charity Craft In for the National Kidney Foundation

When I offered Holly a custom spindle as a drawing prize for her Craft In to benefit the National Kidney Foundation, I wasn't sure what sort of design to do. Crazy flower? Regular flowers? Zombie Prom Date Knitter themed? Something more specific to the event? I consulted Holly and her dad, Marty (recipient of a donor kidney from his son).

"Put a kidney on it," says Holly.

"Kidneys are ugly," says Marty.

A challenge if ever I heard one...

Em looked at it and said, "Weird."

Abi looked at it and said, 'like...pretty kidneys!"

It's pretty kidneys, tree of life (the renal medulla "leaves" are flower buds for new growth and flames for hope), butterfly-ish (rebirth, new life) with a purple heart for courage and some lime green and orange thrown in because they're Holly's fav colors.

I predicted Holly and Marty would love it. The winner, maybe not so much. I planned to offer the winner a choice of this or a plain one.

As it turned out, a great time was had by all. The winner of quite possibly the only kidney spindle ever (though I have a request from Carina for a single kidney) loves it. She and Linda learned to spindle that day. When Linda's name was drawn for a prize, she was so disappointed the spindle was already snatched up, I had to throw in the one she was learning on as a prize. Of course, there was some fun commentary as to how no one else would want it after she parked it in her arm pit.