Empowering Others

One of my favorite television programs is, "Pit Bulls and Parolees." If you haven't seen the show, it's about a woman, Tia, who is committed to saving pit bull dogs, and giving those who have been incarcerated a chance at making it once they leave prison. Not all of the dogs can be saved, and not all of those who come to work at the facility end up a success story. But, many do. 

A friend emailed me about an event that will take place here in Chicago on April 29, 2017, called Knit Around The Clock. This is a fund raiser for a group called Committed Knitters. You can check them out HERE on Facebook. They are a   group of women who once a week, teach women how to knit and crochet at the Cook County jail. The outreach doesn't end at the jail. When the women are released, the group continues to follow up with them to ensure success once they are back out in the world.  

They do need donations. A downtown store called Loopy Yarns will accept donations. You can also find them HERE on Facebook. If you attend the event on April 29th, donations will be accepted then as well.

On Tuesday, I shared my goal of completing 12 knitting projects this year. Many need to be completed, so they are not start to finish projects. My initial goal was to complete at least 1 project each month. The only problem is that it's now April, the 4th month of the year, and none are completely finished. Close, but not finished :/

I felt that I needed a jump start, so I went through my selected projects and decided that I could get one completed, a scarf. 

I had taken a class with Nora Gaughan while I was in Maine a few summers ago. She had given us a set of 6 different samples to do. I had thought that I would do the samples, but make them into a scarf. I didn't like it, and there it sat. So when I looked at it on Tuesday, I realized that my only option was to rip the entire thing apart, but choose a pattern that I like and just do the 1 pattern for the entire length of the scarf. I'm happy!!! I sat down over the last 3 evenings and knitted away. So now I can mark at least 1 project off the list. 

What I am the most excited about is finding out about the Committed Knitters program. So inspiring. What a wonderful resource for duplicate needles, and yarn that I know I am not going to use. My initial goal was just to thin the stash, but I also wrote that one of my goals was to find a home for the things I could not use, or did not want. See, this whole thing of writing it down really does make it happen. And even better, the resource came to me, I didn't even have to look for it!

If you know of resources like Committed Knitters that needs needles and yarn, please leave a message. If there are enough, I can compile them into resource list.