Comments on: The First Rule of Fight Club

By: Pat France

Pat France — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:22:02 +0000

Dear Jan, My name is Pat France and I work for General Mills. I am a friend of Ellen’s! I am also a Knitting in General Club member and this year I am in charge of the Helmet Liner project. You have maybe heard of it. We knit about 100 helmet liners a year and they are included with the Military Club’s Care packages to troops.

We are having a Kick Off event for the Helmet Liner project on November 11th. I was wondering if you would consider sending us a message about our efforts. Maybe what it’s like for a serviceperson to receive a care package? It would be nice to have a message from someone with service experience.

I know this is a shot in the dark, I have read your blog and enjoy it. I enjoy visiting with Ellen.

I thought maybe I could read it to the group.

Thank you for your service, and your consideration,

Warm regards, Pat

By: twinsetellen

twinsetellen — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:10:36 +0000

Now I know why I suddenly slipped and poked my eyelid hard with my fingernail while adjusting my glasses this weekend. It’s your fault!

I love the socks. Need a test knitter?

By: Jocelyn

Jocelyn — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:50:11 +0000

Oh, that eye doesn’t look good! I’m glad it’s healing up, though. And I love all of the knitting you’re doing (not to mention being very impressed, given all the travel you’re doing). Enjoy your next trip!

By: SpinDyeKnit

SpinDyeKnit — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 06:30:38 +0000

[…] to be a lazy blogger tonight and post here, with a touch of editing for clarity, what I put on Twinset Jan and Ellen’s blog. Jan had made some baby socks and hat in a soft, soft angora yarn in a muted sunflower-yellow […]

By: Erica

Erica — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:22:46 +0000

Ouch! Glad the eye is healing quickly. You certainly get a lot done while traveling the world and solving problems. Have fun with the pattern writing!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:15:05 +0000

Well, you KNOW the Brussels photos brought back wonderful memories for me… and for that I send you three kisses on the cheeks, even tho’ you are not ten years older. X-X-X

I love the new eye shadow… Colorway: “Bruised in Bruxelles!” xoxo

By: AlisonH

AlisonH — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:03:16 +0000

Oh. My. Goodness. That angora. That shade (you photographed it better than I did.) BOY, does that bring back memories!

My mom bought some pure angora that exact color on a trip before I was born, to knit for her little girls in anticipation of their being upstaged by the new one coming (me).

My oldest sister got a green sweater and she was highly allergic to it. The yellow…sat in a box for something like 45 years.

Until Mom and Dad packed up and moved out of the house they’d raised us in. I had coveted that angora all through my teens and beyond, and Mom had always said, No, that’s not yours. I promised that to your big sister.

She out of the blue, just before the moving van came, mailed it to me after all all these years later.

You see my blog design? That bit of yellow and those scarves?

That yarn was totally not protected, totally chewed up. I pieced it back together as best as humanly possible and then knitted it up: a scarf for my not-allergic older sister, one for my younger sister, and one for my brother’s wife. I dyed them partly on the grounds that no moth stages could survive the boiling water, partly on the grounds of felting any slipping pieces together beyond the splicing efforts.

And that is the story of how my blog top came to look like that. (Note that the ball of yarn has multiple ends.) After wanting that yarn for all those decades, I finally got to have it come to me–and after all that time, Mom was right: it wasn’t for me after all! It was for everybody else.