The weekend has finally arrived! It is my weekend off. Actually it is my day off since I volunteered to work on Sunday. My shift is short a nurse and we can use the money. None the less, it is the weekend, which means we can sleep in late if we want. Naturally, I am up early after being up late last night. That is fine with me because it means quiet time without anyone awake in my household. These precious minutes will be spent updating my two knitting and crocheting blogs and trying to catch up on email. This is a rare treat.
Three sets of knitting needles have the beginnings of squares for the Rebuilding Greensburg Project on them. They will all be in my knitting bag when we go out to do errands later today. This way I can finish them off while my wonderful husband drives. One of my goals for the weekend is to complete them and start making a couple more.
There is a lot going on these days in terms of knitting and crocheting. The deadline for making squares for the Rebuilding Greenburg Project is August the first. I have been busy making some last minute squares to add to the box going to Laura in the next couple of weeks.
Progress on my part of the private gift for my friend at work is going slowly. Making a very long story short, the yarn will hopefully be arriving at a nearby store by next Thursday. Once it is here, making it will be easy. I cannot say more in case she happens to be reading this blog. Once it has been completed and delivered, I will post pictures.
Posted onJuly 15, 2007|Comments Off on Still Here and Knitting
I am still here and knitting. Most of my knitting time continues to go to making squares for the Rebuilding Greensburg effort. The box that has been set aside to hold the squares is gradually being filled.
This week I finally allowed myself to visit my all time favorite thrift store. It is only open once a week from 9am-12 noon. I don’t allow myself to go there often because I always bring home too much good stuff. This week was no different. I found a lot of old knitting needles and other fiber arts related tools. This was a fun find since collecting such items is part of the hobby of fiber arts for me.
A walk into the Book Room of this delightful place was a treat by itself. Hardback books were being sold “$2.50 for 10” or 25 cents a piece. Some good books came home with me. The best one of them is : Illustrated Patchwork Crochet. This book has been on my Wish List for a long time. I have never gotten around to looking for it online. Finding it in person was a wonderful surprise. There has not been as much time as I want to read it. That will come.
The past week has been unusually stressful at work. A week ago yesterday a friend and colleague at work learned of the death of her youngest son. He was only 30 years old. His death was completely unexpected.
I work in a small retirement center where the staff is very close knit. This young man’s death has hit all of us hard. The nurses, of which I am one, are an even closer knit group than the rest of the staff. It is my observation that this has touched us even more than others. We have all been going through the grieving process. Part of our grief is our own and part of it is for our friend. We hurt for her. We hurt for her family.
We are the ones who normally help others with the grieving process. Now we are in the position of going through it ourselves. We have each experienced the loss of a loved one before in our lives, but this seems to be different. We can only watch and pray at this point since our friend has not returned to work. Of course we are sending cards as a token expression of our sympathy. The staff of our facility is sending a lovely gift in the next few days after everyone has had the chance to donate for it.
At some point there will be a private hand made gift to she and her son’s girlfriend from the nurses on our shift. Work will begin on this gift in the next few days. I cannot bring myself to get the yarn for part of it from my stash just yet. The pattern choice has been made. At the moment it is just a bit too hard to begin this project. It will have to wait until my next day off in the middle of the week.
In the meantime we continue to pray and work through our part of the grief process. I have this sneaking hunch that I am not the only parent who has told a child they are loved more than usual this week.
My knitting time this week has been spent making dishcloths, a bib and more squares for Greensburg. The dishcloths and bib are from the stash of cotton recently purchased.
About two weeks ago I posted a picture of the first part of the Mad Dash
I would have taken a better picture of it , but it is in the soiled laundry basket. This picture does not do justice to the lovely pattern.
Recently I talked about needing to get out of a rut when it comes to making dish and wash cloths. After completing the Mad Dash cloth I decided to make the well known Darrell Waltrip Cloth. My original plan was to make one just to do something different. I liked it so much I have completed two of them. A third one is on the needles.
This is the first one I did. It is made with Peaches n Creme Passion yarn.
Even though I saw pictures of it on Knitting Knonsense, I was amazed at its beauty. It does a wonderful job of bringing attention to the colors of the yarn. Since it is also an easy pattern for me to memorize this a good pattern to use when spending time with my family. It also works up quickly. Because the designer lists the multiples of stitches used, it is extremely easy to adjust the size of the cloth. I prefer smaller cloths than a lot of people so this is important to me when making them for myself.
Here is a picture of the second one. It is made with P&C Butter & Cream
I rarely buy patterns for dishcloths or other items, choosing instead to use free available resources. Several weeks ago, while doing research for my other blog, I came across a baby bib pattern at that caught my imagination. I wanted to buy it immediately, but chose to wait and see if I changed my mind at a later date. In the end the pattern was ordered and very promptly delivered. It is the Eyelet Diamond Baby Bib from here.
It is made from Gumdrops by Peaches & Cream. The colors are much more vibrant in real life. This was a real experiment for me for a couple of reasons. It has been a very long time since I have used a pattern requiring the use of a stitch holder. It was not a challenge to my ability by any means, but it made the pattern interesting. The other reason is that this was my first time to make an I-cord. It was pretty cool! This pattern is a great addition to my pattern collection. It will become well used in the future.
Here are pictures of a couple of other dish cloths made recently using two of my favorite colorways of Peaches & Cream: Gumdrops and Potpourri Ombre.
