My past haunting me...

I grew up in the country, sometimes on a farm, sometimes not, but in all those years there was always one thing that was consistent, a garden. Fresh lettuce, onions, radishes, tomatoes, potatoes, kohlrabi were the hallmarks of said garden and there just wasn't anything as awesome as taking a warm, sun ripened tomato off the vine, taking a bite out of it, sprinkle a bit of salt on it and more with each additional bite. The juice running down your chin. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. And these memories have gotten the better of me this summer. The upshot of it being, these 37 little beauties...





Anybody want a tomato plant or 5?...

The joy of knitting with others

Literally for years, I have longed to get together with knitters to knit. It is a shared joy to be in the company of your fellow knitter, to commiserate over the things that go wrong, to delight in the things that go right, to cheer one another on when enthusiasm for a project wanes and to know that someone else in the world understands your need to knit.

Knitting is a "hobby", but it soon becomes part of you. And unlike many hobbies, not only does the person doing the knitting benefit, but so do all the knitters family, friends and sometimes random acquaintances. Knitting brings peace and comfort to all, even the non-knitter watching someone knit. Non-knitters may challenge me on that statement, but I dare you, non-knitters of the world, spend five or ten minutes watching someone knit, honestly judging your mood, heart rate, stress level and any other noticeable markers before and after, then tell me I'm wrong.

Regardless though of the benefit to the non-knitter, being in the company of fellow knitters/crafters is a special kind of joy. All the knitting groups I had found out about over the years have met at times or locations inconvenient to me and so I never was able to make it to any of them. Then several months back, I realized through the appreciation of my friends who "wished they knew how to do that" and others who had decided to pick up needles on their own who asked for assistance, that I no longer needed to find a knitting group. I could make my own knitting group!

We have been meeting now to enjoy our love of the fiber arts and coffee for a couple months now and it has been such a blessing. I love my knitting group and I wish I had thought of this years ago!

Mindful knitting

The thing I often love the most about knitting is finding those knitting projects that I can work on while watching TV/movies or talking to others. The projects are generally referred to in the knitting world as mindless knitting, mostly because the pattern isn't mentally stimulating, the project is pretty big and the knitter just wants it to be over so they can ooh and ahh over the wonderful job that they did or they're working desperately on a deadline because someone's birthday or other special event is coming up shortly and they need to be finished asap.

But where the biggest rewards in knitting lay is in the mindful process of knitting for someone with your best intentions in mind. Love twisted into the yarn of every stitch as you think fondly of the person and all the wonderful memories you have of that person or in the case of knitting that has no intended home yet, the love and prayers for health, happiness and peace that you would wish upon those dearest to you. That is what you find in prayer shawls/blankets. Honestly any knitting project can have prayer tossed onto the front of its name, if that is what you did while making it.

My first prayer shawl was a project intentionally chosen after the passing away of a family friend, I very much wanted to give some comfort to his widow, but from over a thousand miles away just a card seemed impersonal. I found yarn that reminded me of his sparkling blue eyes that always had a hint of merriment and mischief to them and I found a shawl pattern using the trinity stitch and I knit and prayed and remembered all the times spent with them and I cried and I squished every bit of love I could into that shawl. I sent it to my mom to deliver, again because it seemed to impersonal to just mail it. And she explained as best she could, but when I was up visiting my parents next, Mom suggested that I go over to visit so that maybe I could explain it better. And I'm so glad that I did. We laughed, we cried, and she told me how thankful she was that I made that for her, because she felt less alone with it around her and it helped keep her warm that first winter without him. I thought when I knit that I was giving her a gift from my heart, but it was a gift to both of us.

My next prayer shawl I started simply because I wanted to have one available if the need should arise for one to be gifted to someone I knew. It sat around on a shelf for a while, until someone asked for a prayer request for a woman who has suddenly lost her husband. She was a mom and my heart went out to her, as well as my shawl, which I heard later she was so grateful for and used while rocking her child to sleep. I did not know this woman and will never meet her, but through that shawl we have both made a lasting impact upon each other.

I made another not long after that which found a home unexpectedly with a woman dear to me who lost her unborn child. It was the hug I wanted to give her but could not because of the distance and even now, it is a hug whenever she needs one. I smile every time I see it in her living room.

The next one was a blanket for the only man who was any kind of a father to his son's best friend. This man fought a valiant battle with cancer but in the end, the cancer won and the blanket went to his son and serves as a continuing comfort to him and his family. A reminder not only of a great man, but the thoughtfulness of a friend of a friend.

The most difficult thing to find in times of hardship and sorrow is finding the right words to help make things better. I have found in those times while words often fail me, my knitting speaks eloquently. Not only are those I knit for comforted by focusing my thoughts and prayers for them into my knitting, but I am deeply and profoundly blessed as well.

These stories continue to warm my heart, reduce me to tears, and keep me knitting with health, love, and peace in my thoughts and hands. If I'm knitting something for someone else, you can bet that no matter what I'm knitting, there are wishes of the very best of all things in the world in each and every stitch.

Yay me!

I'm nearly finished with my second puzzle ball of the set of them for the twids. Twids? you say. Yes, twids. My niece and nephew are fraternal twins and for the longest time they were known as the twinfants. Now that they are bigger however it no longer applies, so they have graduated to twids. I can hardly wait to get their presents in the mail to those little cuties! Thinking about it just makes me want to say, "Yay!"

And speaking of which, I'm working on socks for son #4 and they are going along quite well. Helps that he only has little preschooler sized feet, but still I seem to get better and better at socks with each sock I make. Though it does not however make me dread making them any less, go figure.

Then it is on to my mega project of the year: the wedding blanket for our friend Brian and his blushing bride Shelly. All prayers and good luck accepted, the wedding is a month. Still yay for the small victories!

Some things were never meant to be

Or at least not the way we meant them to be. Events, even objects have a life of their own it seems and trying to make them into something they aren't or trying to mold them to our expectations isn't a recipe for success. They are like people that way.

Take them as they come, look at them honestly for what they are and then see how they will or won't work in your life. And no matter how much you think something ought to be just how you want it to be, trust your instincts. If they are screaming at you don't go there, don't do it... listen, really truly listen. It may save you a lot of grief down the road.

And I'm not just talking about that slinky dress I wanted to knit myself which called for a bulky yarn, which in all honestly isn't that bulky, because if it truly was, using sport weight yarn wouldn't have made it feel like it weighed a ton. We'll shelve that till I either can spring the big bucks for the right yarn or find an incredible sale.

But it is really useful advice in knitting, too. As evidenced by the toddler sweater that was mostly finished, but due to all the special modifications I made, didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Those modifications just weren't meant to exist in the same article of clothing, at least not without starting from scratch with a pattern of its own rather that patching together pieces of different patterns. I knew in my heart of hearts that I should really put together a brand new pattern, I was just in too much of a hurry to get started and get done to do what my gut told me I should. At least now I can take that sweater and evaluate where it went wrong and give me a good idea of where to do things differently.

All of this has not discouraged me on my quest for the right matching (or complimentary, if I have to resort to it) yarn to finish the prayer shawl for a friend, however. Sometimes I think making prayer shawls do more good for me than the people I make them for, until I give the next one away. Then I remember just how much simple prayer and loving thought and action can do for others, which leads me to starting the next prayer shawl.

Slacking at its best...

Wow, I'd say it, but its fairly obvious. So, what have I been doing? That's a good question. Mostly avoiding finishing my Christmas knitting. What I DID finish though was two Jayne hats, another "I do" shrug, and nearly finished with a toddler sweater that I'm sure is sadly a size or two too small now as well as a shrug for myself from Mal (purple mystery) that I bought about 2 yrs ago. So happy to finally find a project that spoke the name of this yarn!

Life has taken all sorts of interesting twists and turns which have led us to the much anticipated move back to our house on Merritt Island come the end of Oct/beginning of Nov later this year, unless we win the lottery, which we don't play, or find, adopt and benefit from the passing of an extrememly wealthy and unhealthy relative or "relative".

I've found myself spending more and more time outside in the evenings enjoying the beauty, silence, and darkness that will be much harder to come by once we move back, so that's a good thing. Always nice to take time to appreciate the little things that bring so much joy and happiness to our lives.

Where has the time gone?

How can it be the end of August already? Doesn't seem possible! But I found myself in need of saying this and didn't necessarily want to create a forum post on Rav that would go on and on with people feeling similarly, even though it might be all sorts of comforting.

Am I the only one who is on a tight budget right now and knows all too well how much yarn they can't afford, but desperately wants to go to the LYS, pick out each and every yarn they want to get and give it all a group hug, shed a few tears (not on the yarn, obviously) and then slowly and carefully back out of the LYS? Just the thought of it evokes images of an illicit rendezvous with a lover who you know you can never really leave your significant other for no matter how much you long to throw caution to the wind and run off with them.

I'm sure the workers at my LYS would start to think I'm even more a little off than I already am for A)having 5 kids and B)homeschooling them, but hey variety is the spice of life, right? LOL