Knit 1, Purl 2, Knit 1, Purl 2

I learned to knit when I was Rowan's age - during Junior Girl Scouts with our "knitting grandmas" (older women from our community who had generously donated their time to teach a bunch of girls this carft. I loved it then, my hands wobbly and unsure, yet excited and my eyes big with anticipation about what my first piece would look like when finished. I still remember, it was a medium blue scarf, all done in garter stitch. We dontated them to folks who needed warm winter outter wear as a service project.

Through high school I kept knitting, until I thought I was just too cool for such things and preffered partying with my friends over the click of the needles. While teaching elementary-aged kids, I often taught circles of kids - boys and girls alike - to knit and loved watching their faces as the wonder of those threads of yarn came together into an actual product.

But I haven't made anything really for close to 30 years until I took inspirtation from three women - all of whom sat in community together in the Facilitating by Heart workshop series I co-facilitate. Each brought her project with her, needles flying as we did intense work on deep listening, working through conflict and living and working from a place of integrity when working with others. Their work - both in their knitting and the profound personal work they did during the workshop series - inspired me to pick up my needles once again.

I've been having a ball, surfing the net in search of patterns for things. Lion Brand, bless their hearts, provides many free and lovely patterns. A great place to start for a re-committed stitcher. My first projects were hats for the girls, as we approach this cold time of year.
As I walked into the yarn shop (a local place - I much prefer local over chain stores), my heart just sang. The shop is tiny, a narrow strip of a place, the left and right facing walls are filled with skeins upon skeins of yarn from the top of the 10 foot ceilings to the floor. The smell and sight of it all is intoxicating. I quickly zoned in on the type of yarns I needed for the hats - thick, chunky stuff - and selected colors just right for each girl. I happily proceeded to the counter to purchase it and needles like a kid in a candy store.
My Thanksgiving weekend was filled with hat making. A pink one for Gemma (of course) a blue multi-colored one for Rowan and then two additions for two of their cousins. I thought Jani had gotten a picture of the girls in their hats, but can't find it in our photo files, so we'll have to snap another.

My next project - a hood for Jani. She just needs to choose her yarn and a stitchin' we will go.