The Cricket is chirping along

I'm simply enchanted with how magically this houndstooth check appears as I weave on the Cricket:

I would never have imagined it was that simple. The warp is 2 gray, 2 black all the way across. I weave 2 picks with gray, 2 with black, careful to pick up each new color by passing it under the one I just put down, so they twine together at the selvage. That's it. The houndstooth check just appears as I weave.

There's a charitable group on Ravelry, For the Children of Pine Ridge, that knits for the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The poverty there is gut-wrenching, with about an 80% unemployment rate. (All those companies sending manufacturing jobs overseas really need to rethink that when there are parts of this country in desperate need of meaningful employment.) The group is doing a "Babies and Elders" campaign this month and next. I thought I'd put my Cricket to work making wooly scarves. I ordered some closeout washable wool blend yarn from WEBS, but accidentally bought the fingering weight instead of the worsted weight I had intended. Instead of waiting for the 12-dent heddle that I ordered to get here, I doubled the yarn. It seems to be working well, and in fact, I like the fabric that it's making. I chose black and gray (and have tan and brown as well) because the group says they don't get a lot of things for men, and the men there tend to prefer conservative colors.

The one thing I worried about in getting a Cricket was, "What else can I make besides scarves? How many scarves can I really use?" I might not need many, but there are others in the world who can use a warm scarf. I'll get to practice different weave patterns, and other people will get warm woolies.