SCI Knitting News and Challenge

Thanks to those who have begun knitting for the Seamen's Church Institute.  Here is a little more information about the project:

• The hats and scarves we are knitting will benefit specifically the Seamen's Church Institute of Philadelphia and South Jersey, which "greets merchant ship workers at ports along the Delaware River and provides services to meet mariners’ practical, spiritual, and emotional needs."
• The mariner's scarf seafarer's scarf and watch cap patterns are available on the SCI of New York and New Jersey's website, but it should be noted that any items donated through St. Mary's Church in Burlington will go to the SCI of Philadelphia and South Jersey.
• Scarves are the most needed items.   If you can knit the mariner's scarf seafarer's scarf pattern with the ribbing around the neck, that is wonderful, but if not, a plain garter-stitch scarf is fine.  The watch cap is the most desirable pattern if you would prefer to knit a hat.  Solid-colored items only, please!
• Yarn should be worsted-weight machine-washable-and-dryable and of dark and/or "masculine" colors.  We gladly accept donations of yarn!  It takes about 4 oz. of yarn to make a scarf and 3.5 oz. to make a hat, so please keep that in mind if you are donating leftover balls of yarn.

For new knitters:  there are wonderful tutorials on the Knit Picks website to help you with tricky things like casting on, binding off and even that pesky ribbing on the mariner's scarf.

Now, for the challenge:

For those of you who are taking on this project with me:

Will you knit every day?

For half an hour while you watch the news, or half an inch while you watch the game, or fifteen minutes after you say your morning prayers, or however you decide you'll do it, will you make a commitment to work at this a little at a time, over a period of time, and see how much you can get done?

It's not for everybody -- and nobody will be able to do it perfectly.  I know there will be days I will miss and I can even predict some of them now -- but it's worth a try.  If you can use little bits of your time to finish one scarf to warm one neck this winter, think of that goodness.  There will be other things you will want and need to do, but see what you can do with this one, if it's right for you.

Note:  My apologies for including the wrong scarf pattern in the original post.  The link to the correct pattern, the seafarer's scarf, has been added.

Knitting for Seafarers

At a friend's request, I am organizing an effort at church to knit scarves and hats for the Seamen's Church Institute.  They will be placed in "ditty bags" to be given to the seafarers at Christmas, along with toiletries and personal items that are, naturally, hard to come by during long stretches of time at sea.

Last evening we held a "knitting workshop" that was billed as "just for fun -- no commitment required" in order to encourage new and/or "out-of-shape" knitters to consider knitting a scarf.  Although turnout was low, we had a pleasant time, limbered up our fingers and got two beginners chugging along nicely.

Making progress

 

 

 

 

 

A giant box of yarn donated by a young parishioner!

Some questions for you:

• Can you knit/would you consider knitting for charity?  Do you have the time, money, willingness, the what-it-takes?  It's not for everybody.  I'm not sure that, in the long run, it's for me.  I want to explore this question more.
• Which organization(s) would you be willing to knit for, and why?
• Are there other crafts or services you would be willing to do/perform for charity, and why?

In my next post I will give information about how you might help out with our efforts, should you be interested in doing so.

On my needles: Black Cat Edition

I could not get Mickayla off my lap to photograph the progress I've made on my first chemo cap, so here she is in all her furry black glory. I'm using the Race For Life 2009 Chemo Cap pattern that's available as a free download on Ravelry, and I'm ever so proud of myself for finishing the lacy border that is neither stockinette nor rib nor garter, the only stitches I've managed to successfully complete so far. Here's to moving on in the knitting world! (And yes, that's a new knitting bag Mickayla's flopped down on, but that's another post.)

For those who would like to make a chemo cap for Head Huggers, they need to be:

• new
• hand made
• preferably washable
• the softer the better -- wool is okay but is not preferred because of potential allergies
  
• accompanied by a submission form.

Full details, guidelines and many patterns can be found at http://www.headhuggers.org. Any standard pattern may be used, as well. I will be posting links to patterns I find particularly useful/attractive/easy as I come across them; feel free to bring any that you especially like to my attention. This project will be announced at St. Mary's Church on Sunday, March 7th and will end on Sunday, April 11th.

OFF my needles this week came the Alpaca "Cashmere" Knock-Around Sweater. I was just not getting the fake "seam" stitches; the Make-1-purl-into-the-back-twist-turn-around-touch-the-ground instructions made no sense to me and I was getting yarn-overs where they weren't supposed to be, and I had frogged it four times and the yarn was getting really skanky, and I don't like knitting flat anyway, and what other excuses can I come up with? It just wasn't working. I will try to resurrect the yarn with re-skeining and washing. Maybe. Maybe not. There's still plenty to make soft yummy cowls and scarves and things with, in between bigger projects.

I picked up a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears at the library the other day and became instantly enamored of her witty, practical demeanor. I know that I will own this book before long. Her methods for knitting sweaters in the round make good sense to me, and I have already made plans to do a seamless yoke sweater with some Cascade Eco-Duo (what could be better than a blend of alpaca and merino, the best of both worlds?) -- I'm thinking now about adding some texture to the yoke, and wondering how best to do that with the somewhat fuzzy yarn. Fortunately for me, it will be a long time before I have to make that decision!

I am nearly finished with D's mittens; I just have one thumb and the weaving-in to go. And of course I am still working on my socks. Maybe for next Christmas? They are a great fall-back project to keep in my car.

With any luck, before I approach this topic again I will have touched base with my stash and made a dent in the formidable tangle it has become. Wish me luck! And get started on your chemo caps!

Mission accomplished; moving on

Yesterday I delivered six blankets to St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Trenton, NJ, where Project Linus of Mercer County was packaging up donations to send to Christian Aid Ministries for Haiti Earthquake Relief: A small but successful start to the crafting outreach experiment. I could not be more pleased.

Next up will be caps for chemotherapy patients. I'm looking forward to greater participation in this effort because the project is small and quick and the deadline will not need to be so stringent. I need to do some research on where caps are needed and what types of caps are desired, so between that and the impending quilting-with-kindergarten afternoon I'll be doing this Friday (did I not tell you about that? Surely it's worth a post of its own) it will be a week or two before I can officially announce the chemo caps plan. Until then -- a sweater to knit, a quilt to sew, some soup on the stove -- my work is cut out!

No-Sew Fleece Blanket

As K's contribution to the Blankets for Haiti project, we picked a No-Sew Fleece Blanket. Of the many instructions we found on the web for this type of blanket, we thought these were clearest and made the nicest-looking finished product. A friend and I cut the two layers of fleece to size and snipped the fringe, and then the three of us got to work on the knotting.

The result was a cozy throw that K is proud to donate to a Haitian child in need. And "maybe could we make one for me, too?"

Blankets for Haiti

I have been watching for crafting opportunities for Haiti relief, and Project Linus has come through, coordinating an effort to collect 10,000 blankets to send to Haitian children.

You can help. Details:

• Blankets can be of any size
• Blankets may be knitted or crocheted, quilts, or fleece
• Donation deadline is Feb. 20. (In practical terms, this means they must get to the Project Linus drop-off point by Feb. 20. If you want to drop them off with me -- and I'd be delighted to deliver them for you -- they'd probably better get here by Feb. 19th.)
  

My additional thoughts about the blankets are that:

• They ought to be made of washable materials
• When deciding on a size for your blanket, consider that it will be going to a child. This doesn't mean it has to be a tiny baby blanket, but a full-size quilt could be overwhelming (not to mention difficult to carry around.)
  
• I know they need to be made in a hurry, but if you can add a little personal touch -- some embroidery, an applique, a crocheted flower or a ribbon -- something small but special, that would make the blanket feel more like a gift to the recipient than a charity offering.
  

I will post links to relevant web sites as they become available -- right now I am working from a sign I saw in a shop window and a brief conversation with the shop's owner. In the meantime, I hope you will consider taking on this project in whatever way seems appealing to you. If you need ideas, inspiration or materials, please contact me -- I can try to provide all three! If you think you can't make a handmade blanket but you want to try, I can show you how to do it in an hour.

Now, if you will excuse me, I've got knitting to do!