Monday, October 10, 2005




Here are two projects from Andean Folk Knits, both knit with Nature Spun sport weight. The mitten cuffs were done on size 4 dpns and I had to go down to size 2 dpns for the rest of the mittens. The hat was knit with size 4 dpns.

As an undergrad I lived at a special dorm called International House at Illinois State University. You had to interview and have foreign language experience to get accepted. Every American student got paired up with a foreign student.

My first roommate was Huey-Mei from Taipei and when she
went back to Taiwan I was paired with Izumi from Kyoto. There were
students from all over the globe and we had many special international dinners cooked by the students. I had a friend from Nigeria who helped me with my French homework and I planned a kegger for our dorm with two great guys from Iraq.

Seeing all the similarities and differences between Americans and other countries was fascinating. But all was not hunky dory. Watching the evening news there took on a different meaning because there was always somebody from a country in trouble. This was during the Iran hostage situation and we had to be careful in the parking lot because some of the Iranian students had their cars vandalized. One of the Ethiopian students from our dorm, targeted in a campaign by Amnesty International, has just been released from prison.

This weekend I've been thinking of a sweet girl with beautiful long hair from Pakistan who lived on our floor. Oxfam has a news release about their efforts to help the victims of the horrific Pakistan earthquake HERE.