yesterday's class with Annie Modesitt was very hands on & practical, as you would expect, and we were told to bring two swatches in a light coloured yarn with a contrasting yarn to learn seaming techniques.
I booked the class in August thinking I had plenty of time to make these and there was a reminder email from Annie (she's awesome, have I said that?) last week so I had no excuse- but somehow September snuck up on me.
So, Sept 1st arrives , and while I'm cooking the dinner I decide to update the kitchen calendar with all the events that the kids have lined for the month (our calendar has 5 columns for 4 people so that I can keep track of everything). As I'm doing this I think- wait a minute I've got that knitting class to go to- is that Tues or Wed next week? so I check my email and shriek "bloody hell! it's tomorrow !! I haven't done my swatches!"
The dog runs out of the room, (she's easily startled) and I calm down thinking- you numpty- do them tonight- two swatches?- easy.
I dig out some mustardy yellow merino (Rooster almerino aran, 50% alpaca , 50% merino) and after dinner, I cast on.
As I am knitting away the phone rings and I overhear my son talking away quite seriously "Tonight? when? 7.30? Port Seton, yeah she knows where it is, um I've got a violin lesson but I'll see if my kid sis will swap lessons around.....pause.... yeah she will, awesome, see you then"
The phone goes down , then he says "Mum can you take me to Port Seton tonight for the Burundi talk thing".
I gasp! I've got my homework to do and D isn't back from work yet, so I make several phone calls get a lift for J1 arranged at 7.15 , calm myself down and knit frantically. D arrives back from Glasgow at 7.10. Relief!
He gets a quick update about lesson swapping, Burundi, my knitting homework, then Jenni's car pulls up and she sees me looking unusually harassed and tells me not to drive but to hop in too. So, armed with my knitting bag, I do.
The meeting is an update about Mission International's trip to Burundi in July, how the funds raised by the people in Port Seton had helped the orphanage by taking clothes, toys, money (for building work, books for the school, goats to provide food & an income for the orphanage) and medicines (two doctors and a dentist were on the trip, and they ran clinics for the refugees).
There is also a group which meets on Monday evenings to knit blankets and children's clothes to be taken across in the volunteer's bags, so everyone assumed that while I was knitting away that it was for the next trip! Oops! But they thought it was funny that I was doing my homework for a class the next day and I promised that I would join the group and knit/crochet blankets too.
I cast on the second swatch when the lights were dimmed for the slide show so it turned out a bit wider than the first one. Never mind, they were both very useful when I was following Annie's clear instructions on how to make perfect mattress stitch for seaming- the plum yarn is not visible through the yellow and the reverse looks very neat, and she showed us how to hide the ends neatly too. Fab! She gave me a A and I was pretty chuffed!
J1 is hoping to go to help Burundi next year too (it is recovering from the same brutal civil war which devastated neighbouring Rwanda) and he has to raise £1500 for his travel & living costs and as much as he can on top of that to assist the orphanage. I'll be knitting stuff to fill his case, making Christmas & greetings cards to raise money, the kids are selling toys in a car boot sale and my lovely son is planning lots of crazy stunts to raise funds. He has lovely long curly hair which hasn't been cut for 3 years and he's considering shaving it all off for charity.
He's wonderful, I'm so proud of him.
The swatches are pretty good too.
