Sweet Eleanor

On Monday, I completed my first knitting project that involved cables. Cables have rather scared me since I started knitting but I was motivated to learn how to knit them when I saw the Sweet Eleanor hat pattern.

The pattern was inspired by Eleanor, a beautiful little girl who has cancer, and the pattern was created and is sold by a friend of Eleanor's family; all proceeds from the sale of the pattern go directly to Eleanor's family to help with medical expenses. If you would like to read more about Eleanor and her medical journey, you can visit her CaringBridge page.

I chose to use the luscious Malabrigo Silky Merino yarn, which is 51% silk and 49% Merino wool - ooh la la! And the color...turquoise is one of my favorite colors and this turquoise is especially gorgeous.

It was a very slow knit for me, since I had to concentrate on knitting the cables, but in the end I think it turned out very well:




Even after I bought the pattern and the yarn, I had no idea for whom I was knitting the hat. It is lovely, but not my style at all. But when I heard about the auction for The Thacher School, which my friend Kelli's daughter attends, I decided that this hat could join the beret I was donating to the auction. It seems very right that a hat that was made from a pattern sold to raise money for an excellent cause should go on to raise money for another good cause.

Happy birthday, dear boy!

Friday was a very important day in our house - Aidan's 8th birthday! He has been counting down the days since the first of March and I am sure there were times that he thought his birthday would never arrive.

He chose a chocolate chip cookie cake to celebrate with his classmates, so I took that in at the end of the day. Mrs. M had also asked me to bring a book to read, so after they gobbled up the cookie slices, I read Smelly Socks by Robert Munsch. That book is always guaranteed to get a good giggle!

Aidan could hardly wait for James to get home so we could eat dinner, have cake (from Geddes Bakery, of course) and open presents. He got a good breath to blow out the candles:


He really concentrated on getting all of those candles out:


Success!


He received many awesome presents (his words), including binoculars from James and me:


The Scrambled States of America book and game from Aunt Tammie and Uncle Mike:


(The game, by the way, is great fun to play - there was much laughter in our house yesterday when we tried it out)

And a Syracuse Orange basketball from Grandma Williams:


Aidan also received cards with money (always fun) from Grandma and Grandpa Miller, and Cousin Jill and Great Uncle Vernon. He is busy planning what he will buy on his next Target shopping excursion.

Our eight year old boy went to bed happy and full of cake on Friday night!