growing and giving

With very little input from me, the kids put the finishing touches on their Halloween costumes on Friday, then we headed out to help friends move. It was hard work, made so much easier by many helping hands. It was satisfying to see how enthusiastically the kids pitched in and how truly helpful they were able to be, now that they're bigger and stronger and so very capable.

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent volunteering at Old Sturbridge Village's Halloween event, Things That Go Bump In the Night. The forecast was awful, but after the first 20 minutes of heavy rain, the skies cleared and it was a perfect haunted evening. Luckily, it seems that most of the guests were not deterred by that cruddy forecast. Thousands of guests, most in costume (including many adults!), enjoyed a nearly full moon, 1,000 jack-o-lanterns and many torches lighting the village, smiles and shrieks galore. My big kids loved helping to provide a good time for the littler folks and Scott was a big hit as the dancing mummy seen through the fog and the red light in the cider mill.

Leah and I tidied up the yarn stash this weekend and got together a big box to send to the Knitting Ladies group at Interim House in Philadelphia. Lots of leftovers from previous projects, partial to whole skeins, many of which have been gifted to us and others that just aren't likely to be used, for one reason or another. The box is crammed full and ready to go, so we get the double benefit of a cleared out stash and good feelings from being able to help others knit.

While cleaning out, we also came across the Irish Hiking Scarf that Leah knit for charity this spring. Now that the weather is turning cold again, it'll be in the mail to the National World War II Museum's Knit Your Bit program this week.

I cast on this neckwarmer on Thursday afternoon and bound it off Sunday evening. It was my first handspun yarn, from two Grafton Fibers batts. I used the Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf stitch pattern. I worked on it during the play Thursday evening and while chatting with Scott's side of the family yesterday afternoon. Because the yarn is bulky, it knit up fast into a super thick fabric. I used almost the whole skein in this neckwarmer scarf, fastened with two of Scott's glass buttons. (They're not a perfect match, but they'll do for now. He hopes to get back to the torch soon, now that the bakery season will be winding down, and I can always replace the buttons later.) It's a little loose on Leah, but it fits me nicely. Because it's so thick, it stays up to keep the full height of my neck warm.

Tonight, in the Halloween spirit, I'll be hanging with the vampires at at apheresis department of the American Red Cross, where they'll take my plasma donation while I enjoy a movie. Scott's a regular donor there too and we joke about it being our spa treatment, our rest and relaxation time.

Whether it's muscle power or Halloween fun or yarn or plasma, we continue to find that the Red Cross is so right on when they say, "Give...all you'll feel is good."

knit your bit

Leah's in an American Girl Club. Every six weeks or so, she gets together with 15 girls to do activities reflecting the time period for the designated doll of that session. This time, it was Molly and World War II. In one of the Molly books (which all the girls read like crazy in preparation for the meeting), Molly and her classmates get together to "knit their bit" and contribute to the war effort. There's mention of socks and squares for a blanket and a knitting bee. We were talking about the story at dinnertime one night and that led to talking about how plenty of charity knitting still goes on. I reminded Leah about the bear she made for the Mother Bear Project, the hats we've donated to Dulaan Project, the volunteer time we spent at the Spa Knit and Spin greeter table to benefit the Ships Project, and the (pre-blog) blankets we made for Project Linus. And that led to more talk of philanthropy on a small scale and how good it feels to do something kind for others, examples of which included the children's room sound system at our library, purchased with donations when my dad died, and the many, many books that were purchased at the library with donations made in memory of Scott's Aunt Alice Sweetland. We don't know how many books this was, but we do know they're really good books, as we come across them frequently in our rotating library stash, denoted by bookplates with her name on them.

So anyway, Leah decided she wanted to knit something for a soldier or a veteran. I let my fingers do the walking and came up with a current day Knit Your Bit program through the National World War II Museum. We rummaged around in the yarn stash and dug up a free pattern for the Irish Hiking Scarf, and she set to work.

Leah learned how to do cables and loves the technique. She cranked out this much scarf in a little more than a day (with a big break in there for a park date with friends) so she could tell about this portion of the story and her actions as a result during the show-and-tell portion of American Girl Club. It ends up that most of the girls there know how to knit, so she also gave them each a piece of paper with info about the above charity knitting groups.

Today I was going to take a picture of the illustration in the book that shows the American Girl characters gathered for their knitting bee, but then I realized posting that here is probably not kosher with copyright laws. As I closed the book, a bookplate on the front page caught my eye...

dabbling

In between cooling off in assorted bodies of water and enjoying free movies in overly-chilled theaters, there continues to be a steady stream of stuff being made around here.




Top L: Dancing Goddess, wet felted on muslin base, inspired by this Spirit Goddess Window Decal
Top R: Vibrobot, a totally goofy and fun little project from Make magazine
Bottom L: Irish Hiking Scarf knit for charity by Leah
Bottom R: a nuno felted silk, merino, and firestar bag in progress, with its intended glass button closure

Best of all, there's been plenty of reading, locally grown foods eaten outdoors, relaxing outside in the evenings, and classic summertime fun to keep us cool, comfortable, and happy.