Missouri and Virginia

This little fellow is en route to an amazing organization called Elephants Remember Joplin. I urge you to read about Cee Cee (age 9) and her wonderful, loving heart. She reminds me of another young girl, whose compassion led to the founding of Hannah's Socks, based in Ohio (you may recall I sent a package to them back in September).


If the colors of this hat look familiar, it's because I used some of what was left of the very nice Red Heart Soft yarn I bought to make a scarf for the Alabama Special Olympics. This hat is on its way to Virginia, where it will be donated to an organization called ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation. The ASK part stands for Assistance, Support, Kindness. I think that really says it all.

Little Red

For those who may not know, when you add a new project to your Notebook on Ravelry (an on-line community for knitters and crocheters), you are asked to name your project. This quite often gives me some trouble. I usually have a hard time coming up with cute names for things (hence my completely unimaginative user name on every site I frequent on the Internet. But I digress...). Luckily, this snug-fitting, hooded pullover for Liat was easy to name. It's called the Little Red Riding Hoodie. Ah well, at least I amuse myself.

Liat has not posed for a photo in the sweater yet, so we'll make do with this picture for now. I thought I had started the sweater in time to give it to her during Chanukah, but alas it was not to be. I finished this up just the other day, and fortunately we have some suitably cold and rainy weather just now, so I'm hoping she'll be wearing it one day soon.

I have a couple of other things to show you, but I'm going to save them for my next post, just to make sure I write one!

Finishing Frenzy

After dragging my feet on quite a few projects, I finally found myself in a position to finish up a few things. First up is this cute little gift bag. I found the pattern, called Sweet Stranding, on Ravelry. Next time I make it, I will make some changes. For one thing, the base forms a punt like you'll find on the bottom of a wine bottle, which suggests to me that a few rounds of knitting need to be taken out. Anyway, I also want to make the bag a big wider and taller, because it occurred to me that if it were bigger it would make a cute way to gift wrap a pair of handmade socks, using up the leftover yarn from the socks.


I am especially tickled about this finish, because these babies are for me! I've got them on right now, in fact. I love all the colors and the way they change and blend. Next up will be a pair of socks for Meital.

I finished something else today, but I can't show it to you yet. I hope to do so in my next post. And finally, I am very, very close to finishing the pullover I've been making for Liat. I think I can get it done today, and that will make four finished projects in two days. Go, me!

I read an interesting idea on a blog I like, about choosing a word that will be the word of the year. I am going to use the word the blogger used a few years ago when she first started this practice. My word for this year will be "simplify." It's something I've been trying in a very disorganized fashion to do for a while now, cleaning out cabinets and getting rid of clutter. I hope to accomplish more in that area this year, but I think it would also be a good idea for me to think about ways I could make my life simpler and less stressful. Sometimes it just seems like there's too much going on. Do you ever feel that way?

Here's Your Hat

What's your hurry? Sorry, couldn't resist. The hat making binge lives on. Above are hats for a beautiful couple who currently live in northern Turkey. The multi-colored hat is made with Lorna's Laces wool yarn, worsted weight, in a special colorway called Crimson Pride, which is available only at Serendipity Needleworks in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I learned about this yarn on - where else? - Facebook, and Ellen of Serendipity was all that is helpful, efficient and lovely when I wrote asking if I could order from her shop from Israel. The yarn is soft and a delight to knit, and did you check out that shop? Avi already knows I want to visit Alabama this summer, and if we do, Serendipity Needleworks is on my must-see list! (Well, it's on my must-shop-there list, to be completely honest). Anyway, the above-mentioned couple are both proud graduates of the University of Alabama, but I suspected that he would rather a plain hat in a dark color. At least he'll be able to see her hat! Which of course, she won't be able to do while she's wearing it.



Moving on....another hat, using some of what was left from the hat above. This one is for a very special lady who is also a proud Crimson Tide fan. She's allergic to wool, though, so I attached the decorative braid to an acrylic hat so that the wool wouldn't bother her (that's the plan, anyway. Sure hope it works out that way). Her husband also got a plain gray hat. What is it with men and their plain, dark colors? Hrmph!

Summing Up & Looking Ahead

Thanks to the wonder that is Ravelry I am able to tell you after less than a minute of figuring, that in 2011 I completed 46 projects. Many of those projects were pairs of things (10 pairs of socks, for example) and two were sets of four. I made 13 hats and 9 toys, a couple of baby blankets, some sweaters, baby booties, slippers, two scarves and some fingerless mitts. I wonder what I'll make this year?

One knitting goal I have set for myself (aside from my on-going project to knit something for each of the 50 states) is to knit up as much as possible of the yarn in the photo above. This is by no means all of the yarn I have in my stash today, but it's a pretty good-sized chunk of it. Of course, having all of this yarn doesn't stop me from buying more (if you're a knitter or crocheter, you're nodding your head right now, aren't you?). So it's time to put the stash on a diet, and that should be helped by a couple of projects I already have in mind. One of them is an afghan for Liat (for which she has been waiting patiently for quite a long time now). I also forsee quite a few toys, more hats, and who knows what else? It will be a lot of fun to find out!