Ribbon Ready

It's hard to believe I'm already moved in for my Junior year! I had quite the whirlwind summer, and am finally settled in for my newest challenge - being a freshman RA!

I've been busy all week with training and preparing for move-in day, but I wanted to write a quick little note about my keychain project. My newest shape may be my favorite - awareness ribbons. Pictured here are multicolored ribbons for autism awareness, which can be made as either keychains or pins. Because I've created the pattern, I can make these ribbons in any color. Whether it's Gold for childhood cancer, Teal for tourette syndrome, or another color, I can create ribbons for all your awareness needs. Ribbons are available either with or without the tail shown in the larger photograph.

Please remember that all the proceeds from my keychain sale will go to Natalie Grace's fundraiser, the information for which can be found at www.willyousendusadollar.com. Interested? Contact me at www.facebook.com/PerfectPurls for more details! 

Summer's End

It has been an incredible 12 weeks at the Children's Defense Fund, and I am amazingly grateful for the opportunities I've had this summer. I've traveled to conferences, met other young advocates, explored the wonderful city of Washington DC, spent time with a fantastic group of interns, learned to crochet, and more. But, as with all great things, it must come to an end.

As I get ready to pack up and head back to Rochester, I've been trying to figure out how to balance all the different things I want to do. On top of classes, dancing with BPG, services at Hillel, singing with Roc Hakol, knitting/crocheting, and learning to be an RA, I'll be preparing for my sister's wedding! At the same time, I'm currently keeping up my work on social media for The Truth 365, transitioning to watch over the new volunteers we're recruiting instead of doing it all on my own. It's going to be a busy semester, to say the least.

One thing I'm getting ready to restart is my keychain fundraiser for The Truth 365. September will be National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and we will see the first anniversary of Monique Williams' death, as well as mark what should have been Hanna Monte's 23rd birthday. At some point, you have to ask: when does it stop? When will we say, we've had enough? And then, once we've said it, when will we start working to make it better?

Photograph from Natalie's facebook page

Natalie Grace, a 3-year-old warrior, and her amazing mother have had enough for quite some time. They're tired of Natalie's treatments poisoning her body to try and get the cancer out, and they're sick of knowing that they're the lucky ones. When Natalie was diagnosed, the doctors knew that they could cure her. They knew that she would be ok. It has been nearly a year since little Natalie's diagnosis, she's officially in the maintenance phase of her treatment, and the light has appeared at the end of the tunnel. But in that year, how many other kids have met a different fate? Monique Williams wasn't one of the lucky ones, and 7 kids follow her footsteps every day in the US alone.

It's time to start working to make it better.

For just a $5 donation to Natalie's "send me a dollar" fundraiser, I will send you a keychain in the color & shape of your choosing. All you have to do is send her a donation, and then send a message to my Facebook page that includes either a picture of your card + donation if you send it in the mail, or a screenshot of your donation online. That'll be your chance to let me know what color & shape keychain you would like as well. In addition to hearts and bows (pictured here) I have previously made owls and flowers, and I am always interested in learning new patterns - peace signs, letters, animals, other symbols, you name it and I'll find a way to make it.

Will you help me be a part of Natalie's 4th birthday?

Knitting On The Go

One of my favorite parts of knitting (and now crocheting) is that as long as I'm not in the drivers seat, I am free to knit/crochet during my travels. I can sit back, listen to the radio or my iPod, and calmly create something out of nothing.

Which is exactly what I did during my 10-hour trip home from Tennessee.

The training was incredible, to say the least. The 4 interns in my department at the Children's Defense Fund joined over 100 other young community organizers for a training on advocacy, organizing, and nonviolent action. Our training occurred concurrently with the CDF Freedom Schools, whose 1,500 servant leader interns, site coordinators and project managers provide a summer of literacy enrichment to children across the country. In addition to our training sessions, we joined the Freedom Schools to attend Harambee each morning (a half hour of songs, reading, and general pump-up for the day) as well as evening plenary sessions (generally a panel of speakers to educate the audience on a variety of topics, such as movement building, closing the achievement gap, and more). In just one short week, we developed the skills we would need to return to our hometowns and build our own Children's Action Teams in order to better fight for the rights of children. Together, we created a network of teams that will establish strong relationships with local communities and begin to generate movements over the coming months, so look out for more information on my role in that.

Of course, I kept up with my other passion - my volunteering with The Truth 365 - all week as well. Because I was away all week, I put the pinterest and tumblr on hold for a bit and focused on the Twitter, which I was able to keep up with on my phone. Now, however, I'm back on all three!

This week has been crazy, trying to get caught up with sleep and get back into the swing of things here in DC. I have spent time reconnecting with old friends and exploring the city, as well as spending some time with my older sister.

But none of that is really that interesting, is it? Back to the crocheting.

Pictured below is one of my first complete crochet squares:

I'm probably prouder of this square than I should be, considering that it's a little bit lopsided and I'm pretty sure I dropped a stitch somewhere along the line. Regardless, I am getting better each square I complete and I'm learning new stitches along the way. As I mentioned, I hope to have enough squares to create a blanket by the time school starts in September.

Square count: 4 (hey, I'll get there eventually!)

Intro-to-Crochet

Week 2 of my internship, and still going strong. I've been hard at work learning about the programs my department works on, and the other interns are all fantastic. I've also started working on social media for The Truth 365. I now manage Pinterest boards and the Tumblr account for the organization, as well as their Twitter handle.

Next week, I'll be traveling to Clinton, Tennessee with my department at the Childrens Defense Fund for a national training institute in child policy advocacy. In addition to our training, there will be over 2,000 young leaders training for the Freedom Schools program, which provides literacy support to underpriveleged children across the nation.

Of course, I'll have plenty to keep me occupied during my 10-hour journey on a bus. In addition to bringing my latest book, I'll certainly have a crochet hook and a ball of yarn. I've decided that to learn to crochet, I'm going to make small squares of various colors throughout the summer. Each 6" x 6" square will be a chance for me to learn a new stitch or pattern. At the end of the summer, I hope to have a large enough collection of squares to be able to compose at least a small blanket out of them.

To create the squares, I'm using yarn that's been left over from previous projects. Right now, I'm working with the red yarn that's left from this pair of legwarmers:

This pair of legwarmers was fun to create and quick to finish. Knit on straight needles in a double rib, I simply had to make sure that I counted the correct number of rows before switching colors and increased evenly on both sides. I love working with red and yellow together (there's a little Gryffindor in everyone), especially when I find the two colors with such strong contrast. By itself, the yellow is nearly blond and the red has a bit of an orange tint, but together, they are the perfect combination for fall, when this photoshoot occurred.

Pictured here is Olga, who has been a wonderful friend to me since I began my freshman year and has been incredibly supportive of my endeavors in knitting. The photos are by Emily, who I feel the need to mention is studying abroad in Vienna right now (mostly because I'm incredibly jealous of her). You can read all about her adventures here.

As always, check out more of my knitwear on my Facebook Page.

My Life as an Intern, Week 1

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm passionate about two things: raising awareness about childhood cancer until a cure is found, and learning about the American education system to eventually reform it.

This summer, I get to do both.

During the day, I am an intern with the Children's Defense Fund. I'll be working under their Youth Leadership and Development department, which focuses on training young advocates. The larger organization advocates for children's rights in areas such as child health, child mental health, early education, and literacy. They speak up for children without a voice. Find out more about their organization at their WEBSITE.

When I'm not interning with CDF or exploring Washington DC, I'll be volunteering with TheTruth365, assisting with social media. TheTruth365 is a "grass-roots documentary film and social media campaign designed to give a voice to all children fighting cancer." I am honored to get to work with this fantastic organization, which you can LIKE on Facebook or FOLLOW on Twitter. Be on the lookout for Tumblr and Pinterest, which will be up and running in the coming days.

Of course, I'll still have time to knit along the way. My current project is actually learning to crochet. While knitting will always be my first love, crocheting will be a valuable skill to add to my repertoire. I've done some crocheting before, such as the cowl pictured below:

The yarn, called "peaches and cream" is naturally striping in one of my favorite color combinations. The small skein is one of my last acrylic yarns, which is astonishing, especially considering that I used to use acrylic yarn exclusively. I used a bit of the scrap yarn to attach the two pink buttons, which I discovered in an old arts and crafts kit. Buttons became my favorite ornaments this past winter, so expect to see more of these in other posts.

Stephanie, pictured here, is a wonderful dancer and choreographer. The pictures, like many of my others, were taken by the wonderful Emily. Many thanks to both of them for joining me in trudging through the snow (somehow we managed to not get Stephanie's pants soaked, and her shoes were only a little wet). As always, check out my Facebook Page for more information.

Seasonal Knitting

This year has been a rollercoaster, if nothing else. New friends brought new adventures. I had a chance to reevaluate a lot of things during my recovery, and I'm so ready to take on another year. Right now, I'm home for a week before heading off to my summer internship. I'll be working in Washington DC for the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), which is an incredible organization advocating for children's rights. Look out for my posts about my experiences, as well as how it's shaping my opinions, this summer. That, of course, and my knitting. 

Summer seems like an odd time to knit, don't you think? When we think of "knitting," we think of scarves, and blankets, and curling up at the fireplace with a cup of cocoa. We can't imagine knitting when it's warm out. I used to be one of those seasonal knitters, but not anymore. Pictured below is one of my favorite summer pieces: summer shawls. This particular shawl was knit from one corner, increasing to center and then decreasing back to the other end. I especially love the yarn color, called "Denim Mist." If you look at the piece up close (the lower center image) you can see the different colors woven through, ranging from a blue so pale it's nearly white, and one that's so dark it's just about navy. Looking from further away, though, reveals the beautiful texture that these colors create when combined. 

The photographs above are from last summer. Pictured is the lovely Lori, one of my wonderful dancing friends who came out on a summer afternoon, walked around the block with me, and trekked through the field. While wearing high heels. Kathryn, another friend from my studio, also came out and took the beautiful photographs you see in this image. Lori is also an accomplished photographer, whose work can be seen HERE. Many thanks to both of them for joining me for this summer afternoon.

Midterms

Originally, I decided I was going to post this blog to chronicle my travels through knitting and college. It seems fit, therefore, that I would go from my injury in November to midterm season, which it fell in the middle of.

Personally, I'm not really a fan of midterms. Not only because they all seem to occur during the same time in the semester, or because suddenly the library is packed, or because I can study for days and still walk into the exam feeling completely unprepared. While those are all valid reasons to despise midterms, they aren't mine.

Midterms have become the sole method of evaluating students' understanding in most college courses. While elementary, middle, and even high schools have begun to move away from formal midterm exams - allowing teachers to decide how they wish to evaluate students at the mid-way point - colleges still rely on them heavily. For many classes the midterm and final exams make up the entire grade for the class. No other assignments, no essays, just exams. This isn't true for smaller discussion-based classes, only for larger lecture classes. However, when your classes fall between "big" (over 100) and "small" (20 or less), the evaluations tend to lean more towards examinations, which most of my courses have done so far.

So that's the problem. What's the solution? Consider what some of my Psychology professors have adopted:

We have exams that evaluate our understanding of the material. There are three during the semester, and each covers 4 chapters of our textbook, paralleled by about 4 weeks of lectures in class. During these 4 weeks, 3 smaller assignments are administered. Each is about 1.5-2 pages in length, and tests our ability to apply the material we have been studying. The material goes beyond the classroom.

However, the system isn't quite where it should be. While these smaller assignments are extraordinarily valuable, they count for very little of our grade. In fact, all of the smaller assignments combined are worth less than a single exam. In some ways, this makes sense - on average, students spend less time working on a smaller assignment than studying for an exam. On the other hand, by valuing the exams - which only occur 3 times during the semester - over the more constant smaller assignments, universities promote cramming & other forms of last-minute studying. By increasing the value of the smaller assignments and diminishing the impact of exams on grades, students may not need to cram as much, having reviewed and applied the material prior to exam period.

That said, let's get on to the fun part of my blog: my knitting.

The scarf pictured above was my project during midterms. The yarn came from my former dance teacher, who donated much of her yarn to me before I left for my sophomore year. The entire collection is made up of wool and wool blends - this particular yarn is virgin wool. The red caught my eye as soon as I first spotted it - not too bright, but still distinctly red. I designed the diamond lace pattern on a study break, experimenting with different ways to create the corners and different sizes for the diamonds. After playing with a few different options, I settled on a pattern that was 12 stitches across and laced it on a stockinette background. I love the way that the scarf curls back when I base my pieces in stockinette. I had considered blocking the scarf, but decided that I preferred the additional warmth that comes from a scarf that curls in on itself. Overall, not including the design stages, I spent about a week on the scarf, including putting on all the finishing touches. For more information on this scarf and my other works, check out my Facebook Page

Pictured is Alesa, one of my closest friends ever since I started college. Special thanks to her for coming out on a chilly day (there was snow on the ground the night before and the night after, but it was gone when we took the pictures around midday) and to my wonderful photographer Emily.

Birthday

It's hard to believe that today, I turned twenty years old. It's two decades, but I don't feel any older because of it. Sometimes I think that birthdays are just arbitrary ways of marking the time. There are plenty of other times that can make you feel older. Moments that you stop and think about how far you've come. For me, one of those times occurred a few months ago.

A bit of backstory: I'm a dancer, and have been for longer than I can remember. When I came to college, I joined the Ballet Performance Group. I now serve as the fundraising coordinator for the group. Through BPG, I've made some incredible friends (including many of the wonderful individuals who photograph and model my work), and I don't really know what I would do without it. Case in point:

Every semester, the executive board is required to stay after dress rehearsal to put away the costumes and clean up. Everyone takes on a different task, and it doesn't take too long. I was assigned to help Sydney, our Vice President, in the largest dressing room. My back began to bother me, so I stepped outside to sit down somewhere out of the way. Though I tried to reassure everyone that I would be fine, within minutes the pain of spasms in my lower back reduced me to tears. Although we tried to send me back to my room, eventually (at about 2:15 AM) I contacted a few of the other board members and they arrived to take me on a trip to the ER, where we remained until the spasms stopped just before 6 AM. Without the amazing friends I have, I'm not sure where I would be right now.

As with any pivotal moment in my life (as well as any moment that forces me to stay in bed for long periods of time), the experience inspired a knit pattern. Here's one of the pieces I made while recovering:

I decided that I wanted to make an infinity scarf, because the experience truly wrapped me up. It took over everything I was doing. On the other hand, I was surrounded by friends for the evening, wrapped in their protection. Embedded in this scarf are small hearts, a tribute to the love we all carry with us everywhere we go.

Modeling this piece is Stephanie, who also dances in the same group. We were supposed to share the stage in the performance I ended up missing. Emily, my wonderful photographer, serves on the same executive board and was present for the entire night. I'm truly grateful to both of them for joining me on this journey.

Spring break!

I really did mean to write last semester. And earlier this semester. And generally in college. It looks like time has gotten away from me again, and now I find my self on Spring Break, about 6 months after my last post. I'll be spending some time this week updating this blog with everything that's been going on, and the pieces I've created since I last posted. Until then, knit on!