Kenya in my heart

Back from Kenya!
I went to Nairobi Kenya and to the Maasai area as well. I returned a with new outlook on so many things. Kenya is so very different, and yet so very much the same. Here's my little person haven:



Do you like the mosquito net? The animal print covers?
Can you see the two notes from my daughters for me to read when I got lonely (I read them the first night there!) ?


I did try very hard to find Kenyan yarn. Any kind. You know, the indiginous stuff that was turned out into cool weavings and neat knitted garments they sold at all of the outdoor markets. Well, I tried and failed. I even enlisted the help of some very nice native Kenyans. Even so, no yarn.

These next two pictures are why I went to Africa, and especially to Nairobi and to the Maasai area. It was to encourage the missions that our church helps with in this area, missions who deals specifically with the HIV-Aids crisis there. The top pic is my knitting with a real Maasai mud hut in the background. I went inside. It housed up to 12 people. Another world, but as I realized after a while....it's not that bad. it's just different. The hut is in a village that is served by a medical clinic we help to support. Aids is a big problem there, in all aspects of it, from education in contracting the disease to the social stigma, to simply being able to take the ART drugs once a patient is willing. The people in the villages really let us in to their lives for a few hours. We were deeply grateful.
This next picture is of me holding Daniella, a lovely girl in the ICU of an orphange that takes in HIV-positive babies. They take in 55 babies at a time and try very hard to get them adopted out by the time they are two. They are very successful! Most of the babies even transition from HIV positive to negative!

Email me if you want to hear more, but that's all for my knittting blog on this wonderful life-changing trip. God is Good!

Only 3 days left to ?*&%^$

Christmas time again....















Only time will tell how it all turns out this year.
Today will be a fun knitting day: I hope to finish Ella...and I am thinking about blocking it, praying that it will truly not pooch after the blocking. The buzz about this piece is that the pooch will dissappear after a good bocking. We'll see. That's the "petal dish cloth on the left up above...love them. The pic on the right is a wonderful yarn, Claudia Handpainted in "Oops!" colorway. I had seen it on the internet and lusted for a while, and when it turned up in the basket at a yarn store I figured it was fate.



I am almost done with one of a pair of socks, using this green yarn with a little red mixed in. Sounds like the holidays, but not really for me. I like to wear red and I like to wear green and this one doesn't really scream "Christmas". It just subtley fits in wherever it needs to. I hope. What do you think?

My second daughter is a morning sleeper. She just loves to sleep in, but when I went in early this morning and offered to teach her how to cast off of the scarf she knit for her cousin, she was out in a flash and working on it with me. Done. Love it.
I am reading another Gene Stratton-Porter book, "Freckles". So far it is another great one. Maybe it will even approach the glory of "The Keeper of the Bees". Doubt it, but maybe.

back again

Hello friends,

The crazy, pre-Christmas schedule has finished for us. Winter Wonderland has bit the stardust, soccer tournaments have faded into past glory, the 11-year old sleepover is toast and we are now able to slow down and enjoy the season. Halleluiah!

First and foremost, Knitting!

I love how my two oldest girls have "taken" to knitting. They have made a beautiful bag together (Booga Bag by Black Sheep Bags) and the eldest has made close to 10 hats (with a 2X2 rib throughout) using Noro silk graden. Yum! I am so very proud of them both.


As for me, I have made progress on the Ella Shawl! I am 2/3 done and going for more!


I also finished the chocolate brown socks! I Love how soft they are! What a wonderful yarn.

Completed as well are 6 petal dish-cloths, using the peaches n cream. I like to USE the dishcloths becuase they squish so well, clean so well and really work! I also like how fast they knit up...just a couple of hours! However, I really am sick of knitting with that yarn. It feels like string and it feels harsh on the hands! I wish there were another option that actually felt good to knit with and still stood up to a dish-cloth job. I asked around at the local yarn store and they had no alternative yarn suggestions. Oh, well...maybe in heaven.

On the finished list is also my own booga bag! I so love using it and mentally begging people to notice. The photos at top are my Ella Shawl, more photos coming soon!

Casting on party

This is the season for crisp air, gorgeous cloud formations, and putting out colorful leaf decor (because in So. Cal there aren't really any true seasons).
Most importantly, it is the season for casting on new knitting projects. For me, this season began with a party. Yes, a party! As a break from my normal routine of homeschooling (and added new routine of spending extra time and care with my dad), a wonderful knitting friend brought over a party. We had it all: yarn and needles, sushi (a whole feast of it!)and margaritas, and last, but not least, funny videos. We cast on to the Ella shawl (second picture down):



and also cast on a soft, amazing yarn to make a basic sock with just two cables. Fun, lovely and oh, so fall.

By the way, the Ella shawl is using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Gold Hill. The sock is Debbie Bliss baby Cashmerino in chocolate. This is true friendship. My knitting friend leads me in paths of knitting righteousness for the fiber and family's sake! She even shares in my desire to buy and cast-on more than I should. Thanks, Tammy!








Ok. So here's the rest of the cast-on madness: next I received my favorite needles in a whole kit in the mail:

and also got some yarn for a shawl for my daughter...see how happy she is:

















I even cast on (again) for the Booga Bag by Black Sheep Bags with the big Kureyon, but this time used side 13 needles instead of 10:







And that sock is a new cast-on, too. Sorry it's so blurry. Or is it my eyes? I think there's more I've cast on in the last few days...I can't keep it all straight. Maybe I've bit off more than I can chew? We'll see...

Stories for fun

Today's blog is about yarns on the printed page, the ones who inspire and entertain.

First of all let me tell you about some of fabulous books we've been reading for history for our family time. I am learning this stuff for the first time...anicent history with Mesopotamia and Egypt, Caldeaans and even back to the Flood. And it's fun, really! "In Search of Tutahnkamun" by Piero Ventura was a great overview of his life and so much fun for us all. It has pictures on every page and covers a snippet of his life and life in Ancient Egypt on each page. Very easy to get through, and covers it all well. Now I just wish that the King Tut exhibit would come back.

Next "Pyramid" by David McCaulay was so fun, we just could stop reading it! Yes, it's short...but I had planned to slowly do a little bit at a time. We just couldn't do it! It was so cool to see how they could really have been built...and the engineering! It was understandable! We were so inspired, my 9 y/o made a great model at the park the next dayl.

Then fiction works set at the end of time historical period have also been great. We're just getting to "Antony and Cleoplatra" but have recently finished "God King" by Joanne Williamson, a terrific book about Egypt after its glory days. Although it is fiction, it gave us a great picture of Egyptian life for it's rulers, and this was in a time when Kush, the land to the south, had conquered it and taken over Egypt by making it all one big 'Egypt'.

Now for the adult stuff. Not history for the sake of understanding our past, but for the continued entertainment of this adult mom:
Of course you have heard of Sherlock Holmes. But, did you know that he was real? OK, not really. However, a series of mysteries by Laurie King takes the character and gives him new life by having our 15 year old female protagonist meet him and come under his tuteledge. Sound silly? Preposterous? I thought so too. Then I obeyed my mother (always wise) when she said I HAD to read it. I liked it. Now I want to know if you liked it too. Dumb premiss done right?

Perspective (and celebrity sightings)

To everything there is a time and a season under heaven. Well, for me and mine this has not been a time of blogging, but instead has been the time for our family to love and serve my dad. He's in hospice care and we are pulling together to make this a special time for all of us.

This has left time for sitting by his bedside, talking about options for his health, seeing nurses and doctors, making healthy meals for him, reading to my children, knitting (of course) and generally keeping close to home (and mom and dad's home). While these events were rumbling through our lives, my wonderful husband has been fighting the fires here in So Cal and was at work for a whole week and a half! He's home now - whew! With all that and new floors being installed in our own home, we have been a little stretched!

This is why I have been so very blessed to call on my good friends and to have them pour out their compassion (in the form of entertainment for our kids, companionship, meals, phone calls , starbucks, and even compulsive yarn buying with me - thanks Tammy) on me. I love the reminders to think about what is true, pure, lovely, etc, and the reminders that we are all in the hands of our trustworthy, loving Lord. Please pray for us in the blessed and trying time.

On a lighter note...I did get an extra bonus last week as I left park day with me kids. We stopped at the LYS to return some Noro Silk Garden and a funny circular needle and ...I saw a knitting celebrity! While I gushed and babbled like a starstruck oaf, this wonderful maven of the knitting world, Wendy, chatted with my kids and behaved as graciously as possible. Sorry you missed it, Tammy!

Now, it is far, far too late at night and I am wanting to show off my socks that I just finished: