good, goodwill

how on earth could i pass up these jars at $1.99 each?  seriously?

and i didn’t find what i was looking for but then found this happy yellow saucepan instead.  i really think it was never used and i feel ever so fortunate to have found it.  hubs laughs at me and this little pan.  yes, i’m attached.

happy moments.

and you know what?  i finished that little blanket.  even mama couldn’t believe the record time on this one.  now that it’s blocked and dry it’s soft and squishy and any baby could love it.  it’s so, so good.

i have a house full of children tonight and when i say house full i mean four which for many people is a cake walk - not even their entire brood.  if i’m speaking to you, how do you do it??? HA!  i feel like when mae runs upstairs and shuts my door it means they’re up to no good.  i should investigate.

happy thursday you beautiful people! xo

Wobble Leggies to start.

first, a knitty bit.  i just posted these little leggies as a free pattern.  you can find it here or under my shop link up above.  simple.  fast.  snuggly.  done.

i still haven’t found the time to button up the millie pattern but it will happen when the drag of other things subsides.  i’ve been hustling to get wears made for homespun so that i can ship them out… tomorrow even?  can i do it?  i bet so.  and i have a box that i’ve been compiling for my lady in the mountains.  it’s good.  it makes me happy.  the sun has finally begun shining on us here in corn country.  man did we miss it.  i don’t think i even realized how gray the world has been until i went out early this morning and realized the landscape was tinted pink.  sunrise, wow.  hi! i haven’t seen you in so long!

i’m happy to see monday today, too.  with the change in our schedule and the birthday celebrations with friends and family from thurday to sunday i’m seriously tired and now realize we know a fist full of aquarian people.  last night we celebrated with our sweet friends from metamorphosis and i’m telling you - a first birthday can be intense! monday comes and everything slows.  wow.  

my girl turned 11 on thursday.  yep.  weird.  her sister was so excited about getting her some gifts and wrapping and baking and surprising with balloons and song and we really had a great time of it.

but, my big girl… she’s going through a lot of changes and i’ve been having one hell of a time navigating her.  i’m really feeling an ache about this - mostly because i don’t see a smile on her face much any more.  the weight is coming on her and i remember it, but holy moly!  coming at it from the parent’s side is hard.  time magazine had a great article about raising introverted children in an extroverted community and it gave me a frame of reference.  our poor babe is an introverted air child not only in an extrovert society, but in an extrovert home with water people.  i’ve taken some cues from the article and i’ve already begun approaching her in a different manner.  we’ll see how it goes.

as for the rest of the week… it was full of friends and love and yarn.

mae got to play with mr. nelson and it was just darling watching them together.  such a sweet boy.  oh how we miss him!

i got to play with my friend, too.

you can see things from his lens here.

we also stopped by one of our lys and i grabbed some delicious malabrigo…

i have big plans for this yummy stuff, but i think i’d better get organized first.  i’m working on two patterns right now and i’ve already decided it’s too much.  i have notes spread out all over my work table, my computer desk, my book shelf, on business cards, and on my phone.  i foresee a shit storm.  i’ve been working on a hooded jacked with a lot of shaping and the vision is there i’m just not sure what happened to the drive.

i’m also working on a short sleeved summer sweater in a cotton & linen blend yarn that i normally wouldn’t be interested in.  it’s a flat yarn and those usually give me the creeps but this one is soft and delicate and when it’s knit up it doesn’t have that flat yarn edge.  does that make sense?  HA!  so they have both sort of stopped in place and are waiting for me to figure it out.  my brain is telling me to get that cropped jacket off the needles since i really only have a few more inches before separating the sleeves, but my hands say no way.  the summer sweater is giving me fits because i’m such a one-piece-wonder that the mere thought of knitting the sleeves separately and sewing them on is giving me a stomach ache.  it’s a construction issue.  i’m being such a cry baby!  so… that’s that.

i’ll leave you with a few quiet moments from last week.  xo

where did i go? & millie pattern tester call-out!

busy days and they’re about to get busier.  i’m glad for it but i’m going through one of those phases of feeling i’m getting too little done.  i suppose that is part of the flow of things.  i’ll just sit here and be thankful to have such a busy mind and let my hands do what they can with it.

i’ve been meaning to post pics from our play date at mare’s where she laid down some photo magic!

what a blessing it is to have such talented friends.  have i said that before?  pardon me for repeating myself.  i still need pattern testers for millie, so LET ME KNOW IF YOU’RE INTERESTED!  it’ll be written and ready to go by the middle of the week.  i have so many patterns swarming around in my head and honestly, making them a reality is the easy part.  i really hate pattern writing.  getting that pen to paper or fingertip to key is just torture.  my apologies to heather because i swear i started writing out the little prairie shawl pattern and then just… stopped.  what the heck?  i’ll get it done.  it sometimes takes me an awful long time to push past the invisible walls.

time time time.  it sucks.  i’m not liking it much at all right now.  hubs got his new job - he starts monday and i put in my notice at work (again) so in theory, i should have MORE time but it rarely works out that way.  hubs will be working six days a week which means if i need a night off i’ll be calling upon the grandparents.  this is a tricky thing to do.  for once in my life i feel like i could benefit from sitting around a knit shop with perfect strangers and doing work.  just work!  not stopping for the 200th time because someone is hungry or the dog needs to go out or come in or the tv is doing something weird or she is being mean and that’s your lip gloss and if i hear the word “mom” one more time i’m gonna delete it from the english language.  so yes… and i’d choose a knit night over a coffee shop because frankly, i can’t take much more of the staring and whispering or maybe under-the-breath-blabbing that takes place two feet from me.  i know.  i’m knitting and it’s totally freaking you out because your grandmother’s aunt used to knit and you learned to crochet that one time and i look like a weirdo and why am i knitting - you bet it’s a hat.  ok.  it’s the exit conversation that ices that cake where they say everything they said about me to me.  i find it all exhausting.  is that horrible?  i don’t really think so.  it’s just another annoying distraction from counting.  SO, knit night it is.  (best interaction ever at a coffee shop was with mare.  the shop was closing but we weren’t ready to go home so we decided on the alley cat.  i said, “ya sure.  i can totally knit at the alley cat!” and a woman was horrified.  horrified enough to confront me about it.  perfection.)

ok, ok.  i’m done ranting.  thanks for being there, friends.

now, for some sweet snippets of the week….

really a good week despite my griping.  friends, family, knitting, love… 

and now i’ve found myself without much left to say.  the boy is on vacation next week which means we will be having our own play date.  yarn store dates are the best.  have a lovely weekend, all. xo

thank you, more please.

gratitude.  it’s been a topic here.  choosing happiness and joy over defeat and sorrow.  our alizah is prone to seeing the glass as half empty and it was time for a talk.  she is a quiet child, mostly.  she is brilliant and beautiful and secretive and sly.  she’s a slippery one and i normally choose people with grit to share my time with.  it’s funny how we have been gifted to each other.  our talks often shift toward the side of lectures and this one was no different.  it’s hard to keep on the side of conversation when she is so tight-lipped.  how do you get through to a pre-tween that the cast shadow is only one perspective?  all you have to do is turn around and the light will be shining in your face.  so, i force happiness upon her for now.  my mare.  my lovely, kind mare has been buried under the burden of bad news repeatedly and yet i can still hear the smile in her voice.  my heart aches for everything she’s been through these past months - now more than ever.  i’ll follow suit.  i’ll smile through the pain like i’ve done so many times before. we’ll be the example still.

i had a dream last night that mae and i were driving through a cemetery on a cold, stormy night.  in the dream i got creeped out and then was suddenly walking down a dark hallway toward a morgue.  i could see a man’s body on a table at the end of the hall and i grabbed for the wall, then was transported to a crowded room where hubs and i were arguing about money.  a man came over and emptied his pockets giving me $1.37.  i burst into tears knowing he had just giving us everything he had to his name. more often than not my dreams are telling me stories.  i’ll stay aware.

i’m staying quite busy on the pattern writing front and am eager to move forward still.  i wrestled with a fairly simple bonnet pattern all last week and still have one arm to complete on millie (pictured above).  that bonnet.  so silly.  i was the bonnet lady for so long and there i was knitting, ripping, knitting, ripping, writing, scratching, knitting some more.  i thought i’d gone mad.  it’s those simple solutions that can be so damn elusive!  in the end, i finished and am quite happy with the outcome.  millie will be done soon enough and dellie is in testing.  lauren sent me pics the other day and so far so good.  god love her for working the 2T.  this is going to be such a relief when she’s finished.  i decided it was time to knit something for myself.  i need it right now - so one sweater was ripped to make way for the new.

i do this.  it’s actually one of my favorite things about knitting and something that makes most people have a knee-jerk reaction.  once i’ve knit something and i feel i’ve gotten my fare use of it, i will rip it out and re-stash the yarn or cast on immediately.  if i sew something i can never have that yard of fabric back, but if i knit something, that yarn is as perfectly useable as the day i bought it or spun it or what ever.  it’s the ultimate recycling and this yarn is five inches away from it’s new life already.

xo

p.s. squam registration opened today!  i wish i wish i wish i was going.  another year.  or, maybe i’ll surprise myself as i’ve resolved to do….