Summer Batch

Here's my summer batch of mittens waving goodbye to New Hampshire before leaving to warm 16 children's hands in Afghanistan.

Hello from Deb, Budd, Sharon, Michael ...

Say hello back to Deb from Brier, Washington ...

Feeling calm and serene now?

Here's Budd, the founder of Trust in Education, on the left, and Sharon and Michael, who drove some of our packed cartons over to Budd's warehouse this past weekend ... thank you, Sharon and Michael!

This may have been our last drive over the Bay Bridge before they open the new eastern span. You can see both the old and the new here as we were driving back from San Leandro to San Francisco. Two centuries, side by side ... crazy, amazing how they've been building this for 20 or so years, and with little disruption to traffic. When you visit SF, we know you will visit the GG Bridge, but please be sure to drive over the Bay Bridge into the city.

Mittens on the road

It is that time of year again -- yes, it is Philadelphia Folk Festival weekend. I live over here in the east, and it is close to me. We go every year. At a large outdoor festival, with people constantly coming and going and eating and walking in front of you and talking loudly, it can hardly be construed as rude if you choose to knit while attempting to enjoy the music:

I knit small things, usually mittens or socks, at festivals. It is the perfect time to add one more thing to the A4A box. There is always either mud or dust (sometimes you can be lucky enough to get both in the same weekend) and I need things that are easy to cram into a plastic bag and then easy to wash before I send them away. I do, however, strongly recommend against letting your bamboo needles sit in the rain -- they will never be the same.

I am glad we still get to send the little things, because my failed sweater is still in time out. It may just get re-knit into more mittens. That will show it . . .

cushy green socks

Now that the big sweater drive is over, I figured it was time to turn my attention back to socks. From this blog, I learned a while ago the advantages of knitting socks in heavier weight than your typical sock yarn. I happened to have in my stash an odd skein of Miss Babs' Yowza! What a skein, which is classified as a light worsted-weight.

One skein was more than plenty for two pairs of woman-size socks. I used a #3 circular and cast on 48 sts for each pair. The first one was knitted in stockinette; for the second, I switched to a 3/1 rib. I have enough yarn left for a child-size pair... I think! These two pairs turned out really cushy and should keep someone's feet properly warm.