Prayer Flags, Knitting, & Great Reads

I had the great pleasure of volunteering at

our church's Vacation Bible School this past week.

It was, as always, a fantastic experience.

It's hard work,

but I always gain lots more than I give.

Jane LaFazio's Prayer Flags

have been an interest of mine,

so I offered to lead the kids (75 in all!)

in making an easy version of these.

We used paper, wallpaper paste,

magazines, tissue paper, and glitter -

LOTS of glitter!

(I spent about an hour vacuuming glitter out of the carpet on Monday afternoon!)

We left them to dry until Thursday morning,

and then we punched holes in the upper corners,

and each class strung their's together.

They were then hung in our Parish Hall.

Here are a few pics of the kids 

finishing up their prayer flags.

They were so proud to carry them down the hall to the Parish Hall,

and hang them.

A selfie of me and the adorable granddaughter of one of my good friends:

I also managed to finish a couple of knitting projects this week!

WooHoo!!

The cotton socks for Cat are now completed!

These guys were a real test of patience!

The yarn, Cascade's Fixation,

is cotton with elastic added.

I'm not real keen on knitting with it.

On top of that, I somehow messed up when adding the ripcord

on the afterthought heel - on both socks!

So, I had to rip back down to the heel on both socks, 

install a new ripcord, knit back up to the cuff,

bind off, and then knit new afterthought heels.

But they are finished now!!!

I also finished my Lineal Cardigan -

but it is blocking right now,

so I have no pic for you.

I'll try to add one later this week.

I'm intending to wear it tomorrow to church.

It's linen and I love it!

I learned how to weave in the ends of the linen yarn

using the duplicate stitch on the reverse (purl) side of the cardi,

and that was a positive experience.

I'm now busy at work on a new shawl!

This is called Sunburst and it was designed by Sarah Punderson.

Below is a trial swatch.

I'll show you more in the weeks to come, don't worry!

I'm knitting it in the lovely Madelinetosh Tosh dk.

I also cast on two new vanilla socks:

These are knit with Opal yarn in the wonderful

Hundertwasser series:

so very much fun,

as the colors and patterns keep changing as you knit up the foot and leg!

more photos of these to come too!!!

Books, books, books:

I've now listened to Anne Lamott's "Grace Eventually" twice

via Audible on my iPhone.

Anne reads it and it is wonderful:

so full of inspiration!

I loved it so much I had to purchase the hard back edition!

The wonderful Jeannie has gifted me with some real treasures.

One is "Knitting Yarns",

edited by Ann Hood.

It is full of wonderful short stories about knitting -

a great before bed read.

I've also read that one twice!

Jeannie also sent me

"Quilters" by Jo Packham.

It is chock full of eye candy, has access to many quilting designs,

and tells the story of many quilt artists.

I read it at night before bed, and have the sweetest

and most colorful dreams! 

So that's it for today my friends -

just wanted you to know I was thinking of you!

Hope you have a happy weekend and

a wonderful and safe July 4th,

if I'm not back with you before then.

thanks for stopping by!

peace to you and yours!