Lifeline

Last Friday was a very full day. I served as a moderator for a half-dozen senior thesis presentations, then had a short break before delivering a lecture to sixteen applicants to my academic program. I spent maybe 90 minutes in my office all day.

During one of those 90 minutes -- one of the last of them, actually -- a man poked his head in my door. I recognized that face, even though it was older and wiser than when I last saw it. Austin was a student of mine several years ago, and he has gone on to amazing things. I haven't seen him for quite a while.

He said he was in town and just dropped by the campus to see if anybody was around. I explained that my colleagues weren't in the office because they had schedules like mine that day, and that I was only a few minutes away from my next obligation, apologizing that I couldn't do more than hug him and promise to spend more time later.

Austin said that he understood, with his usual grace. He didn't seem disappointed or make me feel bad at all. But he did mention one thing he said he needed to tell me.

Not long ago he spent some time out of the country, in a place with only brief and spotty internet access. He told me he would go to my blog and open a bunch of posts in separate tabs. That way he could read through it while he didn't have internet. The blog, he said, was a lifeline.

"I haven't updated it in so long," I apologized. He said it didn't matter. Reading through the years of previous entries helped him stay connected.

My book Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women's Theological Imagination came out last November. I excused myself from a lot of other writing during the two years of intense research, writing, and editing that it took to produce. I've got another book under contract that I am about to start working on in earnest -- another reason to postpone a potential re-commitment to writing more often here. I still have this blog in a lot of social media profiles, and sometimes wonder if I should take it out since it's largely historical.

Well, historical is just one perspective. I'm glad it's here when I need it. And maybe somebody else sometimes needs it. Thanks for the view from across the ocean, Austin.

As long as you both shall live

When you teach, you get close to some of your students, and some of your students get close to you, and within those two groups there is significant overlap. When you teach college students, some of your students meet each other and fall in love, and some of those students are those who are close to you and vice versa. And some of those students end up getting married.

And when you teach religion, and your first boss was a Lutheran minister who officiated over the weddings of many of his students, some of your getting-married students will ask you to be the minister at their weddings. And although you are not called to be clergy in any established church, in this age that is no impediment to becoming a person authorized by the state to perform weddings.

That is how I became internet-ordained several years ago when the first of my students asked me to preside at their ceremony. It's the greatest honor and tribute to have this service requested of you. I've never said no.

Today is the wedding day of F. John and Hannah. I was very close to F. John when he was a student in my program a few years back, and given that he kept signing up for my classes, I would imagine he feels the same. I was the adviser for his undergraduate thesis. He was my teaching assistant for a freshman seminar.

Hannah wasn't a member of my program. But we all considered her an honorary member. She showed up at all our public events. She hung out in the dorm. She knew all the professors by their first names.

So when I got a call this summer from F. John asking me to officiate at their wedding ceremony, I was doubly pleased. I knew it was a joint decision for this couple to choose me. That's pretty special.

The event is taking place outdoors on beautiful Mt. Nebo, on a crisp but not cold fall day, with brilliant sunshine filtering through the leaves and shining off the Arkansas River visible in the valley below. I drove up yesterday for the rehearsal. The road up the mountain is "steep and crooked" according to the signs, and that's an understatement. On the way down I counted ten hairpin switchbacks. I was nervous yesterday about whether the Subaru would have the power to make it to the top, but in second gear with the A/C off, I needn't have worried. Even so, I'm glad I don't have to drive that every day.

The wedding party is filled with my students. All the groomsmen are graduates from my program. The congregation will be dotted with alumni and faculty. It's not my day -- it's F. John and Hannah's day. But I couldn't be prouder to be standing up with them at their request, speaking the words, making it all legal. From their past I appear to inaugurate their future together.

F. John runs marathons and wrote his thesis on the concept of cool. Hannah is a talented artist who knows her way around a pair of knitting needles. It's like they are far more advanced versions of myself, split into two people. Surely it's fitting that I'll be the one to tell them today that God has joined them together.

Art tasting

The end of the semester means service projects come to fruition in Honors classes. I've been kept hopping by documentary filmmakers and student researchers all swirling around the topic of public art. My freshman class used a mural painted by a student as a thesis project in their residence hall as a jumping-off point for a public education campaign and opinion polling about campus art in general.



We gathered the night before the event for all the prep. An essential element to any campus event, I've discovered, is the banner -- projected onto a bedsheet to trace the outline, then painted on by enthusiastic student artists.




Our concept was to exchange homebaked treats for responses to a quick 1-minute survey. The idea came about when my initial questionnaire of class skills revealed that eight of fourteen class members were bakers.




Even the best ideas need a helping hand. A class member's mom contributed these unsolicited and totally awesome cakepops in our theme colors.




Theme, you ask? Yes indeed. I don't consider a project really graspable or executable until we have a name that provides the core idea and the driving force. A student came up with SweetARTS, and two others designed this incredible logo, playing off the iconic SweeTarts brand.




We passed out specially-designed informational flyers with surveys attached at various locations on campus associated with public art -- the university's art gallery, the sports complex that houses mascot statuary, the library whose walls are lined with donated collections, near prominent outdoor sculptures -- and asked recipients to come to Alumni Circle, the campus's historic heart and the site of a much-ballyhooed but unfortunately abandoned public art installation a few years ago, to submit them.




The surveys (approved by our institutional review board) used pictures to assess the respondent's familiarity with outdoor sculpture on campus, and asked a few questions about the value and priority the respondent would place on campus art collections.




We were hoping to collect 100 surveys during the three hours of our public event. Community members stuffed this box with 316.




Respondents also were invited to paint or leave handprints on a temporary art wall at the Alumni Circle site.




It seems strangely appropriate that two random passersby snuck into our group photo. After all, our project was all about getting people walking through campus thinking about the art around them, and amplifying their voices. Kudos to the SweetARTS team for an amazing project!

You can follow the project results by liking our SweetARTS page on Facebook. There we'll share the full project report, including the research students did into public art and campus examples, and the results from our SweetARTS mini-survey, as well as a focus group and survey on the large mural installed as a student thesis project in the Honors residence hall last year and on opinions about the place of art within the Honors living-learning community.

Whose problem is it?

I encourage my students to knit in class ... or crochet, or play with Play-Doh, or sketch, or make rubber band balls, or whatever they want to do with their hands that doesn't involve language.  That means no surfing the net, no texting, no writing poetry.

The sight of someone knitting in class can be surprising to some people.  They may even be disturbed by it.  They may think that knitting means not paying attention.  From what students who knit in other classes tell me, most instructors have no problem with it; they're focused on performance, not appearances, and as long as the students demonstrate clearly that they are engaged and learning, they give their blessing.

But other students in their classes might feel differently. An outstanding student of mine told me about a classmate of hers in a major seminar who found her knitting difficult to take.  He made numerous references on Facebook to "the crazy girl who knits," exclaiming: "I fb and text in class but knitting?!"

I hope I don't even have to point out the craziness of that claim of crazy.  This guy believes that chatting on Facebook and carrying on text conversations on his phone is his God-given right as a red-blooded student.  Maybe he knows that the professor wouldn't exactly like it if it were waved in his face, but playing on your phone is as American as apple pie; you can't really expect someone not to do it.  Knitting, though?  That's just nuts.

Now, doing anything in class that is unexpected or unconventional draws attention.  People wonder if it's okay.  They worry that you're setting a bad example, and they suspect that you're getting away with something.  My question is whether that is your problem or theirs.  If your performance is not being affected -- maybe even is being improved -- is there a reason to be disturbed?  Maybe there's concern that others around the knitter are finding it disruptive.  My worry is that disruptiveness is a vague idea that has historically been used to keep all kinds of diversity of learning styles, teaching styles, and even student and faculty demographic segments from making an appearance in the classroom.

Knitting in class isn't just a practical act.  Taking such an activity out of the sphere to which it's been relegated -- the domestic, private sphere -- and into the larger world is a political act.  It's a statement about gender, about the material world, about the body, about value.  Is there any reason not to make the classroom safe for knitting?  I haven't yet seen the evidence against it, and I can muster several rooms full of outstanding students who will vouch for it.

Introductions

My classes are all seminars.  That means the students work as a team throughout the class.  They need each other to bring up ideas, develop them, and work through discussion topics toward learning and understanding.  They don't absorb and respond as separate individuals; they are responsible collectively for generating the material for the class, and they must contribute if they want to have anything to take and make their own.

So on the first day of my classes, we spend a lot of time getting to know each other.  I like to have the students fill out a brief questionnaire, and then share some of their answers with the class.  This semester I'm co-teaching with a colleague, and we have double the usual number of students.  So we built on my usual questionnaire in order to include items from other of our perspectives, while at the same time cutting down the number of questions in order to get through the intros expeditiously.

Today was the first day of our class, and we allotted 20 minutes to go around the room and have everyone speak. There were 27 students, so everybody had less than a minute apiece. And because of the room we were in, they were seated in a large circle with some people in a second row behind.

Yet despite these disadvantages, it was one of the most invigorating introductory sessions I've ever experienced. In the end, it wasn't due to our structure or prep.  It was one simple choice that student after student made when they stood to introduce themselves.  They turned to speak to their fellow students instead of talking to the instructors.

We didn't tell them to do that.  We didn't give any indication about why the introductions were happening at all.  But over and over again, it happened.  The students stood and told each other, not us, who they were and what movies they liked and where they'd like to live if they could live anywhere and what's unexpectedly changed about them in the last few years.  

I was moved, I confess.  No lectures about how they needed to work together were needed here.  They were already in seminar mode.  If that twenty minutes is any indication, it's going to be a great semester.

Passing the torch

Tonight I said goodbye to two students who have been at my side almost continuously for the last two years.  Tamami and Ariel are the founders and have been the officers of Knitwise, the Honors knit and crochet society, since its inception.  They've been my teaching assistants in the handcrafting class.  I supervised both of their theses, which were about knitting.

And now they've both gone and graduated on me in the same semester, in the middle of the year no less.  Only a dozen Honors students finished their undergraduate degrees this December, but two of them were Tamami and Ariel.  I feel somewhat unfairly targeted, I must admit.

What Tamami and Ariel have done, however, is spread their enthusiasm and taught the next generation so that there are many students ready to take their place.  I've remarked to everyone I know that this was the year yarn-crafting exploded in our community.  We hit some kind of critical mass where people started teaching their friends who started teaching their friends, and where there were enough people knitting in classes or meetings that other closet crafters felt emboldened to take it public and non-crafters wanted to get in on the action.

Now I feel a responsibility to keep that community nourished.  Without Tamami and Ariel taking on the responsibility of creating and expanding it for the last few years, there'd be little more for me to nourish than the two or three knitters who showed up early on.  Now it's not uncommon to have a dozen or more every week, with new folks arriving to tell me excitedly about their learning process, and novices stopping by for lessons.  The circle is self-sustaining, and that means Tamami and Ariel can take their incredible teaching talents and enthusiasm elsewhere.  I am in their debt both as their teacher, their colleague, and their group's faculty sponsor.

Farewell party

I've never been good at ending classes.  I work so hard to form a community in the classroom, to have students work together on meaningful projects, to create an atmosphere that fosters change far beyond the classroom walls for the participants.  And then the calendar just scatters everyone.

Every semester I search for some suitable conclusion.  The typical final exam, with students writing in blue books silently then leaving one by one, clearly doesn't cut it.  We have potluck meals, I invite students to say a few words.  But it's not ceremonial enough.  I still just feel like we have drifted apart.  The momentousness of our time together fades away without a proper acknowledgement out loud.  I know some students understand it, and a few tell me privately, but it's not just their individual experience I want to honor.  It's our collective effort.

Do you have any examples of classes you've experienced or taught, or even of retreats or seminars, that ended well -- with a sense of closure and reflection, sending you away with a feeling of what you were a part of?  I'd love to hear about them.

Avoidance

Work you don't want to do can lead you to find other work, sometimes to a perverse degree. Right now I'm avoiding the intense and repetitive work of evaluating student work before final grades are due next Monday.

And what I've chosen to do instead is work I could easily have avoided entirely.  There are a dozen students graduating this December, and we're holding our usual banquet for them and their families this Friday.  At the May version of this banquet, when the numbers of graduates have sometimes reaches eighty or nine in recent years, my boss gives an address.  Several years ago, he asked me to take over giving the address in December, to give him a rest from speaking and often giving the same talk twice a year.

We're not going to have any December banquets after next year; the size of our entering classes have dwindled by a third due to scholarship cuts, and the winter graduating cohort will be able to be counted on one hand.  Those graduates will be invited to the May banquet in the same calendar year.  And so I've got only a couple more of these talks to give, and coincidentally a couple of talks already written that work in pretty much any year.

You see where this is going.  Instead of grading, I'm writing a new address.  In fact, I've probably done this same thing two or three times before during my time in this role.  I tell myself it's because I've got something new to say, or some thought I want to get out of my head and into a more coherent form.  This year I'm trying to coalesce some of the thoughts about quality that my seniors and juniors in the past two semesters have expressed in their final presentations, and give them back to the students in a form that will let them see the collection whole.

But really my writing comes from the same impulse that leads us to clean our homes, or organize our desks, or rearrange our computer's document filing system.  It's a way of putting off the work we don't want to do at the moment without giving up on working altogether.  Work that doesn't actually have to be done at all, let alone that second, is the purest form of avoidance.

Perfection

On Wednesday night, my students gave their presentations about quality work.  Many of them remarked on perfectionism; a few embraced it as an impetus to quality, but more used their experience pushing past their first imperfect knitting experiences as a indicator that they needed to look at other indicators of quality, like effort and intention.

A week ago I grabbed a spare hour from the kids while Noel was gone to Chicago, and I cut the fabrics for my next sewing project.  Midway through the week I looked at the pattern again and realized I had miscut the interfacing; it bugged me until today I was able to get out the pieces and cut them down to size.

Then I looked at the pattern again and realized I had missed an entire paragraph in the cutting section; there were two pieces of lining fabric I hadn't cut at all.  Luckily the fat quarter of lining fabric I had bought was really a large remnant, with plenty of extra.  But while squaring it off to cut those two remaining pieces, I separated it into sections that weren't either one wide enough to get the longer piece of of.  I had to piece it together, which was a first for me.  Pressing forward, I managed to sew the lining together right-side-to-wrong-side, with stitches too small to rip; I had to cut those pieces again, and it took me another two tries to get the bottom semicircle cut correctly.

When I first started knitting, I didn't know the difference between a mistake you can recover from and one you need to correct before you can go on.  I compounded a lot of errors and ended up with a lot of disappointments.  Now, I still have a momentary flash when I miscross a cable or miscount stitches.  I think: Maybe I can just leave it.  Maybe I can just fix it in the next row.  It lasts a few seconds before I resign myself to ripping back and fixing it.

Sewing requires precision at the outset, in the cutting and the pattern reading.  At this point, early in my experience, this stresses me out.  I haven't got a system for keeping all the pieces straight in such a way that I know what I have and whether it's all of them, and the stuff I know I should be paying attention to, like grain and the directionality of the pattern, all flies out the window when I'm trying to find a way to get  8.5 inches by 7 inches out of the fabric I have left from the quarter-yard.

Being a beginner at making things is hard not only because you don't do a very good job right off the bat. You also ruin a lot of material.  When you really want to learn to make things, it's often the material that attracts you.  And it's painful to ruin it with your clumsy mistakes.  But that's the nature of practice.  And in the quest for quality, practice is necessary, and perfectionism is one of the tools you can wield in that practice -- not the only one, and not good for every task, but essential for your toolbox.  Just keep it and your thriftiness far away from each other.

Conflict and consensus

I've had a bit of a tough day. There was more conflict than I prefer, and that's difficult to take at a time when the semester is winding down and we'd all like to move forward.  I get frustrated at three steps forward, two steps back, and sometimes it feels like all three steps.

But tonight I get to spend two hours with my amazing students in the Craft Wisely class, the ones that accomplished so much this semester.  They will be explaining, in the most animated and convivial way possible, what quality work means to them.  Judging by the practice presentations they did earlier in the semester, I expect tonight to be less a high-stakes evaluation moment than a celebration of their abilities and insights -- as well as a collective affirmation of the work we've done together.

For a look at our sale in moving pictures, check out this video from the UCA YouTube channel.  Can you feel the love?

Eight hundred forty-seven

Yesterday I showed you the handmade donations from our sale going into their box and one step closer to the children for whom they were created.  Today I want to showcase the customers and the beautiful, warm, colorful accessories they took home.



Claire snagged this Malabrigo slip-stitch infinity scarf by yours truly.



As this student donates his cabled scarf, he's hanging onto a striped tasseled crochet scarf by Ariel.



This supporter donated a baby blanket and got Ashley H.'s big fleece throw with a music motif for his very own.



Vice President Gale has a huge haul behind that red earflap hat he's donating -- a white cashmere scarf by me, red fingerless gloves by Brittany, and a yellow ski hat by Molly.



How happy is this student to be getting Emma's pink variegated scarf and Kearstin's yellow lace headband?



Jennifer is thrilled to be acquiring Brittany's white headband embellished with a crochet flower, while she donates a blue hat to a CASA child.



One of my favorite pieces in the sale was Bethany's ribbed scarf in self-striping yarn, bought by Justin.



Justin is modeling the other piece is bought -- far-flung supporter Diane's rugged wool hat with knotted cables.



This customer acquired my bamboo blend single-cable reversible scarf in my favorite color -- true red.



Infinity scarves! They're so versatile and contemporary, and this patron got the perfect color for our campus: UCA purple a la Brittany.



Paulette bought a pair of cozy fingerless gloves and a handful of crochet flowers, all generously made for us by talented supporters.



Love these bobbled mittens made by Craft Wisely alumnus Tamami and bought by Brittany E.



Tamami's not just a crafter -- she's also a customer. She purchased this clutch I made to use as a cosmetic bag.



Class member Ashley H. (left) was lucky enough to snag this magnificent hat made by the prolific and talented Brittany.



This young man has a definite eye for style, as proven by his selection of Brittany's stunning orange infinity scarf.



Happy students with a beautiful fringed scarf made by our supporter Jenny.



How about this hip guy with a bold purple and orange skater beanie courtesy of Tamami?



Talented supporter Amber made dozens of these crocheted flowers which were in high demand as hair and clothing accessories or decor, as this customer (a crafter herself!) demonstrates.



One of the final items purchased was this horse-themed fleece blanket made by Debra, a faculty supporter. It perfectly matched this customer's Western purse.



Amber's flowers closed out the sale thanks to my colleague Adam and this enthusiastic booster.

Eight hundred forty-seven dollars -- that's the total that all these wonderful, wonderful people contributed. For their money they received the work of our hands and the gratitude of our hearts, not to mention the spiritual and communal benefits of contributing to children in our county for whom we as a society have taken responsibility.

Twenty-one

The students in my class were introduced to twenty-one clients -- infants, children, teenagers -- who have been taken from their parents because of abuse and neglect.  We learned their names, ages, and a few details about them, like their favorite colors.  Today twenty-one items made especially for them were donated by customers at our fundraising sale.  Over and over again, throughout the day, customers cut a piece of yarn connecting the item they bought from the item that we made for the client -- a hat separated from a hat, a scarf from a scarf, a blanket from a blanket.  And then they put the client's handmade object in the donation box.  Softly it filled.  At the end of the day, our gift box was full, and the generosity of the crafters and the buyers alike was spilling over.  The sum is far more than twenty-one.

Warm gesture

A nice writeup about last week's Craft-In by Caroline Zilk, with two outstanding photos by Rusty Hubbard, appeared in today's paper!  I'm reproducing the text below since much of the paper is behind a subscription paywall, and I don't know how many of you will have access to it.  All content copyright held by its creators and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Warm gesture

Honors College students hold Craft-In for CASA

BY CAROLINE ZILK
Staff Writer 

    Several members of the Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway carried around pointy sticks on Nov. 3.
    “So don’t mess with us,” Honors College Associate Dean Donna Bowman joked.
    The Honors College held a Craft-In service project for its seminar called “Craft Wisely: The Past, Present and Future of Handmade.”
    Bowman’s students were responsible for designing the project and choosing an organization to work with: Court Appointed Special Advocates.
    “Our syllabus specifies that there be at least one public event associated with the project, and the Craft-Ins fulfill that requirement,” Bowman said.
    “It’s an idea carried over from the same course last fall, where we did a Craft-In on campus to promote the work of Conway Cradle Care.”
    On the steps of Ferguson Chapel on the afternoon of Nov. 3, Honors College students, as well as other members of the UCA campus and Conway communities, knitted and crocheted scarves and other warm winter items for children in the court and foster systems throughout the state.
    UCA student Monica Runge said CASA provided the volunteers a list of names with the children’s favorite colors so the students could personalize their projects.
    Runge is a biology major who happens to love knitting, and she said she was one of many excited to help out CASA.
    “I believe everyone involved in this project is very strongly motivated to help other people,” she said. “We almost feel a personal connection making these items for these kids. It’s great to be able to help them just a little bit.”
    Bowman said CASA has partnerships with several groups on campus, especially students and faculty in the family and consumer sciences department, who often make things for CASA’s clients.
    The Honors College’s Craft-In is the first of two public events in conjunction with the project. The second will be a “buy one, give one” sale on Dec. 1.
    “We will have handmade winter accessories for sale in conjunction with items made specifically for CASA clients — kids who have been removed from abuse or neglect in their homes and are in the care of the court,” Bowman said. “Customers can buy the linked items, keep the one that’s for sale and donate the one made for the CASA child.”
    Bowman said this project is important because many of her students have benefited from a good support system and parents who took care of their children, while, on the other hand, the CASA kids have had a tough break.
    “It’s a long-term drag on their self-esteem and their future,” Bowman pointed out. “Some of them will have good outcomes, and some are going to have a lot of trouble.”
    However, if Bowman and the Honors College have anything to do with it, the children at least all will have warm hats, scarves and mittens this winter.
    “These kids are going to be our neighbors pretty soon. Maybe if they’re lucky, they’ll be on our campus, and they need any step back up that we can give them,” Bowman said.
    Staff writer Caroline Zilk can be reached at (501) 244-4326 or
czilk@arkansasonline.com.

RUSTY HUBBARD/RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION 
Sarah Rawlinson, a junior at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, knits while participating in the Craft-In service project held Nov. 3 by the UCA Honors College to benefit the youths in the Court Appointed Special Advocates program.

RUSTY HUBBARD/RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION University of Central Arkansas students participate in the Honors College Craft-In, a service project for the CASA program held Nov. 3 on the steps of the university’s Ferguson Chapel.

The warmth of family

Today was chilly and rainy, with temperatures dropping and students huddling into their hoodies and under their umbrellas.  When it turns cold, I think of the emotions that the weather suggests -- and "cold" equates to "lonely."

There are good reasons for that association.  The best kind of warmth comes from other people -- from their body heat, their energy.  The warmest place to be in winter is a cozy home, and home is associated with family.

When we must endure cold, we sink into ourselves; we hold our arms close to our chests, hunch our shoulders to shorten our necks, fold our legs up and reduce our surface area as best we can.  It's the opposite of the openness of sociality, when we untangle our limbs, lean in toward another, exchange the spark of conversation, kindle smiles and laughter.

Large social institutions are often described as "cold." We mean that their processes aren't directed by human feeling but by routine, bureaucracy, inflexible rules.  They don't have hearts to be warmed by love or compassion, to be moved by a person's story or need.

How cold would it feel to be both alone and in the grip of one of those big institutions?  The children that CASA serves are in this situation.  They have been taken from their families; they are alone.  Sometimes they have siblings with them; sometimes they can't stay together in a single foster home, or don't want to because their chances of being adopted as a group are much slimmer than on their own.

They are subject to the grindingly slow pace, arcane rules, and rigid processes of the court.  For years their cases drag on, sometimes with an eventual resolution in view to work toward, often not.  Meanwhile they are files to be shuffled, appointments to be kept, problems to be disposed, complications to be dealt with.

It must be very cold there, away from your family, waiting for the justice system to decide where you are to be put.  Even in the hottest summer, you might shiver and curl up within yourself.  And when the weather matches the chill of that loneliness, that impersonal setting of the court, the cold must be compounded.

So the knitted and crocheted warmth of the scarves, hats, gloves, and blankets that my students are making for them seems triply apt.  They are not at risk of succumbing to the cold outside, although everybody can take comfort in warm clothes to wear.  But the cold inside -- the cold of separation, the cold of being a case file in an overworked lawyer's briefcase -- does put them at risk.

If there aren't enough people saying loud enough, often enough, and honestly enough that these kids matter, then they will freeze inside.  If there aren't enough people to demonstrate by actions that these kids are individuals and not cogs in the wheels of family court, then they will live the rest of their lives without seeing any reason why they should be held accountable, without any reason to believe they could decide for themselves about their future.  If there aren't enough people prying open these kids' arms and lifting their heads, they will hibernate, isolated, begging without words for a rescue they cannot imagine.

If you want to be one of those people, join us.  Follow our project on Facebook at http://facebook.com/CraftinForCASA; we'll tell you how you can help.

We want to share the warmth of yarn and fabric, ribbing and cables, ears and necks and hands covered.  But far more important is the other kind of warmth -- the care we can show with a scarf that's a teenage girl's favorite color, a hat with a seven-year-old boy's name stitched on the inside, a soft toy that a two-year-old can hug.  Made just for them, by people who want them to know they matter.  A gift of warmth in every way imaginable.

Clouds, chill, and crafting for CASA's children

Today was the first Craft-In for CASA. My class and allied crafters gathered in the center of campus to knit, crochet, teach, and spread the word about the CASA kids we are working to help.




We were many.




And we were mighty.



Molly's hat, ready to add the earflaps.




Ashley and Kendall consult on yarn choice.




Ashlyn's project matches her sweater.




Monica and Claire craft while wearing items they've crafted.




Tamami and Lydia are ready for fall with colorful wooly hats.




Ariel won't let the cold stop her; she has a handmade scarf to wear while she knits a new one.




Emyleigh starts a pair of baby booties in fashionable fall colors.




Emma brought gifts from a knitter who's decided to participate in our effort.




Bruce D. Bear, UCA mascot, gets a quick knitting lesson from Monica.




And the beat goes on. Taylor gets his first lesson ...




... and so does Connie.




The hour went so quickly. Thanks to everyone who came. Let's do it again -- only bigger and better -- on November 3!  Like the project on Facebook to get all the updates and join in!