Jason Knits

During my trip to Northeastern Thailand in November 2005, a trip to visit my teacher’s forest temple and to do some meditation practice, I saw a little boy sitting by the rice field one day. Just sitting there watching the sunset. My first thought was, “that boy must be so bored. I wish there were something for him to do. Maybe some toys. Video games would be good. Maybe he needs someone to take him to the movies.” Then I thought, “but if he gets a video game system, he would want more games when he gets tired of the old ones. If he goes to the movie, he will want to see more and who will take him to the theaters in the future?”

I looked at the boy again. He was just sitting there, watching the sunset. He did not seem restless at all. Then I realized all that restlessness, all that stress came from me and not the boy. He was quite content. All those games and movies were far from his mind. No. They were never there in his mind. He had no need for them. Why would I introduce them to him and cause him to want more in the end? He was happy to just watch the sunset. He had peace. I should look at my own mind and see what needed to be cleared out.

Lesson learned.

LTK Afghan Square 9, Horizontal Chain

Sorry, didn’t block it first. Didn’t pin it down for a better picture. I am not doing blocking until I get all the squares done.

This is really an easy way to do color knitting. Carrying one color at a time. The fabric is not too stiff after all. Maybe I loosened the tension? Maybe. I really like Wannietta’s idea of using this kind of fabric for pillows. One more to add on the to-knit list.

I have 16 rows of Violets done on the shawl. Two more to go. No more pictures until I start knitting the River, and I can’t wait to get to that. I hope it will go well.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Kerry’s first lace project. Yep! The very first. Beautiful scarf pattern from Heirloom Knitting. Fine lace yarn from Artisan Lace. You can see how fine the lace yarn is compared to the light fingering weight that he’s using for lifeline. It is so lovely. I especially love the colors. Did I get the details right, Kerry? Please correct me if I am wrong.

I got a package from Amazon yesterday. It contained the book Designing Knitwear and this book, The Knitted Teddy Bear.

Clyde was showing me pictures of “Get on the Bus” and an idea just popped in my head. Just look at the pictures below. I’m sure that most knitters would have thought the same thing, “I can knit a teddy bear for this.” So, I ordered the book.

“Get on the Bus” is a program that takes children to visit their mothers who are in prison, on Mother’s Days. They also started doing this on Father’s Day this year for children whose fathers are in prison. Clyde’s church helps out arranging the buses for Southern California children. A lot of kids don’t get to see their mom or dad due to the distance of the prisons. Some of the children had never even met their mom/dad until they got involved with “Get on the Bus”. Long story short, on the bus on the way home each child recieves a stuffed animal and a card from their parent. The cards were filled out by the parents and the stuffed animal were bought in the parents’ names. Something for the children to remember their parents by. I just thought it would be so cool if I could knit up something for the program, participating in my own way.

You can read about this last Father’s Day bus trip on Clyde’s blog.