And on the 22nd day, she rested...

...At Last....

...She is Done...

With five minutes to spare before the beginning of shabbat on the 21st of May 2010, the Lorax Project was completed with bamboo dowel and tabs all measured and in place.

This collective project was born out of our school's eco-minded sensibilities. Using both traditional and alternative environmentally friendly yarns, members of the PPDJDS community have contributed knitted and crocheted pieces of various colours, patterns and textures.

Thank you to Moreh Seth for planting the idea of a school knitting project in my head last spring, and to all our talented fibre artists for their many hours of enthusiastic creativity and labour. Also thank you to Marilyn & Jonothan of Romni for guiding many of the knitters through the aisles to find the ethical yarns for which they were searching. The result is a rich and stunning collection that truly reflects our fabulously eclectic community.


Fibres used: Alpaca Wool, Bamboo, Banana Silk Fibre, Cotton, Hemp, Milk Fibre, Organic Cotton, Pima Cotton, Recycled Cotton, Recycled Silk, Recycled Wool, Sea Cell / Seaweed Fibre, Silk, Soy silk, Sugarcane Fibre, Tea-dyed Cotton, Tencel, Wool.

Fibre Artists: Ali, Debbi, Yafa, Rosanne, Zoe, Cindy, Jennifer, Meredith, Tanya, Liora, Cydel, Micah, Janet, Aviva, Jeremy, Dena, Caren, Shira, Elana, Rona, Jodi & Osnat

Day Three... and counting

When I explain to parents the benefits of teaching children how to knit, I mention that some of the fabulous skills they can learn or build on (almost by accident) are: attention to detail, creative expression, focus, fine motor skill development, math, and yes, even patience.

In this world of instant gratification -- and let us not forget that our children know ONLY a world of this kind.... a world of emails, touch-tone dialing, skype, texting, mobile phones and on-demand-in-flight-entertainment -- and this world of automation -- of remote controlled everything (including self dispensing soap & self flushing toilets) -- for them this is normal... In this world, learning the virtues of patience, long-term planning & perseverance through the art of knitting can be a subversive, fun way to teach these difficult 'old fashioned' foreign concepts.

So, when one of my 'ace' knitters came up to me this afternoon with a "Is it done yet?" I thought he was kidding! No. He was serious.

The plain and simple answer is: NO, J it's not done yet. But I am working on it. For goodness sake, it's only May 3rd. I was casting off L's square not 7 minutes prior to your question, and I arrived home 20 minutes after that to a paper bag stuffed into my mailbox with someone else's endeavor.

Besides 20x20 cm seems to be a highly hypothetical concept these days, it seems.... Rebel's got a serious balancing act playing itself out here...

Memo to self: remind kids to slow down and breathe.... remind myself to drink more coffee & crochet faster....

Here are some more pics of some more of the new squares.....

Lots & Lots of iddy biddy squares (sweet!)

This used to be Jen's white cotton with her permission, I dyed it using tea bags (orange pekoe, in case you are interested) -- btw, it was her idea.

Debbi's fab crochet

Osnat with Jade (awesome!)

Tanya's Jazzy Knit

Hope in English, Hebrew, Japanese, French & Sanskrit (using organic cotton, milk fibre, pima cotton, tencel, sugarcane fibre, seacell, merino wool, alpaca wool, & soysilk)

And there are many more squares.... stay tuned....