A Summer for Fear Conquering

Finally!  School, assignments, and graduation are over, and I don't have to worry about picking a college and filling out applications anymore.  It's time for more knitting!  This summer, I plan to conquer two of my greatest knitting fears.  Which are *drumroll*

Lace and Sweaters!

I have tried and tried and tried to knit lace, and every time I end up pulling and pulling and pulling out stitches, 'accidentally' ripping the messed up piece.  Through all of this I have learned to respect the lace and its difficulty.  I am going to find a simple lace scarf pattern to master this summer.

My fear of sweaters comes from the commitment and cost.  I know I can do it, and it can't be too difficult, depending on the piece.  However, sweaters are so expensive to make!  (Especially when you're not a size 2)  And having never made one, how am I supposed to know all that investment was worth it?  Fortunately, Nicole is a small size, and I'm going to make a simple boat neck sweater from KnitPicks.  I ordered the yarn (in colors Surf and Swan in the suggested brand of yarn.)  It should come this week.  Today I'm going to get my needles.  The pattern downloaded, and it looks super doable.  I'm really excited to get started!

So, this summer, follow me as I give updates on my projects.  Also, feel free to share your greatest knitting fears and tackle them with me.  Good luck!

Dishcloths for Africa

This summer our church sent a team to Africa, and part of the time spent there will be for women married to church leaders to come to a conference to get a break from busy life.  At the conference, the women will be given some fancy lotion, other spa items, and a hand knitted dishcloth.  The project started with a need for 40-50 dishcloths but quickly grew to around 80!  With the help of a growing number of knitters the project was completed.  I wanted so badly to take a picture of all the cloths I made, but we had to turn them in as we finished them so they could be counted.  In the end, I estimate that I donated approximately 15-20 dishcloths.


Most of the yarn used was donated, and thus not very...nice.  The one pictured was made in some leftover itchy Red Heart.  I felt kind of bad having to knit up something not made with nice cotton dishcloth yarn but they I realized - Africa is one tough cookie!  These cloths aren't going to be in a nice clean American kitchen.  They're going to be outside by the cooking fire and next to a wash basin in the dirt.  Red Heart is super durable, and this is great yarn for a project like this, if any reader out there plans to do this in the future.


I wish the team the best of luck in Africa!  (One team member just happens to be my sister Nicole ^_^)  Have a great time helping these tired women at a relaxing conference!

The Roommate Hat

So college is in like not even three months, but I don't even know my roommate yet!  When I do meet her, whoever she is, I plan to give her this lovely hat.  Charisma from Loops and Threads (a Michael's brand) helped me pull this together.  I just love how the colors change effortlessly in such a cute way.  I knit this on size 8 needles (I would have gone larger because this is a bulky yarn, but I didn't have any 16 inchers in a size larger) in seed stitch.  I would give out the pattern, but I can't remember the how exactly I did the decreasing (It was horrendous, btw)  Just wanted to show the world my little creation.