firecat

The Kiva microloan charity organization lets individuals lend money to individuals or small groups in areas like Africa and Asia via the Internet. You don't get interest on the loan, but it is repaid to you, and you can either lend it out again or withdraw it.

Kiva initially repaid lenders at the end of the loan term (typically 10 months to 18 months), but they've just changed their policy so that they repay lenders each time the loan recipient pays an installment (typically once a month). So you can get your money back faster.

I just went online to lend out my accumulated "Kiva credit." A lot of other people were doing the same thing, presumably because of this change in policy. I was refreshing the pages of several loan requests and watching the "amount still needed" drop every minute.

It is cool to watch people trying to help other people.

My lender page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/firecatstef

I am finally blocking my Flower Petal Shawl today, and I also spent some time updating Flickr and Ravelry with a few old knitting projects that I hadn't gotten around to uploading yet. Most had already been posted in my LJ but below the cut is a pair of socks that I don't think I posted about.

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firecat/flower-petal-shawl
alpaca & silk/mohair petal shawl
Pattern: Flower Petal Shawl by Elann
Needle:
US 6 / 4.0 mm
1 skein (341.1m) Habu Kasuri Silk Mohair A-32D
Purchased at: TKCS Sep 07
2 skeins (804.7m) Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud "autumn heather" (via swap with sistercoyote)

The pattern calls for worsted weight and I did it in lace weight, but it’s a reasonable size anyway. (I am not sure if I ended up doing more pattern repeats than specified.) I like how the strip of Habu works with the Alpaca Cloud.

flower petal shawl being blocked

( two more pix )