A Special Gift!

Sometimes you just hit on the perfect gift for someone!  This morning I 'helped' to create the perfect gift for a friend of mine.  Julie's mother had been a knitter and crocheter.  She had been working on an afghan for Julie's family but wasn't able to finish it before her death.  Recently Julie's father also passed away.  Her family was tasked with cleaning out the house to ready it for sale.  Knowing that I knit and crochet, Julie gifted me with a large bag of her mother's yarn that had been in storage for years.  As I sorted through the skeins of yarn I also found several strips of an uncompleted afghan that her mother had been working on.  I admired the beautiful work and reflected on the hours she must have spent creating the strips.  I thought about what I could possibly do to make something of the strips for Julie.  Pillows was a possibility or maybe something else......

This morning inspiration struck!  As I laid out the strips to try to figure out how to turn them into something useful, I draped a strip around my neck and looked in the mirror.  COWL!  Ah ha!  I rummaged through my stash of antique buttons (great fun :-) and came up with 4 perfect buttons.

I placed the live stitches on a needle and created a garter stitch edge on one side and single crocheted and slip stitched back an edge on the other end.

I sewed on the 4 buttons and steam blocked the cowl.

Here is Julie in her warm hug from her mom :-)  We both cried.....

Level II Adventures!

Ready for a funny story? Yesterday, I decided to work on swatch 24 (the last one for my Level II, yay!!!!) outside in my lovely reclining deck chair. The instructions say to add a another ball of yarn while working the pocket. I didn't have another ball, so I decided to use the other yarn end of the ball I was using. So far, so good despite a few tangles. Then I discovered I had split two stitches and had to do some knitting surgery, but in the process of fixing these two mistakes, the cats decided to give chase to a hapless chipmunk. Now I couldn’t just sit there and watch it get murdered, despite the fact that it had earned a Darwin Award by even venturing into our fenced back yard full of cats, so I dropped my knitting and joined the chase. I finally did succeed in driving away the cats with the water hose. By the time I got back to my knitting I couldn’t remember what row I was on! Sigh. Then I discovered that I had one end of the working yarn going over the chair arm and one under the chair arm. This basically meant I was trapped and MUST finish knitting the swatch in that chair. Of course, the black flies and midges thought this was a grand idea and they got very busy making me regret that mistake and it was with great relief that I could finally cut one of the active yarn ends and get free !!! Ah, the trials of knitting!!! (My husband had several chuckles over this.....)

So Proud of My Mom!

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Basking in the Glow!

Through experience, I'm always a little leery of acknowledging accomplishments.  Icarus flew too close to the sun and look what happened to him! Pride goeth before the fall! Nevertheless, I conquered my own fear of failure on a couple of fronts which has recently resulted in this opportunity to 'bask in the glow!'  I also learned a great deal of new information that I would not have acquired any other way than through a huge expenditure of energy, effort and time! 

What were these accomplishments?  First, I volunteered to teach as a sabbatical replacement two courses at the college level that I enjoyed as a student.  This experience, despite the toll it took on my time, energy and nerves, was a resounding success and I and my students learned a great deal. I enjoyed the experience and had wonderful class evaluations as a reward.  I recently have had to reprise this experience, quite unexpectedly, and I am again basking in the glow of the kind and appreciative words the students had for my performance as a teacher - albeit for just the last 2 weeks of the semester for a colleague who became gravely ill.  It is truly wonderful to be acknowledged in such a way.  Since I now need to teach the next class as a replacement for this colleague, I hope to continue to earn such praise!

Second, I plunged into designing my own knitting pattern and offering it for sale, again learning a great deal along the way.  This new pattern has met with great success and I enjoy seeing others creating their own versions of my design.  Recently, I received this note from a satisfied customer:

"Hey there,
Just wanted to say thank you for such a great pattern. I’ve made 3 of these now. A lady wanted the red one off my back in the airport for a breast cancer charity auction, my best friend wanted one and I finally have one for myself. I lined the last two for a little more warmth and flair. I should take more pictures but I never seem to remember.
I wore my navy one to the mall and walked into Brooks Brothers. The clerk swore it looked like one they had for sale. Except theirs are over $300 and machine made. Keep the great patterns coming!"

The design bug has continued and I now have 5 patterns for sale on Ravelry.com!  Yay!

Third, I read an online article concerning a Master Hand Knitter Program and I was intrigued. This sounded like not only a good way to learn a great deal but also a way to stretch and challenge myself.  I signed up for the first of three Levels last March 1 and plunged in.  Whoa!  What a challenge it proved to be!  My biggest and worst obstacle was my fear of being judged a failure.  As I stewed and 'chewed my nails' I worked on a number of other projects, including remodeling a great deal of my house with my handy husband (that was also a huge success which we are now enjoying!).  Finally I decided to just 'get 'er done!'  I mailed my notebook containing all that hard work on Sept. 24, 2013 after putting in a good month and a half of intense effort.  I received my notebook back along with a 5 page letter carefully critiquing every stitch and sentence with suggestions for improvement. I needed to correct a few things. On 1/7/2014 I received word that my resubmissions had passed and that I had officially passed Level One of The Knitting Guild Association's Master Hand Knitting Program!  Wow!  Did I ever stretch and learn through this process.  Now it is time to briefly 'bask in the glow' and plunge into Level II and more college teaching :-)