Ewe and Eye and Friends – The Lyf So Short

Mother's Day by Ewe & Eye and Friends — “Mother’s Day” by Ewe & Eye and Friends

Culled from the very best of the interwebs, I bring you:

Adventures in Knitting (thanks to martinimade for pointing out this little gem)
Yet another article on how knitting can benefit your health. This one recaps CNN’s “This is Your Brain” episode about the cognitive benefits of crafting in alleviating depression, stress, and anxiety. Here’s a recap of the recap on the Huffington Post UK. It’s like “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” but with links about knitting.
Apparently, the Washington Post has discovered knitting. Here’s an interesting article about a program to teach prisoners how to knit as part of their “resocialization” process. The photo gallery is worth a look; they sure look like they’re having a lot of fun.

On a personal note, it’s Mother’s Day here in the United States, the day we celebrate all the mothers in our lives and thank them for all that they’ve done for us. My own mother passed away from breast cancer in the spring of 1997. Not a day goes by that I’m not reminded of her and I think about all the time she was robbed of by dying at such a relatively young age. I especially feel her absence now that she has grandchildren and I know they would have brought her so much happiness, happiness she richly deserved.

To honor her here, I’ve posted the photo of the last Mother’s Day gift I ever gave my mother, a stitched design is called “Mother’s Day” by (the now sadly defunct) Ewe and Eye and Friends. Pardon the shadows, bad lighting and photography issues — my mother passed along many talents to me, but unfortunately photography was not one of them.

GIVEAWAY: Since this beautiful design is no longer in print, it’s very hard to find, but I am offering my used pattern in good condition (not the actual stitched version, obviously) to anyone who wants it. It would make a great gift for your mother too. Leave me a comment below to let me know you’re interested. Thanks for reading my blog, and please take some time out today to thank the mother(s) in your life!

Several years ago, I bought this Heart’s Content kit called “Ewe & Eye Needlecase” at the big spring sale at Needles & Niceties in Upland, CA. I have a weakness both for sheep designs and one-over-one stitching. I started this project right away, but was soon overwhelmed by the difficulty of doing one-over-one stitching on 36-count with a beige linen background with one strand of light beige DMC embroidery floss.

My eyes have yet to hit middle age, but after about a half-hour of stitching under these conditions, I felt like they had. I made a decision to work on this project only in the middle of the day and only under direct sunlight. Needless to say, that somewhat limits one’s stitching opportunities. My progress on the needlecase slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped altogether.

As much as I love this project, I must admit that it’s been sitting in my UFO pile for at least three years now. So, now that it’s winter and sunlight is a limited commodity, I’ve decided to pull it out and start working on it again. Logical, eh?

Here’s my progress so far–stay tuned for more updates: