An Amazing Memorial Service and Can BLOGS be prophetic?

He was honored well. December 2007 when we found out about Norman's Pancreatic Cancer, we were devastated, just the odds, the treatments ahead of him, the fact that he was 6 months away from retirement, he had just lost a lot of weight, lookin' good for 63, and about the celebrate his 42nd anniversary. He started surgeries, medications, chemo, and radiation, more surgeries. His entire year was wrapped around appointments, and even though he improved, had a few hunting and fishing trips, a trip to Florida with my sis, and a trip to Alaska with his brothers and wives, he really had very few consecutive days of feeling well. But he was still smiling, loving on his wife and family, and meeting with people he mentored, worked with and loved, up until a few days before he passed. January 4th we got the call, and headed that way.

The memorial was so amazing, they had to turn down offers for people to speak or show video of couples and young men that Norman had mentored, poured his life into helping them live for God. The Pastor said they could have honored him all day long with testimonies of how he touched people's lives. There were at least 4 pastors in the service, a brother gave an incredible testimony, and read Karen's writing about her Norman, then my hubby did the graveside service, beautiful.

There were about 350 people at the viewing and probably at least 650 at the funeral ... he was so loved and respected.

WOW

Last year when I started this blog, I thought I could encourage my sisters to take up knitting and that we would be documenting our progress through the year. I got busy knitting and felting, Karen got focused on caring for Norman, and Barb fit her new knitting skills around work and a new grandbaby and her hubby. Here's the prophetic part, in case you forgot, I saw the three of us knitting together (across the miles) comparing notes, starting Etsy stores, etc. Guess what, I was with my two sisters in a yarn shop the other day (the day after the funeral) and Karen signed up for a knitting class. We picked out some yarn, and did a lot of little mini-classes throughout my visit, she's excited and so are Barb and I. We look forward to many months or years of 3 Knitting Sisters, we're thinking of naming our Craft Fair Booth just that!!

Have you discovered KNITHELP.COM?

I'm very tired, (started knitting a cape size 2 - beautiful in a kindof '70's hippie kindof way). Groovy

Knit Felt Bag Finished (with pictures) You can do this...please send me a picture if you do.

Another bag for my etsy store. www.BigSis2.etsy.com

Another Bag!!

The picture below shows a finished bag on the right and a bag from the same yarn on the left before felting. The bag on the left is the finished bag above.

This is a close up of the retro yarn and off-white knitted rows before felting:

I held two colors of yarn together throughout. Brown, Off white and Patons Classic Wool "Retro" self-striping in blues, browns and tan. I started with the base (just brown and off-white). I cast on 28, slipped the first stitch on each row, knit one row, purl the next for 16 rows. This gives a nice large stitch on each side to pick up stitches along the sides.

A closer look at the bottom of the bag before felting, the brown and off-white base - you really have to TRUST this will work out, not real obvious at this point, but after it felts it shapes really nice.

To start picking up stitches finish with the wrong side, and using the right needles go into each of your 8 extra large stitches and pull the yarn through leaving it on the right needles. This should be done on a circular needle at this point, and with the smallest length cord as possible, as it gets tight going around the corner. See http://www.knithelp.com/ to get instructions on picking up stitches. Start knitting in the round by marking the corner where picked up stitches and the original knitting meet.

After knitting a round or two - this is coming up from the base, change to the "Retro" self striping. You will need to make the bag 3 times as high as the base is in depth. The base is 10" long and 4" deep, then you want to make the height (before felting) 16" as it will shrink (felt) down to 2/3 it's original height. the piece will felt down to 3/4 it's original width. So the 10" base will become about 7 1/2" to 8".

This sounds a little complicated, but there are many steps in here that http://www.knithelp.com/ coveres. If you are new to knitting open this pattern and open another tab to Knit Help dot Com and watch those videos as you go. To finish do an i-cord cast off - this makes the top of the bag a little more sturdy, and the cast-off is a lot more even - looks like you finished it with purpose. The strap can be as wide as the side, or smaller. I cast-on 5 with size 13 needles holding two strands of yarn together. Then knit and purl each consecutive row until the piece was 1/3 longer than the finished size I desired.

Any questions please comment.

I felted this piece by putting it in a pillow case, tying it shut, dropping it in a small load of very hot, slightly soapy water, and washing it in a top load washer for about 8 minutes.

I think this one actually took me about 6 hours total. These really are EZ4U to do, trust me, and so relaxing.