Amish Memory Shawls – Woman to Woman

Shelly, of My Mountain Home, and Dianna, of A Sheep in Wool’s Clothing, brought me to tears this afternoon when I read of their plans. They are reaching out to the families of the victims of the Amish school shooting in a big and meaningful way:

… what we have envisioned, is to spin and knit an Amish-compatible shawl for each mother, sister and grandmother (if possible) of the deceased and alive, of the shootings.

Among the victims, they count the wife of the shooter, who, I agree, must be “devastated by what her husband did, and in shock.”

Shelly and Dianna are amazing inspirational women and if you can help by spinning and/or knitting, please see this post for more details and contact information.

I won’t be spinning or knitting for this project (as the yarn I spin is not even knittable and I knit very, very slowly) but I will be a devoted cheerleader. I can’t wait to see the results coming in.

FOs

I knit slowly, but most often, I get there in the end. Recently (as you may have read as I frantically counted down the hours remaining and compared them to the number of rows remaining and the number of holes to be fixed and all the ends to be sewn in… yeah), I went to a baby shower for my cousin who is (duh) having a baby. I almost made it too. I had a blanket, a pair of tiny socks and ONE baby bootie. No matter, the other is finished now and only has to be mailed off to her.

I had a WONderful time at the shower. Why don’t we get together with our families more often? Eh? Why? There is no good reason, really.

Bee Bootie, Wee Socks

Bee Booties and Socks…. both from 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. I don’t think I made any changes to the socks which are made from Paton’s Kroy Socks and some other bits of blue sock yarn I had around. The Bee Booties are actually Bee Shoes in the book. I don’t know – do the shoes stay on? To me they look like they’d be kicked off in no time, to be lost at the mall, or along the side of the road while out for a walk. Once I’d finished and sewn up one of the shoes, I went back and added a cuff. I used the instructions for the cuff as given for the Pirate Bootees (same book) and felt much better about the whole thing.
I highly recommend that book, btw. The booties (bootees) are uterus-cramping-ly cute and every baby you know could benefit from a pair or three or five.

Bee Bootie, Wee Socks

This is EZ Mystery Blanket from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac. I made a few very minor changes. I was knitting with Patons Shetland Chunky (I think I used about 7 100g balls), which gave me a different gauge, so I did a few more rows on each square, increasing to 104 stitches. Because my numbers were off, I had to add some rows to the centre diamonds but the changes were all minimal. I used 12 squares and knit the border as given in the book (another book I highly recommend, btw. If you can only have 5 knitting books, this should be one of them.). Finished dimensions are 35″ x 44″.

There is a lot of weaving in this blanket and once I got the hang of it, it was actually enjoyable. I love that this blanket doesn’t lie perfectly flat and that the edges are wavey. The yarn is very soft, especially after washing. I *really* like the blanket.

However.
My finishing skills are not so great and it shows on this project. Lately, I’ve been much more concious of this and paid more attention to how I do the finishing work, but still… ugh. I have a long way to way to go. Hmm.. that looks like another reason to keep knitting. Cool :D