charlotte – my first non-usa donation

i am knitting the charlotte sweater from the gorgeous dauphine (#14) book. first of all: beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!!!

one evening, several times, i read the decrease directions for the tops of the sleeves and i couldn’t figure it out. it just made no sense. i had to sleep on it and look at it again the next morning. no sense. and then again when i got home from work. nothing! in fact, i thought it was an error and googled “louisa harding pattern corrections”. the links i saw didn’t result in any corrections for the charlotte pattern. so i googled “louisa harding charlotte pattern corrections” and one of the first few links i saw took me to this purse pattern:

i just got back a couple of weeks ago from africa where i taught orphans, their house moms, and even some of the cooks at the village of hope how to knit. my goal is to provide them with a trade for their futures, and in the meantime i’m going to show them how to make some simple items that can be sold and the money can be put back into the village of hope, so the village can become self-sustaining.

so when i happened upon this purse pattern, i thought, now wouldn’t that be funny if i looked at the charlotte sweater pattern again and it made perfect sense, and the only reason why it didn’t make sense before is because God wanted me to search for a correction and find this purse pattern??

and i swear to you i looked at the pattern again and i actually read it correctly and went, “OH! THAT’S what it’s saying, i’ve been reading it wrong.”

so.. as you may imagine, i couldn’t just let that go. there had to be a reason for it. i couldn’t not do anything.

so i messaged the designer of the pattern (through ravelry, a site for knitters and crocheters. love it. if you’re not on it, get on it. if you are – find me. i’m orangesque). i laid out this very story and asked her if she would be willing to donate the pattern for the kids to use and make product to sell for a profit for the village.

after several days of not hearing from her, i thought – ok. maybe i was just putting that in front of her for God to move her in another way (for i had no doubt God’s hand was in this). i just prayed about it and if i heard from her – great! – and if i didn’t, well that was great, too.

then i finally got an answer: “i would be honored.”

she emailed me the pattern and even gave me permission to customize or embellish. and of course, she would love to see some of the finished pieces.

she’s from england and so this is my first non-usa donation for this incredible knitting project.

OH! i cannot WAIT to teach the kids how to make this and then send photos back to louisa and i pray that she is blessed by her generosity.

and i am once again marinating in God’s goodness and the truly amazing ways He works. that i even get to participate in this thrills me.

as an aside – here is another pattern i am going to teach the kids to make. heck – i’d wear it!!