May Knit Along, a Pillowcase, Play

I’ve been working along with others on Mandarine’s May Knit Along. I chose the Moonlight Garden Shawl for my project and I’m making it in this gorgeous yarn – Rios by Malabrigo.  I’ve knitted with yarn by them before, and it is SO soft and easy to work with.   I feel a bit behind on my project, as I made the same mistake twice and had to rip out 12 rows. Twice.  ahem. I finally got it right last night, so (hopefully) I can move along.

Zach and Maddie (our Middles) are ready to head out of town, out of state actually, for regionals for Bible quizzing.  They’ve worked incredibly hard this year and have earned their place on the team.  Maddie has memorized (sometimes perfectly, sometimes needing a little prompting) five books in the Bible – Galations, Ephesions, Phillippians, Colossians and Philemon.  Zach has memorized perfectly 86 specific verses.  It sounds like Zach hasn’t done as much, but during a quiz, he can answer book, reference and quote the verse with only the first syllable of the verse (and often the first sound) being spoken by the quiz master.  Impressive, yes?

As they were packing to head out of state for the weekend, Zach brought me his small pillow and asked if I could make him a new pillowcase. It’s a smaller than normal pillow, so none of our pillowcases fit it well. I love that he asked, so I absolutely had to make it happen.  But have you ever felt like everyone else in the world knows some secret and you know there’s a secret but you don’t know what it is?  That’s how I felt making this pillowcase.  How hard can it be? I thought.  But then I needed to make sure it was big enough to go on easily but not so big as to wrinkle under his face (because who wants to wake up with pillow wrinkle lines from a badly fitting pillowcase?)  And is there a certain way to sew on the band at the side?  I muddled through and it turned out pretty well (even though my math was a bit off and I needed to add an extra strip to the width – we’ll blame the lateness of the hour).   So he’s all ready to go to quiz, sleeping on his new pillowcase.  Oh, and bonus points for me because I was able to use some of the fabric I had purchased for his black and white quilt.  The panel didn’t work at all for the quilt, but it was perfect for the pillow.

Last night after supper the Middles and Littles went outside.  Watching them together is one of my favorite things.  Yes, the Littles were ready for bed, but no matter, just a quick wash up an they were all set again. Hearing their laughter as they chased and ran and played blesses me so completely.  It is a sound I hope I never forget.