pussy hats

i was not able to attend any of the women's marches in january.  i thought it was only happening in washington.  i had no idea that it would reach east texas.  my husband and i sat and watched the events unfolding all over the world on tv.  it was touching and powerful.  

i began searching my knitting sources on-line and low and behold, i ran across the pussyhatproject website.  i downloaded the pattern and the next day headed out to my local yarn shop to purchase pink yarn.  i immediately began producing hats.

so far, i have made and given away hats to all of my friends that want them.  now, i am reaching out to the world to offer my pussyhats to anyone who would like one.  

please contact me at frankied@peoplescom.net and i would be more than happy to produce a hat, just for you, providing i still have the yarn.  the hats are produced free of charge.  yes, you heard it, free of charge.

hope and joy

here we are.... white oak woolens

in 2008, i had a very successful career as an executive for a fortune 100 company when tragedy struck.  suicide of a loved one.  there are no words to describe....  for the next few years i plugged along, never letting go of the hand of God, but basically wallowing in pain and tormenting flashbacks.  it was full blown ptsd.  although my faith carried me through, i had lost all hope and joy for my life and for my future.  although i had sought help from the beginning and never stopped seeking it, it was two years before the help started helping me.  a major turning point in my recovery happened when i was re-introduced to art, not looking at it, but making it.  good 'ole arts and crafts.  quickly, i picked up my knitting and began to knit again.

unlike many women my age, i was taught to knit, crochet, and sew when i was a young girl.  i used to love it.  when i went off to technical college, crafts and home making skills took backstage to the man's world i was stepping in to as a tool engineer.  from then, i would pick up needles and yarn on trips home to michigan for christmas when it was too cold to do anything else, or when i became pregnant and delivered my birth child.  that was about it.

in 2010 when i started knitting as an experiential therapy, JOY and HOPE came creeping back.  it was incredible.  until then, i couldn't see any future at all.  all i could see was my present, and it was a mess of pain and unfinished business that began piling up the minute my doorbell rang and i learned the news of our loss.  that hope and joy came by the way of looking forward to how the jacket i was making would fit and look on me.  how simple is that?  i began hoping that the yarn i was wrapping around the needles would end up fitting me as a jacket.  as the inches of fabric came off the needles, i couldn't stop staring at how beautiful the stitch pattern was....there it was....joy

that jacket was the first of many many garments i have made since then.  i am proud to inform you that now my life is filled with hope and joy for a bright tomorrow as i savor the beauty of today!  i am no longer an executive, i am a retired housewife with too many good years and energy left in her to just be retired.  i am making more things than i need.  my friends and family are tired of knitted gifts.  so.... in the spirit of turning pain into purpose (boy, i never ever thought i could rise above it) and with the urging of my husband and family, i am offering my skills and talents to the world.

and what happened to the jacket????  well, i wore it once.  i still have it.  at one point, the cat made a bed out of it in the back of my closet and snagged the crap out of it.  you see, the pattern was from 1965.  it called for 28 ounces of a mohair yarn.  i used a worsted weight acrylic which is thicker and much heavier.  i knew something was up when i had burned through 28 ounces of yarn and the thing wasn't even halfway complete.  the jacket was enormous.  it weighed a ton and i couldn't keep it on my shoulders.  but the piece itself was beautiful!!!  i spent 100+ hours of labor on it only to learn it didn't fit because i didn't make a gage swatch like the instructions said..... the most beautiful, meaningful, and stupid mistake ever!!!!