match and then they didn't. Next time I knit some for Dad I will use a solid color. Mismatched stripes are ok for a three-year-old, just maybe not for a retired Army Colonel.

All She Wants for Christmas

This year the only thing my nine-year-old daughter asked for was the Singer Knitting Machine that she had seen on a trip to Hobby Lobby (who didn't have this item in their online catalog). Can I just interject how much I adore HL and how very glad I am that they finally opened one here in our state? I used to love to go to HL when we lived in the Denver area. But back to the story... She was quite pleased when Santa brought the treasured item last week. I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought it would be about the same as the hoops (of which we have probably ten or so) but much to my surprise the knitting machine is a lot different! I guess the main difference is the speed. On Christmas day alone she knit two tube scarves and a small mesh bag (using crochet thread, in the picture). The one thing I didn't like about it is that you only have one size option for tube knitting, but it is possible to knit a flat panel which can be stitched together with another panel to make a hat or something. So far she's also knitted two pair of socks, one for her and one for her eight-year-old sister.

I was given a knitting gift as well but seeing as we have to get going on our NYE plans, I better blog about it later. Happy New Year, friends! Many blessings in 2007. I'll leave with one of my favorite passages of scripture as a prayer for the new year:

The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.


Numbers 6: 24-26

A Jolly, Happy Soul

Thirty of them, actually. The girls and I made these little fellows to be Christmas gifts for their Sunday School classmates. Our snowmen were patterned after a very similar Frosty my oldest purchased at the Festival of Trees at the end of November. The little pots were painted white by a few cute little elves. The eyes and noses were hot-glued on (Mom's job) and the coal mouths were put on using a black paint pen. They were filled with a small assortment of candies including kisses and my personal favorite mini reese's pb cups (yum!). Finally the little green hats were sewn using a fabric scrap from who-knows-when. Each hat has a tiny red bell which was tied on using red embroidery floss. My youngest says she can't wait for Sunday so she can have a snowman. Being only three-years-old she doesn't quite get that they are for her friends and not her.

Christmas Knitting

In addition to the dishcloths I have had a few other Christmas knitting projects. I was going to make scarves for the girls, but gave up on the idea of finishing them for this Christmas since I have very little time to knit when they are not around. That's ok, there is always next year. I bought this yarn at Hobby Lobby when it was on special for 99 cents a week or so ago. I thought it would make a nice, round scarf using the smallest knifty knitter hoop. My mom had wanted to make some for her friends for Christmas gifts but she really doesn't like the hoop knitting. I don't mind it so much and the girls quite enjoy it, so I told her we'd make her gifts. She mentioned that she had considered making one for herself with the leftover yarn, but the colors she was using wouldn't have worked together, so the girls and I decided to make one for her. These colors are so totally Mom. I think she'll like it. I should have taken an in progress picture (I was two skeins into the scarf when I took the photo of the remaining two skeins) but I will be sure to get one when it is finished. It is so pretty as it knits together. I am excited to give it to her!

My next (and last for this year) Christmas knitting project is a pair of socks for my dad. I found some very soft Trekking yarn at my semi-LYS. I didn't realize that it would knit in subtle stripes when I purchased it. I think the dark colors, even with faint stripes will be fine for Dad, but I'm not totally sure. What do you think? Do the stripes make them, oh I don't know, not dignified enough?

I knew I should have typed the title to this blog entry when it streaked through my head like a flash of lightening, but alas, I did not.

Meet Pepper! He came to live with us yesterday as a slightly early Christmas gift for our family (but mostly the children). We were told he's a pointer/jack russell mix. He is certainly cute and such a sweet little thing. His big sister Tiger isn't all that impressed. She hasn't showed her face upstairs much since the little guy's first paw crossed the threshold. She hasn't hissed at him either though and I'll take that as a good sign. We bought him a purple collar & leash, kennel (a refuge from all of the attention he gets), some crazy Christmas doggie treats, and a snazzy new sweater at PetSmart. Perhaps this is the only kind of sweater I will have the patience to knit? One for the pup? Maybe ... someday ...

Oh yes, I've done a little knitting too. Not much, but a little. Perhaps I'll snap a picture and blog about that soon too. In the meantime -- yay for puppies! And for Christmas time!

Why I want to learn to crochet:

My paternal grandmother (we called her Maim) made this tote bag for my mom a long time ago. Recently Mom gave it to my girls and me. I love it! Green is my favorite color, especially this shade. I'm told Maim could crochet "a mile a minute".

Mom's Brazilian Embroidery

A week or so ago Mom was teaching me how to do machine embroidery and while looking through her sewing stuff we happened upon these beautiful squares of Brazilian embroidery. She said she had made them years ago, most likely with the intention of framing them. I had never seen this type of embroidery before and was quite impressed! I have a good friend who not only does framing but also has a flare for decorating. I asked Mom if I could take them and have them framed for her. Mom agreed. They are so beautiful I had to post a picture of them.

Brazilian embroidery is a craft I would be interested in learning, especially now.

Also pictured (below) is my first attempt at machine embroidery. It was not as hard as I expected. Next time I do it there are a few things I would do differently, but overall I think it turned out pretty good. I will definitely be doing machine embroidery again - I just need to remember to pick up a hoop.


I apologize for so much time going between posts. A few weeks ago I took a part-time job at a local craft store. While I love the job, it takes a lot of my spare time.

edit for clarity: Mom did the Brazilian embroidery by hand. The machine embroidery was done on a regular sewing machine. I need practice though.

finished afghan

Dear Mom,
It is my hope that as you wrap in this blanket, you can know how much I love you. Not a single moment spent on even one stitch was wasted. Each wrap of the yarn around the needle was a prayer for you.

Because I could never thank you enough ...

Love,
Marcia

Well, I wanted this to stay serious but because my mom has such a funny sense of humor, it can't. The pillow reads: "Maybe the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about!" Mom was given this by a friend one Christmas and faithfully it sits in her living room. She even made a few of her own to give away to other friends the following Christmas. The afghan does not live there on the rocking chair. I don't know that it actually has any one place where it belongs. It kind of migrates around the house as far as I can tell - and that is fine with me.

Gorilla Cookies

Last month I posted a picture of my no-bake cookies (and by the way my brother in law says those are the only real "cookies" a more accurate name for the others would be bakies. He has a very yummy recipe for choco-chip cookies that we call "Sammy's Bakies"). Anyway so after I posted the picture Kim asked for a copy of my recipe. My recipe calls for evaporated milk (do they all? I don't know) and she wondered if it would work to make them with the skim variety (I didn't even know there was such a thing).

During my next trip to the grocery store I was walking down the baking isle when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a can of skim evaporated milk. Now I liked the idea of making my already adjusted recipe even less guiltful but was slightly nervous about making a blind leap from full fat milk to skim. I decided to also grab a can of 2% to try first. Those cookies met with great success, so I moved on to trying the skim milk (each can makes two batches so it took a little while before I used up all of the 2% - while I can eat 2/3 of a batch in one evening, I try not to make it a habit).

The original recipe was one my mom always made when we were growing up. It is the first treat I remember ever making on my own. They used to be called "Uncooked Peanut Butter Cookies" but were renamed by my second oldest brother who renamed pretty much everything and everyone (my third brother was once dubbed "Guybo Wheezie Kubo Sootie Weebo Sautie RAH RAH! A name that stuck, much to his chagrin. We called him Rah Rah for short).

Because I no longer use white sugar for anything (with the occasional exception of powdered sugar for frosting) I found I had to adjust the recipe to suit the changes brought on by raw sugar. My problem was that the cookies weren't setting up. One day I accidentally left out the butter and lo and behold the cookies set! Of course without butter they were a little on the dry side, so the next time I tried using half of the butter called for in the recipe. The end result was a yummy cookie. Success!

Here is my mom's recipe with a few changes:

Gorilla Cookies
boil together for 4 to 4.5 minutes:
2 C. raw sugar
1/2 stick butter (4 TBS?)
1/2 can evaporated milk (maybe 6 oz?)
1 T. cocoa powder

after boiling, remove from heat and add:
1/2 C. peanut butter, stirring until melted then add:

3 C. oatmeal
1 tsp vanilla
Though I didn't have any this day, I also like to add some unsweetened coconut - I'd say in the neighborhood of 1/2 cup or so.

stir until mixed - drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and the rest is history.

Results: With the skim milk I found it took longer to set up than I am used to, but I think it is worth it in the long run.

by the way Pampered Chef makes my very favorite measuring cup for PB or honey or any of that sticky sort of thing.

Shadow Knitting - Illusion or Reality?

Ok, cheesy title. I know. Because I have a few knitting friends whom I can't help but copy nearly everything they do (knitting and otherwise) I determined to give illusion knitting a try. The particular friend who most recently brought this cool technique to mind does not have a knitting blog but her mom and sister do. A while back her sister knit a really cool scarf. While I admired it greatly, I did not think I could ever pull off such a knitting feat. This was, after all, almost a year ago (can I say that when it was actually only 10 months ago?). I am much less knitting timid with all the practice I've had this year.

So recently when this friend started talking about doing some illusion knitting of her own ... well. It got the better of me and I decided to see if I could figure it out.

Now I really don't learn well by reading. It makes little to no sense to me. Knowing this about myself I picked a simple heart cloth (pdf) with written instructions (the charts brought on nothing but stress and confusion). It only took a few hours to knit this and the girls and I are really pleased with how it turned out. Even my husband was impressed!

I decided to use some very old fingering weight acrylic and give it to my daughter to be used as a blanket for her little tiny dolls. It was a lot easier than I imagined and now that I have got the hang of it, I think I may be ready to make up my own shadow knitting pattern! What shall I knit? ...

Tiger says Muu(Muu)

Now I admit that "muu" is not normally what you would hear coming out of a full-grown cat - perhaps a kitten, but even then it is more of a "mew". At any rate... a fellow knitting blogger and I were having a bit of a chat about our cats (cats, ya gotta love 'em!) when she suggested we knit sweaters for our (uh-hem) darling feline friends. It reminded me of my childhood when, much to our brothers' chagrin my sisters and I would dress our family cat (named Barkley after the dog on Sesame Street - it suited him as he considered himself at least as tough as any dog) in our doll clothes, including booties (how were we to know he'd slide all over the kitchen floor?). What self-respecting male cat (pure black even) would be subject to such humiliating and degrading acts?

Meet Tiger (please forgive the slightly blurry picture - I had to sneak in my daughter's bedroom and take this in the pitch black). She is a little over five years old and was born in the closet of my daughters' room. She is pretty lazy, despite the name. She's a good mouser though, as we've never had a single rodent in the house (well once I thought I heard one, but it was soon gone, so I assume it either never existed or Tiger got it). She has left us a few rodent gifts at the back door. Once she tried playing with a black widow (*shudder*) but thankfully quickly realized she wanted nothing to do with the creepy black thing and backed away allowing my husband to kill it instead. Tiger doesn't care much for children, but does know her place as pet. We feed her, change her litter box and don't allow her to abused. In turn she allows the girls to play with her sometimes never meowing just occasionally shooting her death glare around the room. If looks could kill...

So about the muu muu you ask? Get to the point? Ok I will (I really should go wash the dishes anyway). I did a little search on my favorite free pattern site: Knitting Pattern Central under pets and found they have recently added a pattern for a cat muumuu.

So what do you say Knit a Little, do you think Roland (scroll down a bit for his picture) is man enough for a muumuu?

Ok, perhaps I'll keep looking for a cat sweater...