Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Greetings from sunny (and hot) Oklahoma. It's spring break here - Kaitlyn and Joe are skiing in Winter Park, CO while Kristen and I are enjoying the 85 degree heat here in Norman. I finished another prayer shawl. This one I did with some leftover balls of yarn. I tried to keep it to red, white and blue. This is the first time I did a triangular shawl. I really liked the way it turned out and I think I'll make more. During Lent, our prayer shawl circle meets every Monday evening to get as many made as we can. They are blessed in a church service the week before Easter. Then we have a spring "tea" with bonnets and all the Sunday after Easter. The shawls are kept with the care ministry until someone needs one to give out. We have given out a total of 1,000 shawls since we started the ministry 3 years ago in February. That's a lot of busy hands! I love making them. The last one I gave to Joe's mother (below) when his step-dad died a few weeks ago. It's strange, but it took me sooo long to make it (like 5 months), but God knew that if I finished too early I would give it to the church and he needed me to give it to her. God always knows who the shawls will go to when we start them.

I have only given two others to family members. A beautiful yellow one to my cousin Valerie before she died of lung cancer, and a beautiful white one to Joe's Aunt Cindy, when her husband died last summer. The one I gave to Valerie:

The one I gave to Aunt Cindy:

If you ever need me to make one for you, please let me know. If I can't make one soon enough, we do send them all over the United States from the church (you don't have to belong to our church). And we don't send them for sad reasons only. Sometimes they are sent when ladies have babies, get married, or a myriad of other reasons. You can also start a prayer shawl ministry in your church, too. We don't just make shawls either. We make scarves to give to college students, graduating high school seniors, to give out during the Mexico mission trips. We make dish cloths for the new brides at the church, baby blankets for new babies. It's pretty much anything goes. All of our yarn is provided for free. That's how our ministry got started. A lady at the church died and her husband donated all her yarn (a WHOLE GARAGE FULL). It took several people weeks to separate it all and put it in bins. Other people at the church donate money to purchase more yarn for us. We have about twenty 18-gallon tubs full of every kind and color of yarn you can imagine. Once a month, we hold a meeting and invite anyone that wants to learn how to knit or crochet to our meetings. We've had girls, boys, men and women attend.