Free Summer Wrap Pattern Now Available!

Celebrating a Blog-o-versary!

June 18,2013

5 years of blogging. 5 years of writing thoughts, posting pictures and sharing with viewers alittle corner of my world. To celebrate, I am offering a free pattern to my readers. 

Fancy Feathers Wrap is yours to enjoy as my thanks to you for being a part of my world.

Click the above link to download free from Ravelry's website. As soon as I can figure out how to add another PDF link on my free stuff page...I will have the pdf download here on my blog. (technical difficulties sorry)

This is an easy 2 color lace design, no charts, just an easy row-by-row instruction to follow. 

This can be a light wrap to wear on bare shoulders for the summertime when you need just alittle something.
Fasten with a shawl pin or lightly tie in the front.

As a scarf accessory, or you can make it in a heavier yarn to use as a colder weather piece.

I used 3 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk. I used up every bit of the 3 skeins, so if planning on making yours longer, figure in extra yardage. Just simply work a few more repeats and you can lengthen this wrap to suit your taste. This is knit in two panels and then seamed in the center.

Pattern specs;

Experience Level:

Intermediate

Materials:

Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk 2 hanks MC, 1 hank CC ;Weight: 50 grams

 146 yards/133 meters, DK weight

Colors shown: #131 Kiwi (MC), #116 Spring (CC)

Size 5 (3.75 mm) 16” circular needle

Size 5 (3.75 mm) double pointed needles (optional)

When blocking, I brought the edging down into points on the curves to give the wavy edge a nice finish.

I think this would look pretty in laceweight too...more airy and light. One could also substitute a smooth worsted weight and give it a firmer constitution as well. I would go up in needle sizes though, and I wouldn't go too fuzzy or that pretty pattern might get lost in the bulk. Blue Sky's Worsted is pretty smooth...Royal would be just sublime and dreamy.

While I chose a DK weight (leans to Sport Weight by gauge really) and a medium density for this project, the Alpaca Silk that Blue Sky Alpacas offers is a luxury. Their yarns are simply some of the best offered to designers and knitters alike. While I no longer work for them, I do so enjoy using their yarns and have no qualms about sharing that with everyone. My LYS does carry Blue Sky Alpacas yarns and they are a store favorite. I offer their line as a suggestion to you for more options for Fancy Feathers. Pick 2 favorite colors and cast on!

I was asked recently what blogging does for me?

I had a hard time answering. I pondered a bit...

It's more than just journaling or creating a chronicle of my knitting life and making it public. There have been personal moments too. 

I look back at earlier posts and I see younger children, I see yarns I used and gave away as gifts after making them into things to wear, I see a younger face (mine!) with longer hair, naive at times, full of big dreams. Dreams of doing what she LOVES, which is writing, knitting and creating. 

I am still doing all of those things, 5 years later. A battle with breast cancer, after losing my mother, my good friend Elizabeth, working my dream job at a yarn company for awhile, participating in all kinds of knit alongs, teaching knitting to adults and children alike...creating words and spinning stories of my life in with my knit things. My husband lost several jobs, we lost our house during my chemo treatments, we moved into a lovely house a few blocks from my LYS, we have grown and we've changed. But one thing didn't, or hasn't. 

KNITTING.

Knitting has become a way of life for me. I can't imagine too many days that don't go by when I don't at least knit a row or two. 

Spinning!

I have learned how to spin and have a wonderful wheel, my Riga. She is a new friend. Now I go to her when my heart is heavy and the words don't come. She starts in her regular rhythm and my heart can sing quiet psalms, melodies, prayers and thoughts and it is soothed. My brain can unwind, my feet tap their beat on the treadle and the wheel, she continues to spin. My hands pull at fibers and a tangled mess of hairs and somehow they turn into string.

Yes, the knitting world isn't complicated. 

It's very simple, really. Just like knitting. 

It simply is now a part of my life. 

Like you.

Thanks for taking this ride with me. Thanks for reading, commenting and participating in my adventures. 

Looking forward to many more posts to come. 

I Believe

I believe in red yarn. 

• I believe in colors that make your heart sing.

I believe in the freedom to create and make your voice heard through your art.

I believe in little things that make big impacts.

I believe in remembering.

• I believe in warmth.

I believe in old fashioned values.

I believe homemade is unique.

I  believe in passing down traditions.

• I believe in passionate goals and living with joy.

I believe time as we know it - will one day stand still.

Littlest Blessings

 Another mini mitt hatched itself off of my new 0000 metal dpn's from Hiya Hiya. This one has a crooked Latvian braid...due to knitting after 9 and thus breaking the "No Knitting After 9 PM Rule." Must work on that rule breaking around here...

Panera's Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad is back...YUM! Had alittle sneak away time with the hubby for a bite to eat and this was too pretty not to take a picture of. LOVE this salad and I am glad they brought it back to the menu.

Was gifted some lovely rhubarb, as mine is not quite ready to cut and use yet...and I decided to try a gluten-free recipe, (also sugar free!) and made a strawberry rhubarb pie  (new recipe!) for Memorial Day. This recipe was good, I replaced sugar with Stevia. It was still sweet, and the kids didn't even notice the exchange. 

It turned out lovely, although the top of the crust broke up a bit when trying to top the pie off before putting it into the oven.


Alittle bit of whipped cream/vanilla ice cream for those that could have it...and it was wonderful!

Thanking the Lord for those little blessings in life today.

• How about you?

Refuge in the Storm

In times of trouble, in moments of uncertainty, we all stumble.

This morning the psalmist cried out with me;

"Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by." Psalm 57:1 NKJV

I look to the events around me these past few months, and I feel I have been sheltered in a refuge.
 It isn't a little hut made out of sticks and of my own making...although many I know would argue this.
For we make our own happy places...which I don't always agree with.

We can choose our refuge, yes...we can choose to find in entertainment...
 

in drink and food...

maybe in hobbies and distractions...

But where we rest our soul...those inner stirrings of who we are and how we function as a person...that's the refuge I have sought and felt.

Peace.


True peace. 

How did I find my inner peace?

It wasn't manufactured by me, that's for sure.

It wasn't a magic pill or place I tried to put myself.

I didn't manufacture it within my mind or try to place my inner being in the world or anything like that...

It was very simple.

I placed myself in the most vulnerable position and put myself in the Father's Hands.

The Lord, He has asked me to do this all along.

It was giving up that control, it was following that which didn't make sense, it was giving up that which I held on so dear, and that was control.

Control of my health, of my home, of my day, of my life.

When I say, "Father, You take the wheel, You drive the bus, You show me the way..." do I really mean it?

Or do I say it, yet inner being says, "Fine and dandy, but nothing's changed so its time to make changes myself..." For God's timing, is not my timing. His answers don't come when I demand them. I keep asking, keep seeking, keep searching and praying. But His timing is sovereign.

These things are very real, very common and a struggle I think all of us face at one time or another. Who is in control?

I just faced them.

And I lived through it and the bus hasn't crashed.

The sun still rises in the morning.

The night still speaks silently to me.

The rest is still there, and the work, it needs to be done during the day.

I am not in control.

I never was.

 And now, I am okay with that.

Unexpected Surprises

Unexpected Visitors sometimes reminds us that Life Interrupts...and It Is Good.

We have a neighborhood albino squirrel who has never come to our yard to our knowledge. He came, he peeked, we saw! It was raining slightly, so the pic is a bit fuzzy. He is super cute and was chased out of the tree by a resident nesting Robin. The Robin won. :-)

Book Review: Either Way I Win

ttp://www.amazon.com/Either-Way-Win-Difficult-Times/dp/0806627565

I read cancer journey books, very few, and far in-between each other. I get so caught up in people's "stories" that if the tone isn't in the right setting, I can feel overwhelmed and burdened by them. I weep sometimes, so deeply afterwards. Sometimes the spirit of defeat rings louder than the triumph of overcoming the cancer beast.

Not so with this book. 

Lois Walfrid Johnson is known to many in the homeschooling world as an excellent children's author. She has penned many wonderful series that tickle the adventure and history side of reading for kids. She speaks at conferences, shares with others how to write their own stories, and inspires young readers to adventure with her in novels.

I didn't know she was a breast cancer survivor. One of over twenty years!

Her words in many ways spoke to the depths of my heart. They were sincere, honest and true.

Her exploration of where God was in her own journey was raw, real and healing.
I appreciated her candid honesty in several topics that are hard to hear, hard to read and hard to contemplate. Yet, through out, there was encouragement and answers.

A few chapter titles;

•  Walk Out of Fear
• All Things, Lord?
• Prayer that Makes a Difference
• God's Provision for Wholeness
• Healing from the Inside Out
• and finally, The Season of Singing

This book contains a study guide with questions at the end. It really gave me some great introspective moments as I dug into Bible stories, as I let God's Words minister to my heart.

I would write this book, if I could choose to write one on cancer. This held within its pages all that I would wish to convey to a woman going through breast cancer and facing her own mortality.

Lois asks very important questions that all of us at one time or another address;
How can I grow in fear?
How can this experience change me?
What happens when we no longer take time for granted?
Am I searching for God in my suffering?

The essence and power we gain through experiences shapes who we are. Our very lives.

While so many times I feel the Lord's presence in my life, there are times that I call out and hear nothing, feel nothing back. It's those times I think that I try by my own power to make God into something tangible, something I FEEL rather than who He is. He just IS.

He has never left me.

He never will.

I sometimes grope in the dark, feel along with outstretched hands, and call out feebly in my own weak way. 

This book gives hope.

It gives a song and a prayer to hearts that so desperately need both.

I highly recommend this book. Thank you to the friend who loaned it to me. I am SO grateful.

You can find Lois Walfrid Johnson here: at her website.

You can find this book here: on Amazon or here at the author's store.

Shepherd's Harvest 2013 Mother's Day Week-end ReCap

 

A full bobbin for me on Friday afternoon just primed me for the Saturday I spent out at Shepherd's Harvest this year. Sitting in the afternoon sunshine (have to get it while it lasts around here lately!) I reflected on this fibery event of years passed. A few of them, I have worked. I demo'd knitting Fair Isle Mittens. I've helped sell soaps and moisturizers, creams and natural cleaning products. I have taken classes; how to spin, what to spin and I have just sat and spun! I went the year I was in treatment, tired and bald, with my family as they patiently waited while I looked at things, talked and admired the handknits I hoped I would live long enough to make. This year, I just browsed and shopped. I think I have had the best year yet at this event. I didn't make it out to the arena to see any dogs working sheep, or any shearing of anything bleating and furry. It was so windy and the chill in the air brought a few brief periods of sleet, hail and snowflakes. All while the sun tried to peek through, and the wind howled around the metal buildings. I stayed inside mostly, trotting from building to building. I brought my own healthy lunch from home and ate it later in my truck. 

It was "my year" to do as I pleased.

So I browsed. 

I observed.

I talked to a few people.

I ran into a few friends. 

I reminisced. 

I dreamed of the future. 

And I touched, smelled, admired, ooo'd and aaah'd some wonderful fibers. Here's just a few snapshots I took when the mood struck me. 

This refurbished old Norwegian wheel was the exact replica of my aunt's wheel, Old Blue. I spent some time admiring it. It won a ribbon, and it deserved one.

 Looking through the wheel, perspective!!!

Detailed hand painted designs on the foot treadle...love it!

I believe this one was called Domino. He was really interested in me for some reason. I was looking in my bag for my apple to snack on, and I think he thought I was getting HIM a treat. He wouldn't leave my side and so I snapped his picture. I think he's grumpy about not getting the treat. After I witnessed his buddy spit on another guy, I thought it best to leave Domino to his hay bag.

 Some final thoughts on my fibery Mother's Day week-end...

Who knew that watching a woman, many years ago, her needles clicking, her yarns twisting around each other, producing socks, mittens and other knitterly things, would inspire me so many years forward in my life? 

Who knew that her gentle ways, her caring words in a language I didn't understand, her hugs, her tender hands that I still remember today, would still linger in my memories and love me forward, in my adult life. 

I lost her when I was 12 years old, but I still remember. I think of her now and again, and I am encouraged. 

She was a woman I wish I knew more about. I wish we had had more time together. But her caring for me as a baby, now and again as a young child, and then later as a young lady taught me how language doesn't have to be a barrier. 

There are ways we communicate that words can't even voice. 

 

 

 

My Vetsmom; Olga Roze

Our Mothers

So I have waited to post this one, as I have changed the words at least a dozen times.

I can't seem to get them right. So I am done changing, rearranging, deleting and starting over. I'm just going to write.

As I look at Mother's Day this year, my heart is in a different place than last year. Many changes have happened in a short 12 months.

I was grieving the loss of my grandmother, so fresh and sudden last year. And then had words cut my heart even more on that day. Words can so painfully wound. We should all be so careful with our words and how we use them.

I looked at my children last year, so grateful that their mother had hair, was able to eat with them, to be out and about with them to celebrate the special day, all the while thinking of my own mom and all her Mother's Days spent with a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, "Will this by my last?" or "Thank you Lord for another year..." maybe she thought, "I am so glad I made it through another treatment, another surgery, another cancer scare..."

When you walk in another's shoes it can be freeing.

Or you get blisters.

When you see the journey from a different angle, suddenly life seems so very different than before. 

This year, I am choosing a quiet day with just my children and my husband.

I will maybe work on my garden. Sow some seeds.

While I ache for many, many more Mother's Days with my family, I know that our days are not in our control. For those that deal with health issues, with illness and with cancer at a younger age, with children still needing us daily, Mother's Day may bring a mixture of emotions.

I know that time is fleeting.

That every day, every month, every year that passes bring changes.

I know that in my heart, those changes are expected.

I see in Mother's Day a time to remember LOVE...to remember how we nurture each other and our needs. Not just physical ones, but the soul needs too.

Like the butterfly at transformation, we become free when we live for the moment.

When we rest in assurance that no matter what, we are because He wanted us here right now, right in this moment.

And that no matter how much we love, how much we give our kids, our families...it will never be enough.

Us moms can never fill that empty hole in our children's hearts. For they are born with them. We are all born with those holes in our hearts. We try to fill them.

We put things in those holes, people, things, activities, interests, trips, cars, even animals. But do we ever really fill those holes?

Only the love of God can do that.

For all the mothers reading this; thank you for showing all children, every single one, the start of LOVE, the beginning of what God created, WHY He created,  from the moment we were created. From the start, we give love. Because love was given to us.

Thank you.

Hangvar Mittens Done, Pair # 2 on Needles

These are completed!

As I look at these I marvel at how 2 weeks have passed since my deciding to knit all of these mittens out of The Mitten Book.

How this is only pair #1 but a meaningful pair, none-the-less. 

Alot of prayers were said while knitting these. 

How faithfully God has answered many of those whispered, how many left unanswered as of yet. 

I'm okay with waiting. For now. 

Pair #2 is currently on the needles. 

This mitten is a bit more complex on the counting/stranding end of things...which is okay. I need to concentrate at times to feel like my head is "in the game" and sharp. 

So this pair shall be for another intended family member. She's picked lavender and blues as the colorway. 

As the snow has shown itself AGAIN unseasonably and insanely, I sit here and knit my mittens.

I listen for the quiet, still voice.

As sometimes, in the click-click of my metal needles, there is an embrace so fleeting, so warm, it takes my breath away.

I do believe there are knitters in heaven.

I believe that when we find that talent the Lord has graced us with, we can imagine doing it for eternity, and it thrills us immensely.

All for Him. 

Alittle History, Alittle Prayer

HANGVAR, GOTLAND

Descriptions of beaches that invite you to dip your toes into the frigid waters, the smell of limestone in the air, Baltic sea breezes and sunsets that set your senses into overdrive.

Sounds like a great vacation place, huh?

Many take a vacation excursion to this little area of the island to feel like they are coming "home."

This small parish is one that invites the visitor to stay awhile and picnic.

A quick search on Ravelry shows only 18 projects on this particular mitten pattern, which frankly, surprised me. I expected more.

I see the checkerboard pattern in so many different ethnic knitting books.

How the authors credited this particular pattern with the parish of Hangvar alludes me. I have researched and searched not only the Internet, but a trip to the library as well.

Checkerboard is found in Estonia knitting, as well as Norwegian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Turkish patterns.

It is an easy count, it offers the knitter a rhythmic pace, one that flows smoothly off of the needles. Mistakes are easily caught to be corrected. This is exactly what I have needed this past week.

I found this little quote in my search and thought it worth mentioning;




Health benefits


Studies have shown that knitting, along with other forms of needlework, provide several significant health benefits. These studies have found the rhythmic and repetitive action of knitting can “help prevent and manage stress, pain and depression, which in turn strengthens the body’s immune system”, as well as create a relaxation response in the body which can decrease blood pressure, heart rate, help prevent illness, and have a calming effect. Pain specialists have also found that the brain chemistry is changed when one knits, resulting in an increase in "feel good" hormones (i.e. serotonin and dopamine), and a decrease in stress hormones.

Knitting, along with other leisure activities has been linked to reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Much like physical activity strengthens the body, mental exercise makes our brains more resilient.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting
I am again reminded what is important in life.

How our seasons can ebb and flow...sometimes together simultaneously.


Part of Ecclesiastes 3 says this;

"⁷ A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;"

I have the opportunity to voice an ad for women with breast cancer next week. I'm not sure what God will do with this. He may use it in a BIG way. Or not. Either way, I am thankful for the experience, for the chance to be used.

I am humbled and in awe at the timing of events. I know God's time, is not my time. I know He goes beyond the present, and has the future in His Hands.

I am also grateful for those that continue to "pray me through" the challenges that I have faced these past few years. Your voice, your whispers and prayers the Lord has heard!

 Now is my time to "sew" (or knit) and I continue on with my Hangvar pattern. Mitten #2 is on the needles. 

Stay tuned...