Warming Heart & Home

Knitting for love and beauty – creating your own special place

The Prayer Shawl Companion

This is a beautiful book, filled with heart. The designs range from personal to universal, each knitter's story adding to the love that has been poured into these creations of soul comfort. As such, just to page through The Prayer Shawl Companion is to discover oneself in the warm company of friends, each of whom shares something very special about themselves and life. There is limitless inspiration between the covers of this single book. It is my belief that it will reach into corners unexpected and shine light and love everywhere the Shawl Ministry idea travels.

Meg Swansen's Round the Bend Jacket and Puzzle Pillow Blanket

Round-the-Bend Jacket

Puzzle-Pillow Blanket

I consider this DVD to be something of a "dynamic duo" of practical knitting. Here, in one place, you'll find a really innovative, highly wearable side-to-side jacket pattern and a smooth-sailing blanket that is also self-storing. Not to mention warm and comfy (notice the cat's happy look).

Meg's Round-the-Bend Jacket will go 'round the bend all by itself, never sending you and your knitting there, too. It's is knit with an Aran weight yarn and sized at 44" or 40", depending on gauge. As Meg suggests, should you wish a differet size, use Elizabeth Zimmermann's EPS system to recalculate the pattern. We recommend the following of our yarns:

Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Aran - 8 125g skeins for jacket as written

The Puzzle-Pillow Blanket is acccomplished with sweet 'n' simple garter stitch and bulky weight yarn. Meg teaches us her "sew" as you go technique using dpns (!). When you're finished, do crawl under for a good nap with sweet knitting dreams! We recommend:

Fleece Artist Big Blue - 4 125g skeins each color for 24"x36"; 6 125g skeins each color for 28"x42"; and 8 125g skeins each color for 36"x54"

Mason-Dixon Knitting

Receiving a pre-publication review copy of this sparkling new book is one of the happiest things that's happened to me in good long while. The last time I smiled, laughed and revisited a knitting book this much was when Cat Bordhi sent me her first Treasury of Magical Knitting . While being entirely different in it's content and purpose, Mason-Dixon Knitting is just that sort of book.

The authors have poured onto these pages and into these projects their enthusiasm for knitting, for keeping things simple, for colorful, joyful, functional things, for friends and family. To read Mason-Dixon Knitting is to find yourself surrounded by a world of smiles; it is to remember what's really important in this world (hint: it has to do with loved ones, home and joy); and, to discover some amazingly good, exciting knitting!

Here's some of what's inside that I especially love:

• dishcloths. Really. I never thought anyone would ever catch me knitting a dishcloth, but after seeing these bright, spunky models in MDK, and reading Ann and Kay's write-up on all the wonderful reasons they love knitting them and using them, well, I can hardly wait for the cotton yarn to arrive so I can always have one on the needles, too. There's a great connection to the cotton yarn manufacturer who will put as much cotton yarn as you need into your hands for less money than you ever thought possible, too.
• log-cabin knitting. These designs are every bit as addictive, versatile, and useful in knitted form as they are in quilting. And the things you can do with this technique! My. You can make rugs (step upon the courthouse steps), bedspreads (think Mondrian!), baby blankets (bright-eyed rainbows), bath mats (really, really nice ones), all in variations that range from very traditional to uptown modern. I'm also waiting for more yarn to arrive so I can get going on a bedspread -- I mean, I'm really watching and waiting . What I mean to say is that my fingers are practically tingling with impatience at having to wait to get started. That's how good these designs are.
• the bubbly curtain and linen hand towels. I'm an avoider of knitting with linen. Really I am. Now I have some on order - all because of these two projects.
• the peignoir. You may not think that ladies who extol the delights of dishrag knitting would also offer up a peignoir to die for, but they did. Just goes to show what we know about ladies who knit dishcloths, doesn't it? It's in linen, it's lovely, and it would even look good on a post-40 or -50 mom.
• calamari knitting. Discover a great way to recycle tee shirts into things you'll really like to use.
• the out-of-focus photo of Xenobia Bailey. Irresistible.
• the Moses Basket liner with Godmother's Edging. Also Irresistible.
• the back cover. It bears this inscription:

Remember:
No project is too ambitious if you crave the result enough .