Wonderful Women!

A wonderful woman I work with has put Warm Hands Network in touch with a women's shelter in Sheshashiu. There are two Innu First Nations in Labrador, the Mushuau Innu First Nation located in Natuashish and the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation located in Sheshatshiu. So, Warm Hands Network will deliver items to both of these First Nations!

The Rose Gregoire House is a women's shelter, named after a very strong Innu woman, Rose Gregoire. You can read more about her at http://www.innu.ca/rosegregoire/rosegregoire.htm She played an important role in her community, helping families and her community in many ways, working to help her community heal.

Mentioned in Metro!

The word is spreading! We had a lovely mention in the Metro Newspaper - Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver editions! http://www.metronews.ca/column.aspx?id=5704 Cheers for the very kind Nathalie-Roze, Frugal Fashionista! Anita has certainly been busy while I was on holidays. Back to life in Ottawa now, though - kids starting school, my new job starting for real, and soccer season (finally) coming to an end. Why they need to keep it going till the first week of Sept., I'll never know! I mean, it's fun and all, but a bit of a challenge to keep it up once school started this week.

And, back to knitting. I did take some time for crafts on our trip, and met a wonderful rug hooker. Deanne Fitzpatrick, an incredibly talented woman you can read more about here http://www.hookingrugs.com/ Check out her stuff! Turns out she knew my grandmother and wrote a bit about my Nanny in her last book. It was a real pleasure to meet her, and I am enjoying a new craft. And I have been working on more striped hats. Next stop, Hugs and Kisses Hats.

Suzanne Atkinson Designs

Suzanne Atkinson, a local knit and crochet designer, dropped off this beautiful crochetted baby blanket at Yarn Forward on Bank last week. Its made entirely of sock yarn. I wanted to show you a close up because every time someone comes over, I pull this thing out and say "sock yarn, can you believe it???". I'm going to hustle Suzanne a bit (like I haven't already) and ask if she might want to share her pattern.

Ahhh the Saturday before school starts. Bittersweet but mostly sweet. We decided that each person in the family gets to pick one thing to do. So my boy picked aerial trekking in the Gatineaus - nice. My girl picked the Midway - gross. I think I'm going to pick a visit to Home Depot (I looove that place - right now, I'm repointing the basement. I just discovered a part of the store called the tool corral - never knew there were so many kinds of sanders, but I'm getting me one.)

By the way, check out Mags Kandis new blog, my wabi sabi country life. Am I the only moron who didn't know what wabi sabi was? She'll be at the Creativ Festival in October (and so will we, so don't forget Torontonians, drop off you hand knit sweater or blanket for free admission, Or come by our booth (909) and drop off a hat or mitts. Or come by and knit a square for our blanket, or just say hi.

Finally, shout out (I think kids don't say that anymore. I don't care, I'm bringing it back, along with Haley of Knitomatic's "coolio") to Martina Gloss of the Lion's club. She's taken up the cause with the Lion's and sending out the message to her knitters.

We Hit 100 for afghans for Afghans

Yay! We will be shipping our 100th item for afghans for Afghans in our next box. Thanks to all the contributors - give yourselves a collective pat on the back! By the way, we'll still be collecting items for afghans so that we can put together one other box in September.

Our next initiative is for the Innu kids - the holiday project.

I posted a picture of the afore-mentioned goober above.

Thanks May!

May Chow dropped off 9 beautiful hats last week, which we will include in the afghans for Afghans shipment. Here's a photo of one of them. I hung the hat on my hops vine - planted it this year and its already growing like crazy. Don't know why the morning glory doesn't do the same thing - its in the same place. Anybody know?

What else? Oh yes, we got a dog. Well, borrowed a dog from our neighbors for a week, as a pilot project. Let's just say he's not going back home in the mint condition in which he arrived. Is it possible to over-love a doggie? We've lived in the dog park for the last week, he now sleeps on the bed (sorry, Christine!), begs for scraps and kisses the kids all the time. I will post a picture of the goober later.

We Love Air Labrador

I contacted Morris Earle, Cargo Manager with Air Labrador to ask him if there was some way that he could get our hand knit items to Natuashish, our Innu Community.

Within 24 hours, I got a response back telling me that he would put it forward to the Executive Committee, as (in his words) "we always take these requests seriously, and we will be a helping hand."

The Executive Committee gave us a thumbs up, thanks to Mr. Earle. He and his crew will be shipping our boxes from Montreal to Natuashish, where they will be picked up by the Next Generation Guardians and distributed.

My friends, for us, this is huge. This means that we might actually be able to move beyond shipping only hand knit items at Christmas. Maybe we can send some snowsuits, maybe some books, maybe toys...Amy and I will be contacting the community to see what the kiddies need the most. In the mean-time, if anyone out there has a lead on some kids items (preferably new) that we could ship, drop us a line.

Air Labrador flies out of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and ship cargo as well as people (charter and scheduled flights). Thanks, Air Labrador, and Morris!

a bit of knitting

I played hooky from a number of things this weekend, but I did enjoy myself! We spent time at a friend's cabin, and then at my parent's place. A friend is knitting a hat, which is just about finished, and I have been working on a few things. Here are some WIP pictures. I am thinking I need to get better at knitting in the round, or on DPNs - I stick to regular needles and then have to sew up the sides. Short seams, though, on hats for little ones. Here is my little one trying on the hats. He now has extracted a promise from me to knit him a hat. My mother in law just gave me a georgeous green yarn - I will ask for a reminder of the source because it's beautiful. So, he will have one, in due course. Knitting small hats works for me just now - I am keen on projects I can complete (in direct contrast to projects at work which seem endless)!

I couldn't resist the sailing picture - the men were sailing while we sat with gin & tonic on the dock, lifeguarding the children and knitting on an absolutely glorious day.