Merci Grâce

My Mardi Gras mostly happened on Saturday night, when a fellow seminarian and his wife threw a truly awesome empty-out-your-liquor-cabinet party. The actual Tuesday that I had was much weirder, more about mercy and grace than pancakes – hence my horrible attempt at a french pun above.

It started at about 12:02 in the morning, when [...]

Behind the Design - Rachel's Tears

Out of all the patterns I have designed so far, Rachel’s Tears has the most of my heart and soul packed into it.

The name of this pattern came from two places. The first is from an Anglican service in a little booklet called Liturgies and Prayers Related to Childbearing, Childbirth, and Loss; the service is [...]

Joni

This is Joni’s story. I’ve been blessed to get to know her as a friend, fellow knitter, and erstwhile nerd over these last two years, and she’s been an amazing example of a godly woman who is both a stay-at-home-mom to two small boys, and is completely capable of relating to grownups who don’t have [...]

Baby K

This is Jonica’s story. We became friends while knitting the Evenstar shawl together, and bonded over our shared losses. We emailed during the ups and downs of trying and losing, and the impossible agony of waiting. I’d never wish what either of us have been through on anyone, but it meant so much to have [...]

When a Daughter Surprises You

As you remember, I was crying, jumping up and down, and quietly ecstatic about the yarn Rebecca spun and gave me this past Christmas.  I really had not even dared to hope she would give it to me.  It was too too pretty and represented a heck of a lot of time and skill.  But [...]

Testimony

It’s time for some topical whiplash. I’ve been asking you for the last week to look at new products and buy things, so it seems supremely weird to me to go from that to sharing deep heart-stories. But that’s about the full range of this blog: from marketing to mysteries. From the sublime to the [...]

Behind the Design: Rose of Sharon

The idea for this shawl happened all at once, as these things often do. And it happened in church, as it often does to me. We were visiting the Church of the Ascension in that fancy area of Pittsburgh called Oakland, and over the side chapel I spotted this.

I was lucky to have my camera [...]

500

This is my 500th post. 500! Coming as it does so near the turn of the year, this seems an appropriate time to do a little reflection on this blog, and everything that has happened to me through it, because of it, and since I started it back in May of 2009. If I were [...]

Behind the Design: Morning Star

Jesus has so many names, it is hard to keep track. By the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Aragorn had so many names that I was quite confused, and he had only lived for eight-some years and just become king! In a fictional context like that, I learned that titles don’t have [...]

Behind the Design: Holly & Ivy Mittens

It’s the night before Christmas, and all through the night,

the knitter is frantically casting off tight.

She’s wrapped all her gifts like a good little elf,

And she’s so flippin’ ready to knit for herself.

My hope in designing a pattern to be released in conjunction with Christmas was to have something fun, pretty, and entertaining for you [...]