Gifts from Brenda

When my sister, Brenda, was here for the weekend for me to teach her to knit, I also took her to a needle shop to show her how intimate and lovely these stores can be. I did not know that I was unleashing an animal.

My sister is very creative and always has about 15 projects bouncing around in her head. Similar to my inability to actually finish a project - we always like to start new things in order to begin to see them realized. I know that when she was younger she had the same issues as myself with actually finishing things.

So when I took her to this shop, she saw the possibilities for making her own accessories for her newly-learned craft. Less than two weeks after her visit, I got a package in the mail:

Needle case


This case has a black silk exterior with silk butterflies embroidered on it. She lined the inside in a durable canvas to keep me from punching holes through it. There are longer slots for my longer straights, and a couple of shorter slots as well.


Rose Needles


Brenda made these needles out of a pair of chopsticks. She found the instructions in my copy of Stitch N Bitch Nation while I was winding a skein for her to take home. They came out to a perfect size 8 needle. They are exceptionally smooth, and a nice sharp-but-not-dangerous tip. The roses on the ends were layered little petals made of Sculpey clay.

Of course when I opened the box that contained these goodies, I was overwhelmed. I didn't ask for them, but they are totally something my sister would do. She completely embodies the phrase, "Oh, I can make that!" Amazing.

In other news, I finished the Star Pillow many days ago. I had taken some gorgeous pictures of it, as well as pics of other things for the site, but I use hubby's awesome camera, and I didn't get my images transferred from it before he needed to delete them for a job. :(

The pillow is very comfortable, and I think Vegan Steven will see the pillow as a lovely use of his thoughtful gift of yarn.



Of course, I started a new project yesterday. I plan to see how it goes for a bit before talking about it though. Maybe that will keep me from jinxing it.