Giving It Away

My first prayer shawl has been blessed and given away.  The donated scratchy cream wool yarn that was my first crocheted piece has found a home.  Honestly, I never thought it would.  The shawls that are normally produced by the knitting circle are from soft, colorful yarns that you just can't wait to envelope you.  This shawl was heavy and somewhat stiff, and I was OK with it sitting in the tub of undesignated shawls until the moths ate it.  Then, God opened my eyes to the perfect recipient. 

On Wednesday nights, Andrew & I attend a small worship service at our church.  By small, I mean there are usually 10 of us in a small chapel that has a maximum seating of 25 people.  We are also the youngest participants by at least 30 years, but we love meeting with this small band for Bible study and prayer.  Two weeks ago, one of the ladies in our group asked for prayer for her brother, who is dying of cancer.  I saw how heavily this weighed on her - it's a kind of "scratchy wool time" in her life.  My prayer for her is that in this scratchy wool time, she will also feel the weight of God's love and presence as she wears this shawl. 

A Knitter's Nightmare

My visit to the yarn shop, inspired my latest scarf project with some super fuzzy novelty yarn knit on size 15 needles for a nice loose and lacy look. This was a really fun project, but it has not been without difficulties as well. 

First of all, when novelty yarn gets tangled . . .Oye!  This was doubled by the fact that my yarn was actually two strands - a fuzzy strand and a strand with little blocks on it.

The plus side, which I will sandwich between my negatives, is that knitting a scarf out of one skein of yarn is a quick project.  I started this on Sunday, and should have been done with it last night.  That brings me to my second negative point, which technically could happen with any project.

This is actually the first knitting project I have almost finished, so as I came to the end of my yarn I began looking for instructions on casting off.  I found a video on ehow.com and then printed instructions in a prayer shawl book.  It looked easy enough, so I decided to go for it on my own.  Things were going beautifully and my excitement was building with every stitch that was finished.  But, I evidently got overconfident on my next to last stitch and as I was pulling it over, both feel off my needle.  In my desperation to hold on to that last string, the nice lacy scarf began to unravel.  My cry of despair was so loud that my husband thought I had hurt myself with those size 15 needles, which he calls ninja needles. 

My only hope is that one of the master knitters at church will be able to help me salvage this project and fix my casting off slip up.  Otherwise, all I know to do is unravel and start over.  Any other suggestions are most welcome. 

Knit vs. Crochet

Being new to knitting, I adopted the mindset that free yarn is good yarn.  So, when some old scratchy cream colored wool yarn was donated to my church's prayer shawl ministry I accepted it.  The first thing that comes to mind with cream colored wool is cable knit, however, looking at my mistaken riddled rectangle of knitting I didn't feel ready for cable knitting. 

I borrowed a book of prayer shawl patterns that included knitting and crocheting. The beginner crochet shawl had a nice pattern to it that would complement the cream color.  So, I called on my mom's expertise once again for a lesson in crochet.  In the words of my friend Debbie E, "Oh my golly!"  Another new world has been opened up to me with the addition of set of crochet hooks size from E to P. 

Now I am torn between knitting and crocheting.  Knitting offers the ability to do neat things like cable knit and argyle patterns.  But, crocheting is fast and easy.  I was able to crochet in two days more than I have been able to knit in a month.  I finished my crochet prayer shawl in 10 days.  I think I will just have to rotate - crochet one, knit one, crochet one, knit one.  So many choices and options.