SuccessSunday II

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to drawback, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and materials assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can. ..begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
--author W.N. Murray, THE SCOTTISH HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION, 1951

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Socks for Soldiers in Progress

Information from this website says:

All soldiers yearn for care packages from home, and Socks for Soldiers is one of the organizations currently answering that yearning. Their specialty is providing sturdy, comfortable knitted socks to replace or supplement standard issue for soldiers engaged in our current War on Terror.

Socks for Soldiers is the brainchild of Kim Opperman, whose oldest son, Tom, first brought the problem to her attention. Tom serves overseas with the U.S. Air Force, and at one point he told his mom that he wished that all his fellow soldiers could have a pair of her comfy hand-knitted socks. Kim decided she could probably handle that. In May 2006, she founded Socks for Soldiers, a knitting group dedicated to providing as many pairs of socks to American soldiers as they could. Before long, the organization had received federal recognition as a non profit charity.

Kim Opperman, also referred to as "Sarge," is requesting 10,000 knitters to join her in supplying hand knit, washable wool socks to our troops. Opperman's goal is to "keep knitting (Big Black Socks) until the last American soldier steps off the plane onto American soil". At the moment, the goal is 100,000 pairs. Knitting for Charity says:

While the military does its best, it has to clothe millions of people as inexpensively as it can. Sadly, the acrylic and nylon socks modern soldiers get wear out quickly and can cause blisters. That's not the case with Big Black Socks knitted by Socks for Soldiers.

Operating under the theory that an army travels on its feet rather than its stomach, Kim soon amassed a group of over a thousand knitters from every branch of the military and every walk of civilian life. The VFW, the American Legion, and the Red Cross got involved, too.

Here is the progress so far on knitting my first pair of socks for friend Army Major Marc Reyher in Afghanistan. This camo sock was started on June 20, 2008, and 27 days after its start, the first sock is close to completion. It is not knitting up quickly, but steady wins the race, right?

A Socks for Soldiers knitting forum can be found here: knittinghelp, and the Yahoo supported chat forum can be found here at The Yahoo Group if you want more information about helping in this cause.

Beading Watch Bands

My fun watch handcrafted by a Carolina crafter was given to me by my daughter. I not only hurt my pride when I fell on it, but also shattered one of the ceramic beads on its band. Result of this mishap: unhappiness in breaking the watch and one ugly bruise. I replaced the broken bead and continued on.

And then the battery eventually died. I tried to buy a replacement battery, but realized the battery cost more than a brand new working watch face. (New watch faces are available at the craft store for about $9.)

So I decided I had done everything I could to repair that gifted watch, and tossed it. Sigh. On to the next craft adventure: making a beaded band for a watch face.

Here were the tools required to fashion a new watchband:

1: the new watch face with included battery
2: strong black fishing line ... there are lots of available cords, but my husband's tool box was handy for raiding
3: dichroic glass beads, cloisonne beads, spacer beads, jump rings
4: a pair of wire cutters and a couple of pair of beading crimpers

Here is a picture of most of the stash used:

If you visit this website, you will find information from start to finish on how to make a watchband with three strings of beads on each side of the watch face. Be sure to purchase your watch face before trying this particular tutorial, because many watch faces do not have three places to tie in your beads.

The watch I had purchased was made with one loop on each side of the face, so I used two medium weight strands of black fishing line through each side of the face, strung the glass beads onto the line, and secured the ends of the clasp to each end of the four-inch strand of beads.

The picture on the right shows half of the completed watch band. Remember a little glue to secure knotted ends never hurts.

And here is the completed watch (and matching earrings -- a tutorial on how to make them was given here here in a previous post).

Two more websites that I found useful for making beaded watchbands are here and here. The picture does not show the shimmering dichroic beads very well, but the process of making them gives beautiful results. You might be interested in reading about dichroic glass here.