Playing Catch-Up

It's been a busy couple of weeks! Where to start?

A very good friend of mine, Laura, is fighting lung cancer in Columbus. The Ohio Soapers got together and, within 3 days, sent me $400 for her! What a great group!!! I went out and bought her things that she needed for her hospital room...and $300 in VISA gift cards for her husband to use as needed. Laura asked me to take a "before" and "after" picture of her view from the bed.

Here's the "before"

And here's the "after" Much better!! She can now watch DVDs and listen to music and books on tape! She has also received many cards, angels and a bottle of emu oil for her skin. I made her a batch of emu/shea lotion, and I designed/knitted these:
If I had her foot next to me while I was knitting them, I couldn't have made them fit any better. :-) (the bottom one really is the exact duplicate of the top one - the camera angle was weird)
I'm really hoping to get back down to Columbus to see her again in the next week or so - she's fighting for her life right now, and she needs all of the support/love/prayers that she can get.

In other news, I'm still knitting. I've started a sweater for Christmas from this book: It's a really great book! I highly recommend it! I've never done a sweater from the top down before; it's really coming along nicely. Since the person that I'm making it for is a size 48/50, practicality (cost and washability) is requiring a small sacrifice on my part....I'm using Wool-Ease. (shhhhh!!!!!) Here's a really crummy picture of my progress so far: And another crummy picture of the center cable: I placed a small order with Crown Mountain Farms, (Hi, Teyani!!) and 3 days later the pattern for these arrived at my house:

They took 3 hours each to knit...and they're comfy!! I used Plymouth Galway, doubled throughout. Even better, though, was the other part of the package:

And a close-up...isn't it gorgeous? This is Dicentra Designs sock yarn in the Gilrain colorway

And, just because, a picture of Gracie with her absolute favorite cow