Tomorrow!

Tomorrow David and I leave for our week long trek into the places we used to live and relax.

Actually I've been looking forward to this vacation quite a lot.  I've been in a huge need of some time away from work, some time to relax, refresh and really enjoy being who I am and being with the man I'm with.  It'll be wonderful in all kinds of ways.  I hope the weather holds and we get to enjoy seeing the beauty of the landscape as we drive north...rather than dealing with a lot of rain.  I do hate traveling in the rain.

Oh well, not much to do about it.

One thing that's making me laugh a bit about this trip is that I'm not being my typical self.  I haven't figured out what I'm going to bring for my knitting.  I haven't even thought about it much. I know I'll pack more projects than I can possibly manage to finish, but that's not the point of travel knitting.  The point of travel knitting is to keep me from going bonkers in the car until we get there and to relax me before bedtime.  Either way, I think it's interesting that I've not been obsessing like usual about all the projects I need to take.

I do know that at the end of this vacation I'll have a new pair of cabled socks, (hopefully) some good progress on my first skinny sweater, and be finished with the cursed scarf that I hate knitting but love touching and looking at.  The latter is probably a pipe dream seeing that I typically don't have more than 20 minutes of patience with that project, but I'm hoping that riding along in the sunny car watching the hills roll past will inspire me to knit away and not pay attention to the fact that I hate it...

Hopefully when I return I'll have a lovely report of the sheep and fiber festival.  I'm looking forward to my friend's wedding, and Amish country never disappoints.  I'm slightly concerned about what we'll eat while we're there, but I think we'll figure it out.  All my food memories of Amish Country have involved heavy carb-loaded meals...should be interesting.

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Today's picture is of my most recent pair of socks.  They are made from a sock flat.  A sock flat is a knitted up panel of sock yarn that is then hand painted.  You knit from the flat and create some interesting effects in the knitting.  I do love these socks even though I made the second one noticeably smaller than the first.  I learned that I will need to count my rows next time rather than simply laying next to each other and measuring.  Silly me.  Even so, they fit ok and I love them.  No one has to know, right?

Spontaneity

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl.  They met in a class and flirted with each other, fell in love and got married.  They would wake up one morning and say "hey, let's go do something fun," and head out to do whatever that fun thing was.

Then they had babies, then they went to grad school and got very busy, then they got jobs and got even busier.

They'd still wake up in the morning and say "hey, let's go do something fun," but kids, work or other responsibilities always got in the way.

Then the babies grew up and went off to college and became self sufficient.  The boy and girl had learned that anything they did had to be planned, so there weren't very many spontaneous moments...they planned their fun.  While it was still fun, there wasn't that spark of excitement to it.  It was all planned and well-thought out and, well, orchestrated.

Yesterday, however, the girls spied a Sheep and Fiber Festival in Lexington, KY, where this couple used to live.  She said to the boy "I'm tempted," and he said, "let's do it," so a frenzy of hotel reservations and cancellations ensued and now that's what they're doing.

San Antonio and visiting parents has been tossed aside in lieu of spontaneity and fun.  And the girl is very excited about it.  Very.

The boy and girl are going to Lexington for 2 days and then driving up to Holmes County, OH, where they used to go when they lived up in those parts.  Relaxation, fun, and crafty-pleasures await.

The boy and girl feel somewhat like they may be getting their spark back.

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Today's picture is of a finished Frankie.  Frankie is the sweetest monster I've made so far.  She has on a light and dark pink striped shirt that lets her adorable green arms and legs show through.  Her ears match the dark pink in her shirt.  Her great big green eyes yearn for a hug and to send encouragement to you.  I think Addie, the little girl she will belong to when she gets to Texas, will be thrilled to have her princess monster.  Today she's sitting on my desk making me smile every now and again.

Monster in Progress

I'm making another monster.  This one is bigger than the others because she's made from worsted weight yarn rather than sock weight yarn.  Thicker yarn=bigger monster.

And she's adorable.

I'm making her for the little girl that mom babysits.  She will be a "princess" monster, and as you can see she sports pink and purple as her main colors, but like Fiona in Shrek, her green arms and legs are, well, rather green.  (I decided to use the green for the arms and legs as an homage to the "green jeans" that my daddy used to wear.)

All she needs is some ears, a mouth and a belly button.

I have so much fun making these monsters.  They really come to life for me as I work on them.  Frankie, as this one is called, is really sweet and wants people to love her.  I hope that you do.

I even amazed myself!

This weekend was dedicated to yarn.  To unpacking, organizing, making sure it was secure in its new home and otherwise taking care of my stash.

As I went through every skein of yarn and decided which basket, cubby or yarn tree to put it on, it told me whether it was getting anxious to be something or whether it was content to ride things out for a little longer.  I'll have to tell you that a LOT of my yarn is anxious to be something.  I may have to hire people to help me knit or weave it all...I don't know how I can meet up with the demands.  It's starting to make ME feel a tad anxious.

The only thing left in my studio is to put together my loom.  But, David was working until 2pm yesterday and we had a party at 3pm (outside, in May, wearing jackets...unfathomable), then the girls came over for dinner at 5, so there was no time to get the loom opened up.  I'm very ready to start Art Box #2 and just waiting for the ability to get that loom ready...I may even go wind some warp this evening.

Despite all the unpacking I was able to knit a good bit...quite a bit in fact.  On Thursday night I finished a pair of socks.  Then this weekend, I managed to finish a hat that I'd started last year that I've been hating...I mentioned it earlier this year, mom's mother's day gift AND got caught up on my block-a-day sock-yarn blanket.  Plus, I made pretty good progress on the little monster I'm going to finish up before heading to TX in 10 days.

And you know what...despite all this progress...I don't feel like I worked even a little bit this weekend.  How absolutely wonderful!

Today's picture is of the polaris hat, finished.  I'll work on the scarf again after the monster is finished.  I like getting some of these things DONE!

What I have Left

This is 7 boxes...all that's left to unpack.  I'm so happy that that's all I have left.  It means that by the end of this weekend, I'll have my loom set up, my table organized, my yarn all in its rightful places...and I'll be happily crafting away again.

I predict by next week I'll have all the pictures hung and everything unpacked and organized...just in time for vacation!

45 minutes

Depending on what you're doing, 45 minutes can seem like forever or a really short period of time.

45 minutes is what I had to work on my studio last night. We ended up getting home much later than planned because we went to weigh in--down .4 pounds, David another 4.4--and then shopping--down at least 2 sizes in pants--and the dinner--fajitas--so by the time we fell into the house, there wasn't much time to get into the studio and make much progress...only 45 minutes.

But I figured it was better than nothing, so I determined that we were going to get in there and see what we could accomplish in 45 minutes.  I set the timer so we'd know when to stop and start getting ready for bed...and then we started plugging away at boxes.

We made really good progress even though it seems like we started and then 5 minutes later the alarm went off...it really was 45, though, and the rest that's left I can manage on my own tonight and this weekend.  I'm enjoying putting things in my new shelving units, and planning all my scrap projects (by weight of yarn)...and just in general being in my well-lit, roomy, beautiful studio.

I love the floors.

I love the windows.

I love the wall color.

I love my private little bathroom.

I love my yarn.

I love my loom.

I love having it all open.  I really did want to kiss everything and work myself to exhaustion...but I forced myself to stop after 45 minutes and go to bed, which I needed more than I needed my yarn fix.

Tonight I will knit!

The picture is of the studio last night right after we stopped working.  That whole back area was piled with boxes up to the tops of the windows.

Tonight...

Tonight I have a date to clean out my studio.  David has promised to help since he's going to be gone Thursday through Sunday.

There are boxes piled to the ceiling and a person can barely move around in there, much less try to figure out how to organize things, but organized it must be because I am taking Saturday (at minimum) to be a pajama day which means that I'll be knitting, snuggling with the kitties, and otherwise relaxing.  I'm desperately in need of a late morning sleep-in...I think I'm more desperately in need of throwing some yarn around some knitting needles and making something.

It's been a week now since I've been able to knit or do anything crafty.

I may go crazy if I have to wait any longer.

Seriously.

Today's picture is of my new shoe shelf.  See how nicely everything stacks in there.  It's the perfect size, which means that I'll have to weed out old shoes when I buy new ones. (or I could double stack them...)