My Current Project(s)

I have the hubbub of Christmas coming. I'm feeling behind. But there is one project I am working on that I am more compelled to do than anything. It is boring to knit--not much of a pattern, not very interesting colors--but I am getting great joy out of each stitch.



It is a helmet liner.

We're doing a drive for them here at the store. One of our customers has a son who is in Afghanistan, who will be sending the liners directly. The weather there is brutal: hot in the summer, frigid in the winter. We're heading to frigid right now. Imagine our winters in Pennsylvania, and subtract 20 to 30 degrees.

We have the patterns at the store, or if you want to get started right now, you can use this pattern. [Note: Link was broken the morning of 12/18/10. This one should work. Ignore what they say about helmet liners not being accepted. We are sending them directly.]

You need to make it out of 100% animal fiber so that it doesn't melt under fire (acrylic melts) and so that it is super warm. There are just over 20 guys in this unit, so we're trying to get just over 20 liners. If we have more, they will be given to new people who come in. We can't have too many.

You don't need to worry about making these things washable. There is no real running water in Afghanistan to wash them. The soldiers go for months on end without a shower.

Oh--and they make friends with the local kids too. So if you have an extra kid's hat or kid's socks that you would like to give, that would be a good addition to our box. You also want those to be 100 percent wool, for the same reasons that the soldiers' need to be that way. (But maybe you can have more fun with color here.)

Eleanor is stopping by our store on December 24 (this Friday) to pick up everything we have. We'd like a nice pile to give her. So in this week of cramming things in, I hope that everyone reading this crams in just one more thing.

We'll see you Friday.