Knitting for Others - February

February's fabulous Knitting for Others project at Article Pract was The Mother Bear Project. The Mother Bear Project is a "non-profit group dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children, primarily those affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations, by giving them a gift of love in the form of hand-knit and crocheted bears."

This has been my favorite project so far. Not only was it fun to see my own bear come to shape from the scraps of yarn I used, but when I finally dropped my bear off at the donations bin in the front of Article Pract, I got to steal a peak at all the wonderfully different bears the other knitters had created. It's amazing how different each bear looked even though they were from the same pattern and supposedly on the same size needles. I can't wait to finish all my other projects (yeah right) so I can make some more...!

Frantz-Anderson Afghan

My senior year at St Olaf College, I got the brilliant idea in my head that my girlfriends and I should knit an afghan together for our dear friend, Diana Frantz who was to get married right after graduation. After a little coaxing and assurance that I would help them knit, I talked to wonderful girls in our "pod" to secretly knit squares for an afghan. The squares tickled into my dorm room during our senior year until one day, Diana announced that her June wedding would be postponed indefinitely. Well, of course we were sad for her, but we decided to knit on anyway and by graduation I had most of the pieces and put them in storage at my parents' home to be pulled out when the time was right.

The blocks sat there for over a year until one day I got a call from Diana letting me know that they had set a new date for the wedding and that she would be getting married in three months! Although I was quite excited, a moment of panic hit me as I remembered those squares and the promise I had made to my girlfriends to assemble the blanket and deliver it at the wedding.

I quickly called my mom and had her send me the box full of finished (and some unfinished) squares and all the extra yarn. As I began to take the squares out of the box, I quickly realized this was going to be a bigger project than I had imagined. Being a group of knitters of different abilities... none of the squares were the same size. Apparently we had all missed the chapter on gauge. So I arranged the "squares" as best I could and added boarders and blocked and stretched and finally decided sashing would be the best way to hide the imperfections. And then of course I couldn't stop with just one border... no let's make it three! Luckily this was during a period of my life when I needed a lot of time to sit on the couch and watch Law & Order and think about nothing but the feel of the yarn through my fingers and the rhythm of the stitches passing from one needle to the next.

It may not be perfect, but it was made with lots of love and good intentions.

And here are the beautiful ladies that knit it at our graduation, May 2005:

Front: Michelle Wiersma, Linsdey Reed, Carrie Wiersma, Amy Miller, Carrie Vermazen, Diana Frantz (the bride to be)
Back: Laurna Strikwerda, Lauren Christiansen, Bridget McGuire, Sonja Paulson

Knitting for Others - May

Here's my Knitting for Others project for May (modelled by my lovely roommate, Lindsey). The first Sunday of every month, Christina of Article Pract hosts a different charity knitting project. This month we were knitting for the Warm Wollies project that sends knitted goods to impoverished children in cold climates. The hat pattern is from the new book, Charmed Knits, which features Harry Potter inspired knits, this pattern is available to download for this project from the Charmed Knits Blog. Iespecially like how the top looks:

Chickami Finished!

I finished the chickami today! This was made at another wonderful class at knit-one-one with Sile. It turned out to be a bit of a knit-one-one teacher-sampler as our poor teacher, Rachael (Ms. Yarn-a-Go-Go herself) was sick, so both the wonderful Kate and Julie W filled in. Of course we had a great time, as always!

It's not the best picture, but it fits great! I made the size 32 (it's got a lot of give!) and added four inches onto the bottom to make it more tunic-y. I made it out of Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, which shed like crazy! but feels amazing on. I still have 4 balls of it, so maybe my niece will need a matching top?