So Much to Talk About... So Little Time to Write

I know it has been a very long time since I last posted, geez nearly a year has gone by! And so much has happened in that year.

Let's see where to start, I turned 42 in January, yeah for my 40's, just means I'm getting that much closer to retirement and knitting on a full-time basis. In April I celebrated 9 years working at my day job, another milestone for me, I usually get pretty antsy after a couple of years of working in a job and start looking for a new one. But I guess I've gotten tired of the job jumping and am settling down, ah I must be becoming a grown-up!

My son and nephew graduated from high school this past June. I'm hoping Aiden will be starting college classes in the upcoming winter session. My brother came to celebrate the graduations with us. My sister, niece, nephew, and Aiden had a great week catching up with my brother and just having an all around good time together.

Aiden was working for a while last summer, but quit when they stopped giving him steady hours. He recently found another job and gets pretty steady hours each week. He got his first paycheck last week and was happy that he was making his own money again. He got his learner's permit over the summer and has been steadily gearing up to take his driving test soon. It brings me bittersweet joy that my baby boy is growing up and moving forward with his life. I'm looking forward to a new chapter in his life as well as my own - the empty nest is going to be hard to bear I'm sure, but it will get easier as time goes on.

Some sad news to share, we laid to rest our family pet last month, she got really ill a month after my son's graduation and we discovered after several visits to the vet and emergency veterinary hospital that she had a large tumor in her intestines and was a very poor candidate for surgery due to her age and all the weight she lost during the six weeks it took us to finally pinpoint the problem. It was a sad day when I had to break the news to my son that there was nothing more we could do for our Tara-girl. We adopted her from an animal shelter 8 years ago (she was 4 1/2 years old) and I feel our time with her was way too short.  And even though we were saddened by her loss, she will always be in our memories and hearts.

Tara enjoying some zzz's on the loveseat

I also spent the summer working at two different Farmer's Markets. I really enjoyed the comaraderie of the other vendors and the feeling of success when I sold my handmade knit and crochet products. I'm currently gearing up for the Renton Harvest Festival scheduled for October 5th at the Renton Piazza. Then in December I am once again scheduled for the Annual Kent Winter Craft Bazaar on December 6th and 7th.

That's all for now. I'll try to be more diligent about keeping up with my blog this year and in the future, but as you can imagine, life is changing around me and I'm just trying to keep up. Next post, I will take the time to share some of my finished projects and not so finished projects.

Happy knitting!!!


Tara enjoying the road trip to Long Beach, WA - July 2009



What's on my needles, you ask?

What's on my needles - geez I have so many WIP's that I don't even know where to begin.  Honestly I guess it would depend on which needles you were looking at because there's a little of this and a little of that and a whole lot of yarn! And this weekend was another knit-a-thon weekend!  My goal though was to get as many of my unfinished projects done as possible.  There are so many, even I was a little intimidated by how many projects I started and didn't finish.  When I started pulling them from my knitting bag I almost decided to pretend they didn't exist and just start something new.  But alas, I'm a bit anal when it comes to having something unfinished laying around - so I got to work on getting some needles cleared off.

It began on Thursday evening - sorting through all the projects and checking the stage of development for each one, and figuring out how long each one would take to complete.  Luckily I work a flexible schedule at my regular 9-5 job, where I work eight 9 hour days, one 8 hour day and get every other Friday off.  And this Friday (November 5th) was one of my off days so I of course what did I do? I knitted until my hands cramped and then I knitted some more. I fell asleep watching the SciFi channel with knitting needles still in my hands on Thursday night which is scarier than anything you would ever see on the SciFi channel - me sleeping upright in front of the t.v. with my hair sticking up all over - not a pretty picture!  I'm very glad my son didn't have a camera on hand when he found me the next morning.

Aiden, my son who also had the day off from school, came downstairs at 8:30 Friday morning to find me asleep on the loveseat buried in needles, patterns and yarn - lots and lots of yarn.  He says I turned our living room into a knitting/yarn shop with all the yarn, patterns, needles, and did I say yarn? Piled all over the place. When I have a chance I will post a picture of my loveseat and coffee table where I'm surrounded by my work.  I love it, but it is very messy and I've tried to organize it many times, but I always end up pulling out yarn, or searching for a paticular pattern and/or needle and it all ends up all over the place again - so now I've given up and leave it strewn all over the floor next to my seat, on the loveseat, on the back of the loveseat and of course all over the cofee table.

As Aiden put it I was a "knitting fool" this weekend. He couldn't believe that I had finished so many projects in only a couple of days.  He was very impressed with the end product and he decided to try on several of the items and I got a real kick out of seeing him model them - unfortunately he wouldn't let me take any pictures - he didn't want to see them posted on Facebook (he knows me so well!).

So some of the WIP's I completed this weekend included a pair of socks - one at a time pair that were on dpns that I started 3 months ago (man I'm so glad I now know how to do two socks at the same time - no more one-at-a-time socks on dpns for me!), a drawstring backpack that I started last week, and I worked a little on my NaKniSweMo project that I began last week - I've gotten as far as the armholes on the backside.  And after putting in a good effort (good effort being the key words here folks!) on finishing up some unfinished projects (I didn't dare look in the closet upstairs where there is another bag full of unfinished WIP's) I started and finished a few new projects that include a pair of fingerless gloves and a bath set that has a face towel, washcloth, and soap pocket. I like to pair my bathsets with this really great handmade soap and bathsalt that I get from the Pink Sugar Shop, which I discovered at my local Farmer's Market.  I've given these as gifts to family and they absolutely love them.

And below you can see some of the finished projects, enjoy!





Personal Bath Set - made with 100%
mercerized cotton by Saucy paired with handmade apricot
scented soap &  mango madness scented bathsalt

  


Front view of drawstring backpack
made with Lion Cotton in Seaspray. You can find the pattern at:
Super Summer Backpack pattern #80401AD

Side view

Back view

Fingerless gloves made from Lion Brand
Jiffy in Fisherman & Fun Fur in Ivory