Good Intentions and Knitting

Back in February I was thinking about what knitting means to me. When I knit something for myself or for someone else what exactly am I knitting into my project, besides yards and yards of gorgeous fiber? After ruminating on it for a while I came to the conlcusion that knitting is full of intentions. I truly believe that knitting is one of the best vessels for sending out good intentions into the world. Every stitch is a meditation on the good things- love, happiness, warmth, comfort- that you want for another person.

I took this idea and ran with it. I wanted a way for the lucky recipients of my handknits to know what my gift truly means, the intentions that I knit into their gift. After unsuccessfully finding a font that looks like yarn (not a fan of rodeo) I went the old fashioned route of cardstock, glue, merino wool yarn, and a camera and wrote out the letters by hand. Using photoshop to do the rest I came up with the Good Intentions Knit Cards. They finally arrived in the mail today and I am so happy with the result.

Why not let the lucky recipients of your beautiful handknits know what good intentions you were meditating on when you made their gift? Get a pack today at Worldknits on Etsy.

granny charm square blanket

I’ve decided that I want to make a granny square blanket. As I was sitting on the sofa today, really sick, watching a Flipping Out marathon, I came up with an idea- a granny charm square blanket.

For a while I was really into quilting and one of my favorite quilts was the charm square. The idea behind it is you exchange pieces of fabric with people around the world so that you don't have two of the same pieces of fabric in the quilt. It was so fun sending and receiving the fabric and seeing how the charm would fit.

As knitters and crocheters we always have remnants of yarn from projects past. I keep mine in ziplock bags organized by color. How fun would it be to make granny squares from yarn remnants. It doesn't really matter how little yarn you have because granny squares naturally change colors. The only problem is I don't have enough remnants to make a blanket. That's where the "charm yarn" comes in- a remnant yarn exchange would provide enough yarn to make a blanket and how fun would it be to share where each square came from.

Fiber-wise I think anything, except mohair, angora, 100% acrylic and 100% silk would work and the minimum amount of yarn for the exchange should be 15 yards. So what do you guys think? E-mail me if you want to participate worldknits@me.com. Help me fill in the map!

Update: Because of the popularity of this project I've added the CAL to worldknit's Ravelry Discussion Group. More to come as the project develops.