Going Green with the colors White & Blue

Boredom takes many forms. It can be the instigator of mischief or the catalyst to something you've never tried before. Luckily for me, it took the latter and in a positive way.
On Ravelry, I joined a Swap Group from Lion Brand Yarn. The idea was to include the following in your swap package:

1. 
   
   
   

   One (1) or more skeins of Lion Brand organic cotton yarn (i.e., Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton or Lion Organic Cotton)

2. 
   
   
   

   Item handmade from at least one (1) skein of Lion Brand organic cotton

3. 
   
   
   

   Eco-friendly gift (i.e., organic coffee or tea; reusable shopping bag; stainless steel water bottle; rainforest treats; flower seed kits; or jewelry from recycled materials)

 I purchased the yarn and gathered the things I wanted to include in the swap box but was having a devil of a time thinking of things that I could make with only one skein of yarn.
Now you might say to yourself, "Susan, you have thousands of patterns at your disposal that are for only one skein of yarn." And you would be right...but I wanted to make something that went with the Eco-friendly theme and that was harder to find.


I found what I wanted to make. It's called "Eco-Tote" and it was the perfect item for grocery toting eco-friendly conscience people. However...out of the three skeins I bought to put in the box for my swap buddy, I used two skeins to make the tote. (Insert major guilt here) I could have used the third skein but stopped myself.


I hope my swap buddy will enjoy her handmade gift. Here is what it looks like.

The Matriarch

I fell in love with lace knitting. Shawls mostly. I want to knit them all...circulars, squares, triangles, you name it. I have almost a hundred great patterns for lace shawls of all shapes and sizes. 

On the Ravelry website, I found this fantastic pattern called Haruni. 

Haruni is a triangular shawl, worked from the top down, with a crochet bind off. You can easily adjust the size of this shawl by knitting more or less repeats of the first chart. A great story is behind the name. It seems that Haruni means "Grandmother" in Quenya, Tolkien's elven language. :-)

I cast on May 1st and cast off May 22, washed and blocked, taking well over 125 T-pins and needed more.

When I had finished I sat on my couch and stared at it for 20 minutes thinking, "Wow, look what I made."

I will be giving this shawl to my eldest sister, Diane who is the matriarch of our family and my second mother.