Death and Knitting

My brother, JJ, died a week ago today.  I went back to West Virginia where the family lives for the funeral.  He was one of my best friends and confidants.  I talked to him at least once or twice a month and he always listened even when I talked about things he wasn't interested.  I thought he would always be there and now he isn't. 


What does this have to do with knitting?  A lot!  Knitting got me through the whole thing.  I knew that I couldn't work on any of my current projects.  Most are complicated and one involves learning a new technique that I've never done successfully.  I needed a project that was simple.  So, I found three hanks of Wool Clasica by Manos del Uruguay in my stash and searched for a super simple project that wouldn't involve a lot of brain cells.

I had heard of prayer shawls.  These days, most knitters and crocheters have heard of them.  The idea is to knit or crochet a shawl with lots of prayers then send it off to someone in need.  I'm not very religious.  I don't pray.  And, I don't plan to send off the shawl to someone else.  The idea of working on a shawl in memory of my brother appealed to me, though.  I found a shawl pattern that fit my needs perfectly.  It's the Lacy Prayer Shawl that I found on Ravelry.  Knitting this shawl really helped me through the grieving process.  All of my memories of my brother are knit into that shawl.

The shawl isn't finished, yet.  I'm home again in New York and life is going on.  There is Scout stuff going on with the boys.  Homeschooling has started back up and we are getting ready for our standardized exams.  I have to start working on other knitting projects for classes or clubs.  But, I have this shawl.  When I need to sit down and grieve, I will work on my shawl.  Once it is finished, I will have a big hug from my brother and all of my memories will comfort me.

In Memory of my brother, JJ
December 13, 1971 - February 11, 2011 

A Trio of Hats

Over the holidays, I suddenly had a great idea. I needed to knit hats for all of the guys in my twin sister's life. These guys are her husband, two sons and her daughter's boyfriend. I had a few criteria for the pattern. One, it needed to knit up quickly. I made this decision to knit all of these hats in December. Late December. Two, I needed to be able to use something from my stash. I'm on a yarn diet. I'm really, really, REALLY trying to not buy yarn. I've made a few slips, but I've seriously cut back on my yarn spending which has been hard because I live near a very good LYS. Three, the hats needed to be manly.

I searched Ravelry and found the perfect pattern. It's called the Subtle Twist Hat by Jennifer Talleneni. I downloaded the pattern from Ravelry but you can also download it from her blog here.

Ta Da!!! I actually finished the three hats modeled here by my three little guys by the end of December and got them in the mail shortly thereafter.  The yarn I chose was Patons Shetland Chunky and Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds.  This picture doesn't show the nice cable twist at the top of the hat very well.  There are better pictures on Jennifer's blog and on Ravelry.

I loved working on the hats.  It was simple ribbing all the way up.  The interesting part was doing the cables at the top.

If you want a quick simple hat that knits up quickly on chunky yarn, this is definitely the one.

If you are wondering what happened to hat number four.  Well, I did get a little tired of ribbing after three hats.  So, my sister's youngest son got a different hat.  That, however, is for another post.