Friday, April 30, 2010

Hats for Haiti Update

Wow! After the craft and bake sale, along with a spaghetti dinner, our group raised $1000 to help pay for our trip to Haiti. My knitted hats, bags and shawl brought in over $150! My favorite hats from above sold except for the striped one. And shoot...it's too small for my head.

This is the shawl I sold. It brought in $50 all by itself. It's a pattern called the Daybreak Shawl by the incredible designer Stephen West. Check out his website: http://westknits.blogspot.com/. I made it for myself, but decided at the last minute to give it to the sale. Now I get to make another one in a whole new color scheme. :)

After yesterday, the oldest daughter and I have raised all the money we needed for the trip. And fundraising is over. Yeah!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Hats for Haiti

For the last two months I have been furiously knitting one cotton hat after another. My oldest daughter and I are going on a missions trip to Haiti this July, and tomorrow is a craft fundraiser at church. We are going to help at an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti. I'm really excited to be going on this trip. It's been a long time since I've done a missions trip, since college, in fact. Centuries ago! Going with my daughter is special. As a mom, I want my girls to grow up learning to serve others, to think of others above self and to follow the path God has set for them. So I'm excited to see how God uses and changes us. And I'm glad we get to experience this together. (Now if God would just change Haiti's July climate and cool it to about 70F, that would make it all perfect.)
 So, the hats...I love to knit hats. The striped blue, green and white is my favorite. But the cherry one is super cute too. It's from Susan Anderson's book, Itty Bitty Hats. I think the pink one with the ribbon is the best constructed. The white one is delicate and would look so cute on a little baby girl. I just had to include a picture of it.
 In the past two months I have knit 16 hats and 5 bags, putting all other projects on hold. I can knit a hat in two nights, so they are done pretty fast. I even knit nearly an entire hat at the movie theatre a couple weeks ago. But tonight I'm ready to move on to something else. I'm excited to see how much money we raise tomorrow....and to get back to my Everyway Shawl.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Entering the Blogger World

Hello, world! I'm glad you found your way to my blog. I hope you stick around a while and get to know me. I've actually been blogging for a while now at http://bethgormong.wordpress.com/. Take a few minutes sometime to hop over there and read past posts. 


But I'm so excited to be a member of the Blogger world now. I have heard it's easier. I actually grew up before computers so I'm in need of something easy to understand! I must be ancient, eh?


So who am I and what will I be blogging about? I'm a wife and mom who lives in the Midwest and out in the country. I love to knit, read, write, organize and find healthy meals for my family. I struggle balancing the love of knitting and the hatred of housework. I'd rather sit at the park and read than walk the trails. (My body says, "Walk!" My heart says, "Read.") I'll write over talk any day. And search hours for recipes only to speed through the drive up window. Can you relate? What are those areas that you want to be priorities, but can't seem to make time for?


That's me. That's what I'll be blogging about...my life as a mom of teenage girls, my desire to knit when I should be mopping, my love of writing and my fear of conversation, my newest organizational find or yummy recipe, what I'm thinking about life, and my faith. I'll have lots of pictures of knitting and maybe a few of the county life.


I hope you come back to visit me again and again...and again.


beth

My Amazing Noro Striped Scarf


I decided to make a Noro Striped scarf when I visited Jared Flood's blog, http://www.brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/. I fell in love with his scarf! But then, how could I not? The scarf pattern is so simple. It's unbelievable how two different skeins of yarn can make such a beautiful scarf. But that's Noro Yarn. Have you even seen anything less than spectacular when made out of Noro?