Making a Difference

With so many problems in our world it's hard to realize exactly what you as an individual could do to make a difference.
Today the kids and I headed to pack meals for a non-profit organization, Feed My Starving Children. They distribute these vegetarian meals to places with the greatest numbers of starving children. They have sent food to more than 60 countries. "The United States does not have that level of hunger on a widespread basis. In the past they have supplied food to an Indian reservation in South Dakota and to those affected by Hurricane Katrina."
We packed enough food in an hour and a half to provide 45,000 meals . That's enough to feed 41 children for a year.
I also signed us up to volunteer with our local Salvation Army for their holiday rush period. Hopefully we will be able to help serve Thanksgiving dinner to those who need it right in our own neighborhood.
I am trying to knit and sew for Halos of Hope, a Chicago land organization who provide hats and scarves to those undergoing cancer treatment.
There are so many people right in your own community who could use some of your time and talent too.
Maybe for you it is a forest preserve cleanup or a visit to the local nursing home. Could it be donating food, clothing, or toys to a local organization helping those less fortunate?
This weekend go Make a Difference.

This Weekend

Yesterday I headed to YarnCon in Chicago as a vendor. Carolyn of Stitchcandy and I spent the day taking our respective Etsy shops to the knitters.



I got a kick out of how many people recognized my name from Etsy. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hi. It was nice to meet so many customers face to face. Thanks to all those who purchased items too.
There were lots of people wearing beautiful knitwear. I even received a one on one lesson on glove knitting from a very helpful knitter.

Today we headed outside to enjoy our beautiful fall colors. We headed down to Starved Rock, along with half of Chicago apparently. We tried to ignore the huge crowd of people and enjoyed some beautiful hiking weather.



The dogs enjoyed getting some exercise too.

8 is Great

My youngest turned another year older today.
Happy Rockin' 8th birthday Finn!

Etsy Purchases

I have been staring at different shawl pins over on Etsy for about 6 months. Last week I finally took the plunge and ordered two from Nicolas and Felice, a fantastic Etsy shop. They had so many sizes and styles to choose from. I picked out a treble clef that is the perfect size for my smaller shawls.


And a Celtic double swirls pin that is big enough to hold my huge Aeolian shawl in place.


They are both really lightweight aluminum and all the edges are smooth so they won't catch on my shawls.

NIU Football

Despite the cold and rainy weather yesterday we headed over to the NIU homecoming game.



It's never a bad day for football when the team you're cheering for wins 38 to 3!

Happy Birthday

October 2, 1996 we were welcoming our first son into our family.



Time flies! Today he turns 13.
Happy Birthday Chance!

Fall Shawls

I finished another shawl last week.

The pattern was the Swallowtail Shawl. It's a much loved pattern on Ravelry. There are over 5300 Swallowtail shawls over on Ravelry. I still hate to knit nupps but I like the way they look in the completed shawl.

It was a very easy pattern to knit, only takes a skein of sock yarn, and is a much more manageable size than my Aeolian Shawl.

Up next, Anne Hanson's Irtfa'a faroese lace shawl. I've been waiting until I had more shawl pattern reading experience before starting this project. With our local library's celebration of everything Poe this month I figured it was time to cast on my Raven shawl.