Are those dropped stitches intentional?

Cute picture from a vintage Begin To Knit booklet that retailed for 35 cents, on loan from Michaels' mom:

Shawls with prayer involved.

I suppose most of you have heard of prayer shawls before? They are traditional Jewish garments intended to be worn during prayer. However, some people make them for cancer victims and other people who are having health problems. The idea is that the maker of the shawl puts all kinds of good wishes into each stitch for the recipient. Our SNB was lucky enough to have a dear lady from Circle of Love, a prayer shawl ministry, come in and teach all the newbies in our group how to knit and crochet. In exchange, everyone made a shawl to donate to the local kidney dialysis patients. We had a lot of fun and it felt so good to be doing something nice for someone else with our creativity. However, I don't take naturally to generosity. I really, really wanted to keep mine. And while I tried to put good wishes in every stitch, I was watching Family Guy when I was making it...so a little more irreverence than prayer is probably in there.


Here's the shawl I made. I used a pattern from one of my vintage magazines. It's being modeled by the director of volunteer services at my college, Joyce.






This was Heather's first knitting attempt. It's more of a scarf than a shawl, and can also be used as a babushka.







This was also Sarah's first attempt at knitting--this girl learned to knit in TEN MINUTES. She's a prodigy. It took me four attempts over two years!



Last and least: I really, really hope I'm not as tiny as I look in this picture.



And a sweet picture of the neighbors' chickens hanging out in a tree.

An Overabundance Of Yarn

SO last night I walked into Stitchn'Bitch and there was a girl standing there with two of the biggest black garbage bags I've ever seen. You know what they were full of? YARN. They were being donated to us. For whatever purpose we see fit to use it for.
Naturally ,the purpose we saw fit was to spread it out all over the floor and roll in it. So we did. I wish I'd had a camera, but I'm sure you can imagine the sort of meeting this was when I tell you that one of our members stuffed two large skeins up her shirt and danced on the table.

I began to look this gift yarn in the mouth, however, when it came time to leave, and I remembered that I had to take the bus home. Hmm. Well, I'm sure I can handle it! How much can yarn weigh, anywhow? Right?

A lot, especially when some of it is an industrial-sized cone of dyeable cotton.

So I'm dragging these bags in fits and starts across the campus, and I stopped on the way to help raise money for Katrina victims, by paying $3 to smear a plateful of whipped cream all over the face of a fraternity member. As a gesture of thanks for my generosity, the gooey fraternity helped me carry the bags to the bus.

I got on the bus, where the bags took up two seats each. I got off at my stop, which is about half a block away from my apartment. I couldn't lift both bags at once-they were really almost bigger than me. I decided I would drag them along the sidewalk, which worked for about half of the way, when they both developed huge holes (this should really not have surprised me, seeing as they were thin plastic and I was dragging them across gravel. But still.) and suddenly there was yarn all over the moonlit street. It was like Hansel and Gretel used their yarn stash instead of bread crumbs.

As I scuttled around under the streetlamps picking up yarn, I wondered: does this qualify as a dream come true, or a nightmare?

Help! I lost my dream blog!

I was looking at a beautiful blog yesterday. I think it was called Small Birds. The author has two twins. She had just posted this gorgeous array of pictures of her favorite color (blue) found around her house. I have not been able to stop thinking about this blog! AND NOW I CAN'T FIND IT! Does anybody know what I'm talking about, and where to find this lovely thing?

EDIT: Never mind. I just found it. It's called Little Birds. Way to go, brain-thesaurus...http://littlebirds.typepad.com/little_birds/

The picture of her little boy in the pumpkin patch makes me all broody. However, it only makes me broody because I want a little boy to dress in overalls and newsboy hats. Which brings up an interesting issue:

When we have children, is it right to only let them wear things we like? For example, if I were to knit an entire wardobe for my future offspring, and let them have favorite things to wear only within that category, am I being tyrranical? At what age should we begin allowing kids to choose their own clothing? I am a supporter of the idea that you should let your kids wear whatever they like, as long as it's within legal boundaries, and do whatever they please to their hair; I 'll be picking my battles and saving the screaming for when I find pot in their coat pocket, etc.

But I want to dress my kid in costumes. When should I stop? Will I be able to? I think that will be a big control issue for me. Maybe I should just obtain some Barbie dolls, and leave the progeny-producing to more balanced minds.

But Merino makes me itchy!

You are Merino Wool.
You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to
keep you close because you are so softhearted.
You love to be comfortable and warm from your
head to your toes.


What kind of yarn are you?
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