Knit One, Save One Hats

Have been neglecting my FO blog during the holidays, but I wanted to start the new year off right.

During my time off, I made a few of these little hats for Save the Children's Knit One, Save One Campaign. Save the Children distributes hats like this in developing countries, where something as simple as a baby hat is beyond the means of many new mothers and could make the difference between life and death for a low-birthweight baby.

These little hats are easy to make, easy to take along as a portable project, and awfully cute when done.

Afghan Squares

Made these for the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. There's a lovely woman in my home state of Louisiana who assembles them into finished afghans, so this project couldn't be easier: just knit some 6x6 squares, don't even have to weave in the ends. 

If you're on Ravelry, check out the Afghans for Pine Ridge group. Great way to bust some stash while helping to keep people who live in a harsh climate warmer.

Casey's Cat Toys

I've been a slacker on the knitting blog. I know. It's been mentioned.

But rest assured, just because I haven't been here doesn't mean that I haven't been finishing any objects. Like these cat toys.

One of the life events that's been happening off-screen was the death of my cat, Casey. "Casey" was just a nickname. Her full given name was Killer Cat, shortened to K.C., then lengthened again to Casey to obscure her ill-behaved past in the shelter.

I'm not sure that she ever actually killed anything in her life, but she was so fierce at the shelter that the vet refused to administer her shots before she left. She wasn't immunized until a week later, when she was knocked out to be spayed. Soon after, she bit my ex so hard that a doctor visit was required (for the ex, not Casey). The shelter workers told us that her behavior problems likely stemmed from the fact that she had been born the runt of her litter and picked on by her siblings. (Casey, not my ex. Although...)

Casey mellowed after a few years in our otherwise pet-free and child-free home. She lived another 14 long and happy years.

I found these cat toys on Ravelry and decided to make some for a shelter like the one that Casey came from.  (There were supposed to be four of them, but SOMEONE distracted me and caused me to fubar the last one. You know who you are. And thanks again.)

I stuffed each one with a crinkly paper ball, one of Casey's favorite toys, and a couple of cotton balls each. Casey loved stuffed toys like this, things that she could bite into and strut around with like prey. The paper toy in the stuffing gives it a cat-pleasing crinkly sound, and hopefully it will mean that when the knitted part is quickly destroyed, there will be another toy inside to play with.

The cotton is also a tribute to Casey. In addition to those commercially available stuffed mouse toys that she favored, she also occasionally stalked whole herds of cotton long-tailed mice that she found hiding cleverly in a box under the bathroom sink. They may have tried to disguise themselves as something called "Tampax," but she was never fooled by this obvious ruse. 

She was a killer, after all.

Take a look at the picture of Casey taken shortly after she came home from the shelter. Despite her runty kitten body, she had giant bat ears and a tail longer than she was tall. I thought she looked more like a lemur than a kitten.

Rest in peace, Casey. You were a credit to your species. And to lemurs everywhere.

Tribble, Tawashi, Susemi

This week in my quest to outfit the kitchen with colorful bits of yarn, I discovered susemi (thanks to Raveler nikkislipp, read her post on the subject here), the Korean version of a Japanese tawashi, which is in turn the equivalent of an American dish scrubbie (represented above by the spiral-patterned "tribble").

Knitting sure does give a girl an international flair.

I'm not sure what this urge to knit for the kitchen is all about. The kitchen is not a room that I spend a lot of time in. In my small studio apartment, it's not even a room at all. It's a hallway between the bathroom and my living room/bedroom/office. I pass through a few times a day, occasionally stopping to grab a Diet Coke/Pepsi/Dr. Pepper, and/or (almost always "and," very rarely "or") a snack. Repeat this ritual several times and you have what passes for meals in my humble little home.

I think all this knitting for the kitchen comes from the realization that I want to do more in the kitchen.

Cooking isn't just about assembling ingredients and sticking them in the pot/oven/microwave for the correct amount of time. Cooking requires planning, shopping, preparing. And cooking creates dishes.

Dishes that have to be washed.

Hence the yarny bits. I'm hoping that they will motivate me to do more in the kitchen than just pass through.

Wish me luck.

Tawashi

I discovered tawashi while searching for washcloth patterns on Ravelry. I had never even heard of these things before, but I'm already hooked on making them. I love making washcloths, but I never use them. I prefer scrubbies and sponges. So tawashi (tawashis?) are perfect for me. I might actually use them instead of donating or gifting them, which is what I usually wind up doing with washcloths.

They also make great stashbusters, especially for that acrylic orange I keep finding more of in the back of the drawer... 

When it comes to knitting and crochet, I thought I knew it all. Then I got on Ravelry.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Ravelry?

Washcloths

This week, I finished 3 washcloths for A Fresh Start, a volunteer knitting initiative started by Beth123b of the Peace Work group on Ravelry. Beth is collecting travel-size toiletries and handmade washcloths to be donated to a women's shelter in her area.

These were fun and easy to make. The hardest part was settling on a pattern. I discovered that I'm really fussy about the back of my work. I guess because I'm used to knitting in the round, where the wrong side of the work never shows. 

So, after starting several patterns that I didn't like, I settled on the Genius Baby Burp Cloth pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting. It makes a nice sensible garter stitch washcloth on one side and a fancier fabric on the other side. Perfect.

If you have some cotton in your stash that you need to bust, consider making a few washcloths for Beth's effort or call the women's shelter in your area and see if they could use some washcloths of their own.