Remembering...

This is a woven wall hanging that I made for my friend Jess back in July 2013. I've been thinking about her a lot lately...

Things always pop up to make me think of her. But lately, I had finished the Lydon book Knitting Heaven and Earth. In the book, the author talks about how she knitted a sweater for a terminally ill friend and how she felt she was trying to knit her friend to the earth. Then last week, I read an article in the new Handwoven by Jenny Pelc about weaving memorial banners for loved ones that have passed. Was I doing that with the wall hanging? I didn't think about it at the time, but I think maybe somewhere in my heart I was.

When I was getting ready to go for treatments back in July, I started crocheting a baby blanket. There are no grandchildren on the horizon as of yet, but I felt compelled to start this little blanket. I went to Joann's, bought 3 skeins of neutral baby colors and started crocheting. I just felt such a strong pull to do this. Maybe I was crocheting myself here to Earth. I need to stay here. I want to see the grandchild that this blanket will eventually cover.

My friend Jessica did not win her battle with cancer. She was 38 years old and left 2 beautiful and sweet little boys as her legacy. She has been gone for a year. I know she is ok though. More than ok. And here's how I know...

I have to back up first. When my dad passed 12 years ago (has it been that long?), we saw a rainbow on the day of his funeral. My mom said that was his way of telling us he was happy. A few years ago, I was at work and feeling very frightened and depressed about having an acoustic neuroma. While sitting at the information desk, a little girl who I had never seen before, or since, came up to me and gave me this...

...she said it was for me.

Shortly after Jess passed, I was walking along the beach and thinking about her. I sat down on one of the benches to rest and look at the water. I was thinking how much I wished she could tell me what it was like and how she was doing. I glanced down the beach a way and saw two people flying a kite. And guess what was on the kite... yes, a rainbow. And that's how I know Jess is happy.

Bears!

The bears for the Mother Bear Project are finally finished and ready to be shipped off on Tuesday.

These little bears are very easy to make. I used the knit pattern and Che used the crochet pattern. I think the pattern is like $5 and you order it from Mother Bear. I think this would be a good project for tweens and teens too. Also good for beginning knitters.

And at the risk of sounding redundant, let me say again that my new URL is warpedandwoaded.blogspot.com ....

New projects and panties

My dear friend and fellow weaver, Kathleen, advised me to get a proper design book for up coming COE projects. I had previously been using any old lined notebook, but she was right. Large and unlined is visually clearer. Luckily Michael's is having a 2 for 1 sale right now. So I'm breaking in the new book with this design for a rigid heddle piece I'd like to start, (not for COE... but for me) using some gorgeous chunky teal/dark green yarn I've had around for a while. I'd like to make a shawl.

And even as I write this I've figured out what has been bothering me about this sample. The reason I want to use this yarn is because it is gorgeous... to me. And here I've been trying to force this bulky gray and silver yarn into the pattern because at first I thought it looked good. Then for some coo-coo reason, I tried to add a warm color that just isn't doing it for me. Sigh. So I'm going to try another little swatch using the teal chunk and a little of the sparkly Moonlight Mohair (love that stuff) along with a silver Paton's Grace cotton, which is a really nice mercerized cotton. I'll post a pic in the next installment.

My youngest, who is a crocheter, came by the other night to take that next step forward into the land of knitting. She brought with her this little hat that she crocheted for me in a mere couple of hours.

This child literally got the knit and purl stitch figured out in 5 minutes... ok, maybe 7 minutes. Reminded me of when I potty trained her. I showed her a pair of Little Mermaid panties and said, "You want these? You go in there." And that was it. Kid potty trained. Fast learner.

Not to rub it in or anything but...

... this is what winter in Florida is all about. Land of Flowers. We had the day off this past week, so decided to do some shopping for the pollinator garden. Flamingo Gardens Nursery is one of my favorite places. It's huge and they have a really nice fruit/veg stand with smoothies and candy shop. I just love going there. See the humongous wind chime behind me? Awesome! I would love to have that in our backyard! Of course our neighbors would probably kill us.

It was actually a gorgeous day in the low 70's with a wonderful breeze. It's going down into the 40's tonight, so that's sort of cold for us. Hope all the little flowers will be ok.

Catching up

Haven't written anything in a while. I've been taking an online art class and I kind of always feel like I'm behind in everything. And it's a "go at your own pace" kind of a class! That's pretty pathetic. And of course, now there's Christmas just in case I wasn't feeling harried enough.

Well, at least we got our tree up and decorated. Only took us 2 days. This is the largest tree I've gotten in a long time. 7 foot. It's the first year since my AN diagnosis that I've felt like decorating and stuff. It really helped to go on a brief trip to NC with beloved friends to visit beloved friends and the cold and Christmas feel just really helped ...

Haven't made snowmen in a long time :)

Here is the progress on the rag rug I'm crocheting. I'm surprised I've made progress on anything.
I thought maybe I could just use ready made fat quarters on this, but after using the art cloth I made last summer, I sort of think I'm going to have to just make my own cloth or it won't come out right.

And the "piece de resistance" .... I'm getting a spinning wheel for Christmas! I'm sooooo excited!
http://www.woolery.com/store/pc/Babe-Production-c120.htm