Charity Tuesdays

Hiya :)

First of all, let me boast that as of 6:30 last night (which is when I actually wrote this post) I had knit 73 of the 88 rows needed to get to the underarm on the front of my Penobscot Bay Pullover! wooohoo! Hopefully after I wrote this post I continued to knit through the underarm and part way up one half of the yoke. The yoke is split into two halves, with a deep slit from the neck to the chest dividing the moss stitch sections in half. I would love to have the front done and one sleeve at least picked up and started by next Monday.

But on to the purpose of this post. I have made an important decision, and I challenge people to follow me.... if for nothing else than to keep me on track and make me stick to my resolution!

I have, for years, been a member of the New England Textile Arts Yahoo Group, whose adopted charity is knitting for the Ships Project. The Ships Project sends handmade hats, slippers, cool-ties and cool-heads to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed across the world in the War on Terror. I love this charity.

However, in the many years since NETA was formed, I think I have sent exactly one pair of socks and maybe a hat to the Ships Project. Sure, I do donate many skeins of yarn to NETA knitters each year, which they use to knit a beautiful afghan that is raffled off, the proceeds going to help fund postage (and man, they need a LOT of money for postage because so many wonderful people out there send so many heartwarming gifts to troops). I am very happy to do this! But I have always felt bad, felt guilty, about not actually knitting things to send to the troops. I keep meaning to do it. I want to do it. But I never manage to actually pick up the needles and start a hat or socks for some hardworking man or woman in the military, whose day would be mightily uplifted by a cheery handknit item from home, showing that he or she is valued and supported. I just say, I will get to that someday. Someday, I will knit a hat. Sooner or later I will make a pair of socks. Soon. Really. Yup.

We all know what happens.... I don't do it. SO: I hereby resolve that starting TODAY, all knitting time that I manage to work in on Tuesdays, will be devoted to knitting something for the Ships Project. If I knit 5 minutes or 5 hours on Tuesday, it will be for the Ships Project. I actually hope that I will knit more on Tuesdays than on other days, because I will be making a concerted effort to make some kind of progress on a hat or pair of socks. It's not to say that I can't work on Ships Project items every day of the week if I want to, but I promise that on Tuesdays, at least one day a week on Tuesday, I will knit for the troops.

Why did I pick Tuesday? September 11, 2001 was one of the most beautiful fall Tuesdays I have ever seen. I will never forget it.

Please keep me on track with this... if you notice me working on anything NOT Ships Project related on Tuesday, kick my feet out from under me and pour a bucket of bugs over my head. OK? Okay. :)