I seem obsessed with a project I did not expect to do, a week ago. Now it is nearly done. I am amazed at how this has all progressed…

The Schuler Books charity bear event will be in about 10 days (Tuesday, April 6, Eastwood Towne Center, Lansing). I will be teaching a group of folks, with varying skills, to knit a bear for the police department to take out on calls. The bears are given to children in distress.

These events turn out people from expert knitters to not-knitters-quite-yet. I need instructions that will guide the experienced knitters on their own, and allow the beginning students to join in the fun relatively quickly.

I looked for bear patterns that might work. So many of them call for shaping that is hard to explain, or require knitting on double pointed needles, or require understanding flat stockinette (knit one side, purl the other side, know which side you are on at any given time). There were lovely bears out there, but none that seemed workable for my event.

There will be a number of free bear-knitting kits given out to the first attendees of the event. Last time we had free knitting supplies, we had 70 participants. I just had to make it work.

SO, I made my own bear pattern. The photo today is how the parts looked this afternoon, before I sewed/stuffed/embroidered it.

I spent hours last night working on the instructions for the actual knitting. Today I spent more time getting it better, and adding instructions for cast on, knit, increase, decrease, bind off.

For some reason, once I started I could not stop. Part of it is that I’ve promised a good number of people I’d work on other things. I have Study Hall students waiting for my beginner-knitter hat pattern. I have Thursday night knitters (at Rae’s Yarn Boutique) waiting for the multicolored baby hat I put together for my new niece.

And then I got going on a bear. He was quite out of order and took control!!!

Pictures of the full bear tomorrow.

My friend April picked up knitting when she had a very small child. It turned out quickly, that the child wished to grab at the needles no matter if they were on a table or in Mommy’s hands. Mommy stopped knitting.

Five years later, the kiddo is in school. Mommy is missing kid. Mommy has time to herself for the first time in a long while. Mommy wants to knit again.

She found the project she started five years ago. It was actually done except for the working-in of ends. I helped her learn how to do that. I also helped her start a legwarmer project. (We are dancers, legwarmers can ease leg cramps on bad dance days.)

May I present to you, April’s first project? It’s a baby hat, knit off the cuff, one step at a time given to hear verbally by me. It helped that she lived across the street at the time. (Sigh, those were good days for me.)