Conner's Prayer Blanket is Finished!

Today I put the finishing touches on Conner's Prayer Blanket.  I wove in all those ends from the stripes and crocheted an edging all the way around the blanket in blue.  I am pleased with how it came out!  I sort of made it up as I went along, so I wasn't sure how it would all turn out in the end.  All in all, knitting this blanket was a unique experience.  I had read about prayer shawls in a book I recently bought,  "Knitting Into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl Knitting Ministry."  While reading it, I thought that I would take the shawl idea from the book and adapt it to blanket for a 22 month old baby boy that has been plagued with seizures since he was 1 month old.  He is the grandson of Cindy, a friend and coworker of mine.  What I experienced while knitting this blanket is sort of remarkable.  I am going through some difficult things in my own life right now, and it is easy to sink into self pity and depression when faced with so many difficult life-altering problems all at once.  I found that praying for Conner and his family while knitting this blanket sort of took me out of myself.  I discovered that as I was concentrating on praying for Conner, I felt much better.  I felt strengthened and hopeful and much more positive.  I will miss knitting on this blanket!  It was a sort of a therapy for me.  Luckily, Cindy is in town at the moment and will be here until June 13th when she returns to Florida to be there for Conner's surgery.  I will give the blanket to her to take back with her. 

Prayer Blanket Progress

The Prayer Blanket for Conner is just about halfway finished.  I ended up using the wonderful, soft Lion Brand Terryspun that I already had.  I went to Michaels and checked out the Polarspun, but they didn't have enough of the blue varigated that I wanted to use.  Now that I see how  the Terryspun is knitting up, I am so glad that they did not have the Polarspun!  I love this blanket!  It is so soft and snuggly!  I am making a square blanket, and I started in one corner and am working alternating powder blue and white stripes on the diagonal. I am just about to the point where I will start decreasing.  One more white stripe and half a blue one, and the decreases will begin.  Once finished with the square, I plan on crocheting a border around the blanket.  I have been knitting pretty exclusively on this blanket, so there is not much to tell about the other projects.  Except of course that I finished up Mom's scarf the day after I wrote my last entry and gave it to her for Mother's Day.  She loved it!  Dad promised to take a picture of it and email it to me, and when he does I will post it.  I really need to get another digital camera!!!  If I could only stop buying yarn long enough!!!!!!!!!!

A Prayer Blanket for Conner

As you can see, I have added another project to my sidebar!  It is a little quickie project for my Mom for Mother's Day.  It is a really gorgeous summer weight scarf knit out of a yarn I bought from Linda's Custom Yarns.  It is called "Slippery When Wet" and it is gorgeous!  I wish I had a digital camera (that works!) to take a picture of it now, but I will get Dad to take one when I give it to Mom and post that.  The yarn is sort of a satiny ribbon type yarn in varigated colors of teal, fuschia, and peacock blue.  Then there is a glittery puple strand mixed with it.  I added another eyelash yarn in varigated teal, purple and fuschia.  The effect is absolutely gorgeous, and you should see it shine in the sunlight!  Wow!  I am knitting it on size 13 needles, so it is going very fast.  Another project that will be showing up on my sidebar soon is a prayer blanket for the grandson of a coworker.  This little 22 month old baby has had seizures all his young life and they are beginning to become severe.  So much so, that the doctors have decided that the only thing left to do is to remove the right half of his brain.  He has been through 2 previous brain surgeries to see if partial removals could stop the seizures, but the seizures just move to another part of the right side of his brain.  Surgery is scheduled for June.  I had been reading about the prayer shawl ministry, and decided to do a variation of this and knit a blanket for Conner.  The idea is to pray for the person the whole time you are knitting the shawl (or blanket).  I have some old Lion Brand Terryspun in both powder blue and white, but I am going to check Michaels tomorrow and see if I might like the Lion Brand Polarspun better.  I did a baby hat for Janet's granddaughter out of that at Christmas, and it felt wonderful!  I was thinking of the Delft blue varigated blue/white color. Updates on the ongoing projects:  Aztec Sun Top -- I am glad that I decided to add the lime.  It really needed that little spark of color!  Santa Fe Shawl -- have done a few rows of this at lunchtime at work, but really need to get on the ball soon as this is a birthday gift for my mother in law's birthday on June 12!