The Period of PURPLE Crying and the BC Children’s Hospital are raising awareness about Shaken Baby Syndrome by making hats for newborns.

We invite you to join our mission: make a PURPLE newborn baby cap so we can give select babies born in British Columbia the week of November 15th a gift to coincide with Canada’s National Child Day. Please share your knitting or crocheting skills to help Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC.

By making and sending PURPLE newborn baby caps to be given to babies across the province, you will make a difference by:

• Raising awareness for this life-saving project that promotes crucial parenting skills, infant/parent bonding, and understanding of a typical early infancy stage that every baby goes through which is frequently misunderstood.
• Participating in a growing, province-wide grassroots effort to educate new parents about the normalcy of early infant crying and how to cope with the frustration that can accompany it.
• Assist in promoting the Period of PURPLE Crying – Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC so that parents (and all others) learn to understand normal increased early infant crying and that crying is a key trigger to shaking.

I’m off to dig up a pattern and some yarn to make a hat. If you have a chance, you should too! I grew up in the same neighbourhood as the BC Children’s Hospital and often went late at night for rogue ear infections. The staff are friendly, the facilities are nice, so whatever I can do to help, I will!

Visit The Period of PURPLE Crying — Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC: Facebook event | www.purpecrying.info | Twitter

What a Yarn!

There’s one love that we all share: yarn. Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. If it is a yarn you have used you could show the project that you used it for, perhaps writing a mini ‘review’. Perhaps, instead, you pine for the feel of the almost mythical qiviut? You could explore and research the raw material and manufacturing process if you were feeling investigative.

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Revisit a past FO (finished object):

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

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Yarnpiggy posted about Knit & Crochet Blog Week 2010 last week sometime and piqued my interest. Eskimimi Knits is hosting the first inaugural Knit & Crochet Blog Week to celebrate fibre bloggers and talk about our shared passion. There are discussion topics for each day, as well as a “wild card” if you aren’t particularly inspired by the daily topic.

So, onto the first topic!

Starting Out: How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? Was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

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I didn’t go to the first annual FibresWest last year, so on Friday I decided to head out to Abbotsford and take a gander. I dragged Chelle along for the ride and we had a very good time. I am the kind of person who needs to look at everything before I decide to buy, whereas Chelle would purchase when she got the urge (gift yarn only, yarn diet).

At the Abbotsford Exhibition Parkt AgRec building | Posing with “yarnpiggy“!

Indigo Moon… where I smushed different skeins of yarn together and demanded they make “yarn babies”.

Knitopia Wools (now located in White Rock)

Twist of Fate (also stocking Handmaiden Sea Silk).

Unwind Yarns with Shannon spinning … throwing sheep into rainbows! Best tagline ever.

Kensington Prairies Alpaca Farm… they do tours! They’re right in Langley too on 248th at 16th. I can’t count the number of times I’ve driven past and yelled excitedly at their alpacas.

This little display was the Mission Tartan for the Mission Spinners and Weavers Guild who are opening up a shop June 5th at the Mission Arts Council.

Sweet Georgia Yarns. Felicia had a fantastic display with “menus” displaying her prices and yarn “ingredients”.

Gone Hooking created amazing tapastries.

A hand-cranked knitting machine at Stitches Quilt and Fibre Art Supplies.

Quo Vadis Handspun — local spinner and dyer for animal-fibre-free yarns.

I didn’t get a photo of Louisa (aka damselfly) spinning at the Great Vancouver Weavers & Spinners Guild booth. They were there doing demonstrations and handing out information about the guild.

I was very good and didn’t fall off the wagon. I didn’t buy any yarn although I nearly gorged myself at Indigo Moon. I did treat myself to a ball winder though! I have been contemplating getting one and they truly are a necessity. Now when I want to knit something, I can instantly wind it up and cast on. Later today my dad and I are going to build a DIY yarn swift. Wish us luck!

Chelle taught me to crochet probably two years ago. She gave me a gift with a gorgeous crochet hook, WIP bag and 2 balls of KnitPicks Shine in garden green. It was a lovely gift and I went around in a circle crocheting double and chaining randomly in between. According to my Ravelry project page, I’ve been crocheting this since May 6, 2008. heh…

Well look at me now:

I had no plan, I just kept crocheting in a circle. I did have to rip back several times as I (1) learned to decrease and (2) tried to make it fit my head. Once my circle got too large, my idea had been slouchy hat, and I am proud to have pulled it off successfully.

Then I grabbed some pink yarn — My Strawberry Cheesecake from When Sheep Dream which I won in the Hot Cocoa Swap (round 2) for my Marshmallow Diver. I crocheted the flower from the same pattern as wenchlette’s wedding flowers.

I am really impressed with how it turned out. I did a few rounds of single crochet at the end to create a band. I wore it on Monday and it’s super easy to wear — tuck my hair behind my ears, place it on my head, and the bobby pins above my ears to hold it in place. I’m not much of a “hat person” because of my long hair, so this is the perfect compromise.

A few months ago, Sara (aka wenchlette) asked us if we’d make flowers for her wedding bouquet in the summer. Sara has asked the flowers to be purple or teal and prefers natural fibres. Of course we all whole-heartedly agreed. We thought it was a fantastic idea! Janel is on leaves (click for her Ravelry project) and last night I whipped out the Cascade 220 I had leftover from my sister’s toque.

See my Ravelry project page for details.

Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool, Italian Plum (purple)
Hook: H hook (5.00 mm)
Pattern: none, but I watched this “how to” video

Here’s a close-up of the general design of the five-petal crochet flower.

This is one of two “wrong” flowers. I was inserting the hook into only the back of the stitch for the petals. This created sort of a circle around the center.

These are a couple variations I tried. I’m not impressed with the two-toned one, although it has the potential to be very eye-catching (in different colours).

I just got back from the lovely Festivus Dinner for our Terminal City Yarn Wranglers‘ swap. The idea, dreamed up by the amazing beentsy, was essentially that as knitters, we often give the knitted gifts, but rarely receive. So gather the knitters together and have a loverly swap!

“This is your chance to GET something handmade instead of always being the creator the handmade gifts. Now, keep in mind, this a small item swap. Perhaps a cowl or mitts or socks, or even a scarf. We are not here to knit you a humongous shawl. Sorry ‘bout that. So, a small item and then maybe some candy or chocolate or some other little gifts.”

I toiled and troubled (as well all know I’m a slow-ish knitter). I knit through cat-maulings and missing stitch markers… nothing stopped me! Well, sorta. I was knitting through class today trying to decide how long to make the lovely Darkside Cowl in sooooft Mirasol Sulka. Yumyum this was a dream to knit! I did finish on time, here are some choice photos. And for those on Ravelry, the project page.

Here is the complete package I put together: Darkside Cowl, Vogue Knitting Stitch-a-Day 2010 Calendar and chocolate-covered orange peels from Roger’s Chocolates. And here is the happy recipient, Kyrsten and another Yarn Wrangler, Meg.

Those of you following my Twitter or my Flickr might already know that last Sunday we Terminal City Yarn Wranglers had a photo shoot with our FOs (finished objects). This was certainly the first of many because it was a huge success. There were cameras going off in all directions and I even brought the tripod. Take a look at our new Terminal City Yarn Wranglers Flickr pool or my personal Flickr to see all the lovely FOs.

A couple knitters commented afterwards that my photos were really good quality (yay!), but there were so many FOs that I was glad to not be the only FO-tographer (like my puns?). Here are some of the funnier pictures that resulted from our shoot:

Janel makes lovely faces while showing off Tammy‘s shawl

Sexy Nadia… work it! work it!

How you dooooin’?

More silly Janel faces

Boob shot!

Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret Sara!

*SQUEEEE* so cute!!

Ninja Cowl!

Okay, so this one I was trying to photograph the tam… but look at the BACKGROUND!

Too funny!!

Purdy smiles or just more funny faces :)

Chelle and Faye!

Rawk on! Sara and Erin sittin’ in a tree!

Us all taking a photo OF a photo! I had to use my cell phone camera cause my real camera is on the tripod taking this photo. Heheh (This is the only picture where you can kindasorta see Hilary — she and Tammy are the only ones who never modelled anything)