Zoom Loom - the new toy

So I bought myself a little zoom loom, just to see if I would like weaving.  I do!  I've been playing and experimenting with a few different things, just stuff I have in my stash that I'm not using, some VC, some other stuff.  Just for fun, here are my results.  These pictures are awful, can't do it justice.  iPhone pictures, and used my computer to edit them down 50% so they wouldn't be giant here.  IRL these squares are really nice to look at and soft to hold, though way much thinner than something crocheted with the same yarn.

I bought this VC print and didn't like anything I tried crocheing with it.  But when I put it on the zoom loom, it turns into a pretty plaid look.  I like it!

Then I had this other stuff, labeled bulky, that is a riot of oranges/pinks, crinkly kind of yarn that I picked up at an LYS once and never knew what to do with.  It's too bulky to use on the zoom loom, so first I did the winding with black DK that I had in stash, then wove in the colorful stuff.  This is cool, would make a nice scarf.

 And then there's this.  This is Deborah Norville "Carnival" that I had bought thinking it might work for Julie's Modern Blanket coming up, but *holy cow* this stuff.  Unh!  And it makes an UGLY flower. Ugly.

But look what happens when I put this same weirdo yarn through the zoom loom.  I still have to figure out how to join these little squares, but when I do, I'm going to join them in black.  I think it will make a lovely little blanket.

That's just me playing around with my new toy when I have a few spare moments, or just need to go hide in a corner for a few minutes.  LOL, it's giving me hope for yarns in my stash I've stared at with intense dislike.

Here is my "pin loom" board on Pinterest, with so many wonderful ideas and links to instructions.

Zoom loom by Schacht - cheaper when purchased through Amazon Prime, but also available straight from Schacht.

Photos versus Selfies

Photos - a valuable tool for ourselves, family, and friends to peer into our past, remember good times and bad, remember each other, a moment of time forever preserved.

Selfies - a dangerous habit that speaks of constant "me".  What messages are young women sending their peers and younger generation who look up to them, when the young women constantly put selfies out on Facebook and Instagram?  Posing and smiling sweetly or sexily at their own camera.  What message are they sending themselves?  Do they need constant public affirmation that they are beautiful?

Social media is not the place for such affirmation. If a marriage or relationship failed, don't look to the world for your confidence boost.  Look inside, and if that's not good enough, look to the Word, work on nurturing the fruit of the spirit within.  If your fruit of the spirit is healthy, then you won't need selfies.  Don't believe me?  Go back and read that fruit list again.

Selfies promote and advertise egotism and narcissism.  Are you teaching vulnerable young women to be strong?  Or to look EVERYwhere for someone to tell them they are beautiful and sexy?  And then we turn around and try to convince them it's not about their outward beauty, but about the "beauty within"?  

The messages you are sending to your audience is confusion.  Not strength.  Not self confidence.  Not independence.


#selfies
#stopit

Nancy Drew

RUMINATING AND CONTEMPLATING: 

• I fell in love with palominos in The Secret of Shadow Ranch. I had never seen palominos, but I knew they were beautiful. I also learned about glow-in-the-dark paint. 
• I became horrified of black widow spiders in Secret in the Old Attic. Didn't need to see black widows to be scared of those.
• I developed a deep longing for Scotland and and a crazy love for bagpipes in The Whistling Bagpipes. I had never heard bagpipes, but when I finally did hear them, my heart flopped. I had already loved them.
• I became fascinated with invisible writing in The Strange Message in the Parchment. I never did quite get the hang of writing with lemon juice, but I sure tried. 
• I obsessively counted steps every time I climbed the stairs at church after reading The Mystery of the 99 Steps. Took me a long time to break myself of that irritating habit.

Nancy Drew mysteries (and Hardy Boys, who could forget the swimming pool filled with piranhas!) helped form parts of me. Ideas ingrained in my imagination for life. (Don't let a leaf touch my foot in a swimming pool, I instantly become a flying fish)

As a child, I also regularly read the Bible, specifically Old Testament stories. Wasn't much interested in New Testament how-tos, or prophecy, though I got all that too. The Word is hidden in my heart, and created the teacher I became.

What is YOUR child reading. Or watching. It's more important than we realize.

Tunisian Throw delivered

So.  I delivered the Tunisian blanket to my brother-in-law tonight.  I started off by telling him that over the years he had brought a lot of hurt and pain to this family, and it was hard for me, the outsider to watch the pain in his mother, his brothers, his grandparents.  But that was the past, and just doesn't matter.  I asked his forgiveness for any and every time in the past I had offended him.  I told him about how this yarn, this blanket, was supposed to be for me and only me, learning a new technique I figured it would have flaws, but somehow when I put my hand in the box and touched the yarn for the first time I just felt "Chad", and from that moment I never had a doubt that this was for Chad and only Chad.

I told him that it was after that that Jason (my husband, the oldest of the brothers) told me that he, Chad, had been clean for more than a year.  That that was just HUGE, after all the years of struggling with addiction, he was clean?  And then shortly after that he had the incident where Jason called a friend to get him medical attention in jail (he got picked up again, but this time not for wrongdoing.  He was a passenger in a car that got pulled over, the cop ran him, and found he had unpaid fines and took him to jail for it), he was released and taken straight to the hospital, where they found his L4 through S1 spine is nearly completely compressed.  Chad has a nearly full left leg amputation so has been walking on prostheses for 30 years.

Anyway.  When I pulled the blanket out of the bag and handed it to him, you could just tell.  He knows this blanket was special.  I prayed over it and him for many hours while I was working on it.  I took it to my mother's prayer partners and had them anoint it and pray over it.  In the night time hours when he feels all alone, he has this to hold onto and KNOW that he is never alone, and never has been.  Someone is out there praying for him.  God is watching him and knows his struggles, his pains,

There are flaws in this afghan throw.  I definitely see them, and they make me cringe.  But when he sees them, he will be reminded that he is flawed, but in his darkest thoughts, in his sorrow for his past, in his worst flaws, God has been watching over him, waiting for him to stand and say "no", to look toward the Light, to reach for Him.  His flaws are part of him, and it's okay.

He is not alone.

These words resound in my head every single day.  You are not alone.  He is not alone.  She is not alone.  He watches over you, and in your darkest moments you are to be reminded .....

You are not alone.

Daydreams

What do you daydream about?  I confess, I'm a daydreamer.

Since I had a mama/daughter date and spent time with Dara yesterday evening, I didn't take an afternoon or evening nap, so I slept during the night.  Got up around 4 a.m., came in here and sat on the couch and crocheted for about 4 hours.  Dead silence, dog curled up beside me, nothing but me, my crochet, and my thoughts.

And I dreamed about having my own fiber shop and all the activities I'd have going.

Of course, reality always rears its proverbial ugly head ... it's this town.  I'd probably be doing all the activities all by myself and *forget* making an actual living at it.  It's a good dream though, having a fiber shop, having classes, having meet-ups, stocking stuff the big-box stores have no clue about.  Knit, crochet, spin, weave.  Downtown near all the coffee shops and museums.  

Daydreams never last though.  Back to the real word and real job that is just nowhere near as fun as hooks and yarn.  Ah well, back to work.

The Tunisian Throw

Before I make any posts with pictures on my LionBrand Tunisian Throw, I need to tell this story:

Okay.  So Christmas 2013 I gave a completed Daisy swap blanket to a young lady in our church named Angel.  She's an overcomer with a really amazing story of addiction, prostitution, overcoming, and making it her life's ministry to help others in addiction problems.  We have a ministry in our church named Seven, confidential, but it's for people in addiction (I think it might actually be a social-work sanctioned something or other, most people in it do not attend our church from what I've seen), and those people plus family members (like my mother-in-law) can be involved.  Otherwise, stay away from those rooms on that night of the week, give them privacy.

So this past Christmas, Angel told me how much that afghan means to her.  Every time someone comes over, she tells them how it was made especially for her (and it was, I preferenced colors to match a picture of her new place, from Day 1 it was all about Angel), prayed over, and made in secret just for her.  I knew that when those dark nights come, as they will for anyone in recovery, she has something physical to hold onto, to remember She Is Not Alone.

Those words resounded inside my head over and over and over all through December.  Not Alone.  Then one day as I was praying I knew I needed to make more, and with Angel's help choose the recipient before I begin making the afghan, so I can pray over it, positivity, all that.  And then when that person's "dark moments" come along, they have something physical to hold onto and always know they are not alone.

I was thinking on this a couple Saturdays ago, then got in my car to drive out to my parents', and on Christian radio heard THREE songs in a row about not being alone, then a recorded call-in where the woman said, "Everyone has something they can do for someone else to let them know they're not alone."

Hello!  I really felt like God was asking me for my crochet!  On the one hand, that's really silly, so many people still sneer at "crochet", on the other hand, wow.  God wants my crochet!  Okay, God, you do realize it takes a lot of time .. yeah.  Nevermind.  Okay.  Sure, I really dont' mind to tell you the truth.  It's a wonderful feeling to have a real purpose in the thing that you love to do!

So I get this box in from Herrschners, I had ordered the caramel colored Deborah Norville Everyday Soft for my Tunisian throw.  The instant my hand touched that yarn, I felt the name CHAD.  I was like, But I don't even LIKE Chad.  Ugh!  

Chad is my husband's brother.  Addict,, thief, family-hurter.  So at Christmas he told Jason he's been clean for 14 months.  Awesome.  

Then ... well, can I believe him?  And I knew it didn't matter.  After 20+ years of me doing my best to avoid him at family functions, not saying more than "hi Chad", I knew God wants my crochet, and he wants this for Chad.

Fast forward.  I've already started it.  Tunisian is new for me, and I had gotten my first 6 blocks done, and decided that's all I'm going to do.  Six patterns, maybe 6 of each of them for a 36-block afghan.  Then my mother-in-law posts on Facebook a plea for prayer.  Don't think she's ever done that before, and I saw it at 11:00 pm when it was far too late to call.  I told my husband, he had no idea what was going on either.  So he called her first thing next morning.   

Chad got arrested again.  Not for wrongdoing this time, but for some unpaid fines.  He's still clean.  He sat in jail for nearly a week.  Then he called, crying, begging for someone to help him, he was in so much pain.  He had a cut on his thumb that had gotten infected and was very painful, and the pain in his lower back was just agony.  Chad has a high threshhold for pain, and he was crying.  So my husband immediately called a friend, asked for medical attention for his brother, and 5 minutes later Chad had been released and was being picked up.  My mother-in-law took him to the hospital for care.  When she took him back to his place, it was flooded. 

Chad was so dejected, it seems like  nothing is going right and nothing ever will.

And my husband tells me to hurry up on that afghan ... 

You know, sometimes God will let us hit the bottom so when we finally break, we know without a doubt that it is Him doing the fixing, the repairing, the helping.  And sometimes a person needs that something special to hold onto and know they aren't alone.  I suppose I'm the perfect one to play a part in that, if Chad realizes that I've been thinking about him and praying for him and having others pray over this handmade afghan, he will always have that proof that he is not alone.   

Even if you don't have some special hand-made, prayed-over object to hold in your hands, no matter how dark our world has become and is becoming, if you're reading this you have the Breath of God in you.  God breathed life into Adam, and we are the children of Adam.  God is always ready to answer, when you're ready to call.

Christmas 2014 - All about the crochet

So I've been scrambling, and the weekend before Christmas I was all finished with Christmas presents.

For my mother-in-law, I crocheted a simple shell border around some high quality towels using Sarafina cotton (size 2) yarn.   To do this, I first sewed, with the same yarn and a sharp needle, a blanket stitch around 2 towels and 2 washcloths.  Then I crocheted a single crochet row, then 5-double crochet, skip 2, slip stitch, skip 2, 5-double crochet etc around making the shell row.  That's it.  Easy peasy, and well worth it, my mother-in-law loved it!  Perfect gift.

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For my grand-niece, well, I finished that blanket and pony!  Woohoo!  Her birthday is Dec 29th, and they are coming down for Christmas on Jan 1st, so what I'll do is wrap the blanket up as a birthday present, and the pony up as her Christmas present.

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I've already begun the new baby's blanket.  And, since I made Princess K a toy, I suppose I'll make Princess ? one too.  I'm about 6 rows past what is shown in this picture.