In His Steps

Using the same pattern as I had used for Rania's rainbow sweater, I made a purl sweater for Rosslyn's MSD Scythe. I added the cables on the arms and down the front of the sweater, and other than flipping the pattern so the knit side was in and purl side out, I didn't change the pattern. Here's what it looked like while it was blocking. And here is Scythe wearing it! Our mutual headcanon is that my Lan knitted it for him.

Sit down, my children. I wish to tell you a story of frustration and perseverance. When I moved to the Now-Not-so-Frozen North (freaking droughts), I had to pack up my every possession into my little car and hope we all made the journey safe and sound. This included my crafting supplies, which were taped up in their drawers and stuffed into my trunk. While the supplies all survived the journey, they did not survive without consequences. My seed bead collection had been safely--or at least I thought they were safe--stowed in a white, plastic box with dividers. I thought the dividers were flush. I was wrong. In a project that took me three years  to complete (obviously I did not work on it constantly--I love my hands and wrists too much for that), I had to sort my seed beads. As you can see above, they had all jumbled together, making good color selection impossible. So I dug out my pliers, got new containers that wouldn't spill into each other, and got to sorting. ...

So, a few days after the Spousal Unit and I arrived home from our California Christmas trip, it was New Year's Day and there was a large family party at his uncle's house. His uncle has a gorgeous property an hour or so away from us and a big snowstorm had blown in while we were gone, leaving the property just pristine with white snow. Enjoy my nature watching shots! Those are deer and puppy tracks in the snow. We also saw a beaver digging through the ice in the top shot, but I doubt it'll be spotted. It was a small beaver.

A few months back, in late August, early September, Spousal Unit and I got invited to go to an airshow with some of Spousal Unit's old and good friends from before he and I had met. I hadn't seen one before (or if I had it was a very long time ago), so we went! I didn't get any good shots of the planes in flight, but enjoy some shots of them on the ground! After the show, I ended up with a bad sunburn all down my calves and my upper arms. It had been quite some time since that had happened to me, so I had a lot of aloe vera to put on. It hurt! But I still had a grand time, especially with the pilot who sang in a decent tenor while he flew and did tricks.

I was experimenting with making my own knitting patterns and decided to come up with a pattern for Lan before she arrived. Using some similar dimensions to the blue sweater, I rewrote from scratch a sundress style pattern. I will likely offer this pattern for free if I ever do make more patterns for sale, just to see if people can read the pattern and like it. When Lan arrived, the first outfit she was put into was this dress! I had a lot of fun adding the cable pattern to the front and  back of the dress, which required no buttons, snaps, or other closures to fit over Lan's head. And picot edges are adorable. And Lan wearing her pretty dress! I discovered some fitting issues around the armholes, so once I fix that part, I'll rewrite the pattern and link it in this blog post.

One of my dear internet friends posted a link to an alphabet challenge for bloggers for the month of April. Now, I have a ton of posts in a list in my notebook that I've been meaning to write up. I do mean upwards of thirty posts. Some of these are for my doll blog, however, so they won't count for this challenge, which I'm focusing on this blog only. I already have topics for a third of the alphabet lined up and I'm actually really excited for this. I need to get back into the habit of writing and maybe even writing fiction, not just blogs. I figure that if I'm used to writing a lot, I'll have a better chance at getting myself to write the stories in my head. Expect a lot more posts from me coming up! Yayy!