Jammin' with Jimi & friends

One of Andy's Cub Scout buddies, Jimi did a presentation for his Disabilities Awareness Belt Loop about a fundraiser he and his mom do to help kids with Special Needs. Jimi talked about his own special needs and his friends with disabilities. Andy decided that he was going to donate the money from the cans and bottles he was saving as part of his recycling achievement would go to Jam 4 Jimi's Friends. After 3 months of collecting cans and bottles from home, the park, the neighborhood and my office, he raised $25! (That is 500 cans and bottles!)

So, this year's Jam was this past Sunday. I took Andy and Ryan while Todd and Colin held down the fort. The boys had a blast in the kids' room. They sang "Ring of Fire" during karaoke, got their faces painted and had a terrific presentation by a couple of Firefighters including a couple of give-aways!



Did I mention there were some guests that came all the way from a Galaxy far- far away?



yes, Todd was jealous! Actually, these guys were from the 501st CTG Troopers.

We had a great time and Andy is starting his collection for next year. If you don't want to deal with returning your cans & bottles (and you live near me) drop me a note and Andy can take them off your hands. His goal for next year is $100 because 25x4 is 100. It is great logic, but none of the 3 months he collected were during softball season.

WIP Wednesday 1/13/10

My FO of the week wasn't even on the radar last week.

It is a chemo cap in some Homespun leftovers. (I think the rest of this skein was some sort of bag.) I went into a bit of the background yesterday, but the pattern is Braid-Edge Cap. I really liked the pattern. I did this on the size 8s and followed the directions for the smaller size, which gives a bigger hat with the bigger yarn and needles. As is always the case with gage, YMMV. I enjoyed this knit it was interesting enough to be fun but not complicated enough to be frustrating. The only thing I would do change if I were to do it again is to do a provisional cast on and graft the beginning to the end. Sure, a kitchner would be more work, but I'd rather have a grafted seam than a sewn one for a chemo cap - or any cap fpr that matter.

I've been attempting to replenish my Prayer Shawl supply to donate to the Church. First, I started Urchins and Limpets. LOVE the pattern. I did not love the yarn choice I made. Homespun. See for yourself.

I've got leftovers of sage and white in my stash. I may use those. I may pick up a couple of small skeins in other colors. I may not. I'm not ready to return to this one right this minute. What I am working on is the Shawl Ministry Prayer Shawl from the book Knitting for Peace (Christmas gift from Mom). Homespun again. I used the US 11s as suggested by the pattern, but the stitch pattern was just lost in this yarn. I went up to a US17. Mostly because I love working with this particular set of needles. smooth, soft and warm. I frogged out about 6 inches and started over.I'm on row 3. Not much to see. Pictures next week.

I've made progress on my socks. Heels are turned and I'm on the way up the leg.

Simple 4x2 rib, but I decided to stick alternating cables in the middle of each color band. Why? Well, why not? I just wanted something to break up the monotony. I made 4 pairs of basic rib socks for my guys for Christmas and varrying the rib repeat did little to hold my attention.

Doing not Blogging

Now I suppose I need to blog about what I've done. I'll spread it out over a couple posts for suspense. You're welcome!

One of the "upsides" of being unemployed is that I actually get to attend the meetings for the quilt guild I belong to. I have to say that living in a house full of men (big and small) then sitting in a room with 200 women is more than a little culture shock! They are a great bunch of ladies though. So kind and a wealth of information. I also got roped into (OK - I volunteered) handling the raffle tickets for a quilt the guild is putting together. the drawing is to be at the show (4/2010) and the two are our biggest fundraisers. Mom is chairing the committee putting the quilt together - so there is cerainly more to come on that one!

We donate a lot of the money from the raffle and the show to local charities and we use a bit to buy supplies to make "comfort quilts". A few years back, one of our members got a call from Paul Newman. He asked if ther guild would be interested in making some quilts for his Hole in the Wall Camp here in CT. When the kids need to go to the infirmary, they are wrapped in hand made quilts and if they should need to go to the hospital, then their quilt will go too. Would you say no to Paul Newman? Neither did she or the guild.

To that end, we had a workshop/sew-in last month. we brought our machines to a church basement and grabbed our kits and went to work. I got my entire top pieced that day and it was completely done, bound and ready to go in three days!