Sheep Shots

Cheyenne River: Since I started keeping track (August 2004), Native American Support (the Yahoo list that provides material comfort for Cheyenne River Reservation), has sent over 1000 pairs of mittens, gloves, and wristers to the reservation.

In the face of the overwhelming need (for example, more than 650 children use the Youth Center in any given month--that's unduplicated count for one program and there are elders and moms and dads, and a Teen Center, too) 1000 isn't a lot, but it's 2000 more warm hands.

This is the third year (I think) that I invited our NAS group members to
join me in a personal challenge to provide gloves and mittens for the coming (and it will!) winter. Last year, I opened the challenge to my blog readers and this year, blog readers have taken it to other lists!

Mittnz: The plan is to "blitz" the reservation with mittnz. A blitz, in the
terminology of NAS, involves everyone mailing around the same time so that the mittens all arrive right about the same time. In this case, mailing in September so that the mittnz and hats and such all arrive before October 1 when winter begins to rear its head yet again. Can you imagine the look on the faces of staff and volunteers as they open box (or envelope) after box (or envelope) of lovely handmade (knit, crocheted, sewn from fleece) mittnz!

There will be prizes (random draw) for those folks who 1) create 7 pairs
(it's 2007) 2) mail them during September and 3) email me amcmanus@ptd.net) a photo of the completed pairs that I can put up here. I'll post photos as fast as I get them, so don't wait if your 7 pairs are finished.

In the grand scheme of things, what's one pair of mittnz? It's one more
person who can do what needs to be done in spite of the weather. And in the grand scheme, that's quite a lot!



Bargain Shopped Books: I had quite a good day at Ollie's (okay, I had to hit two stores to score this well) where I can sometimes find good remaindered book bargains. (Ollie's seems to be a regional thang, sort of a downscale Big Lots with all sorts of good stuff mixed in with the crap. I got a great t-shirt there last summer with a hummingbird on the front. (Fifty cents! and it hardly shrunk ;-) at all in the wash.) Many of my Vogue and Vogue on the Go books came from there, as did a couple stitch dictionaries. The Other Half finds lots of techie stuff.)

Not Your Mama's Knitting was $3.99 and has a couple lot of funky patterns that I will never in this lifetime (or the next three) ever consider making. But it also has a cute, cabled earflap hat, some nice socks, an adorable short sleeve seamless sweater (adult) and button-on-the-raglan pullover (kid).

Project prices in NYMK are way over-stated unless you are buying all the yarn at full retail and not using any stash (who, me?). The Little Boy Blue sweater (the one with the buttons on the raglan) calls for 7 skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash, for example. That's 1500+ yards of worsted weight for a 6 month's size ($50-70) that I am pretty sure I could put together for $0-10 depending on whether I had to buy the main color (1 full skein). Of course, if you insist on making this exactly as pictured. . . Stephanie encountered something similar with a baby sweater she blogged about yesterday (May 25).


The Leisure Arts book (Now You're Knitting) is a compilation of many of their leaflets and came with a nifty acrylic knit gauge glued in the back. (Of course I damaged the inside cover when I removed it!) The needle gauge part is "American" sizing, but it will tuck in my needle basket more safely than my brass sheep.



Leisure Arts has published a bunch of leaflets over the years and I own many of them. I was pleased, then, to see that only one pattern I already own (no, not that one) was included in the collection.

At $8.99 for the eqivalent of over 100 LA leaflets, this one was quite a bargain!

And in case you were wondering, that "Fuzzy Halter" is not something I am considering knitting. No way! It's my personal contribution to What the Hell Were They Thinking Wednesday except that it's Sunday. Days late, dollars short yet again! It's also one of only a very few "unreasonable" patterns in this book!


In Other Charity Knitting Knews: I mailed these off to Barbara yesterday. Her guild (in Victoria, BC) is collecting handmade face cloths to give to newly trained midwives in the Philippines.

If there are clothmakers among you, I can pass along more info. They are planning a big display mid-June, but the need is ongoing, I suspect.

And now I will turn my attention to Mittnz knitting, my garden, and TiVo! Happy Sunday.

Labels: books, Cheyenne River, mittnz