By Danny Gregory

Published by Papress.

This book is gorgeous, sad, funny, quirky and alive with the spirit of a man living through and trying to survive a life changing circumstance. His wife has been run over by a train and is paralysed, they have a small son and live in New York. The story is a tale of survival of a man trying to understand and come to terms with how this one event is going to affect his life and their life together, their plans for the future and their everyday. It is at times heart wrenching, but also incredibly thoughtful and honest and true.

This book is a conglomerate of Danny’s many diaries and sketch books, it is filled with everyday matters (hence the title of the book), each day lived with the small things enjoyed. It is a book about the love he has for his wife and family and friends and about the lessons he has learned and is still learning.

This is a brave story and beautiful story. Thank you Danny for sharing it.

A plea from an Australian wool farmer thank you Caity for sending in this letter.

Dear Kath and all at Whip Up,

I know this is not the sort of thing you normally promote on your wonderful, informative site, but there are so many crafters out there who use wool, I’m hoping you’ll consider this brilliant link.

The Kiely family, of New South Wales, grow super fine merino sheep - for fleece, not meat. And they’re doing it really tough in the worst drought in a thousand years. So they’ve hit on a brilliant idea - you can adopt one of their sheep for AU$35 (about US$27), which will keep them hand fed for the next 100 days (hopefully long enough for drought breaking rains to fall). You get to name your sheep and can even send emails to be read to the flock!

We crafters use a lot of wool - I use wool batts for all my quilts, and I know there are knitters galore out there - this is our little chance to give some hope back to a struggling industry. I really hope you will consider this link. I have no affiliations (except for being an ex-farm girl myself) and I reckon these are good people with a sustainable philosophy, which ties into what we’re all trying to achieve with our craft.

Thanks,
Caity

and Denise from knitchat writes in with this link to knitters build a house, a charity she has set up to get a house built for the Earl family, victims of Katrina, before the FEMA trailer they have called home is taken, leaving them homeless.