In His Steps

Rosslyn gifted me a Littlfee Soso for Christmas, whom I named Ember. I didn't do much with her or any of my dolls for several months due to the breakdowns and severe depression, but I became motivated again as I improved and decided to knit her something just for her. I made her a coat! This coat didn't give me any trouble or surprises as I made it--just a simple, straightforward project that looks just how I wanted it to. And she's adorable in it!

I needed to practice knitting colorwork projects. Every time I've tried, they ended up puckering funny, so this time I sat down to master it (or at least practice). What I learned first is that I can strand fairly well in the round on circulars. Previously all my attempts with this were on dpns, so I wonder if that may have something to do with it. But, I do consider this successful! It is a bit long on my head, but there's no puckering and I like the play of colors with the brown background. Here's the ravelry link .

So after careful consideration, I decided to backpost this year's posts that were specific to the day/date the event or memory occurred, so enjoy another set of links! After this I will hopefully be going forward with my usual schedule. 1/8/16: Twelfth Night 2016 1/22/16: Cat Sitting for Technomancer 2/27/16: Tara's Birthday 3/5/16: Rosslyn's Aikido Demo 4/11/16: My 31st Birthday 4/16/16: Hiking With the Spousal Unit and Rosslyn 5/9/16: Grandma Sugars' 80th Birthday! 5/16/16: Varric the Sca-wwy Fish 5/25/16: My Own Spinning Wheel 5/28/16: Memorial Day 6/4/16: Gaming Con 6/29/16: Douglas' Kids Visit 7/8/16: Cat Sitting Leia

I have continued knitting through the last year and into this one, but I forgot to post a great deal of them. Here is all the knitting (and crochet) I hadn't posted that had been completed last year. Bellatrix Socks I started these on my trip to New Hampshire in October 2014, but they were not completed until January 2015 due to making one the wrong size and having to rip it back and finish it. They are now my Halloween socks. ^_^ Grandma's Grey Blanket My Grandma Sugars was cleaning out her garage before selling her house and we came upon a crocheted grey blanket that wasn't finished but had plenty more yarn to do so with. She offered it to me (apparently arthritis stopped her from finishing it) so I accepted. After pulling out a couple stitches, I determined it was a double-held yarn and single crochet stitch, so I set to work on it right away. The whole thing smelled like 20 years' worth of dust, so I was glad to wash it! I gave...

This isn't easy for me to write about. It brings everything back up. But, it's important. It's really important. This past April, a few days after my birthday, I began to have breakdowns. At night, I began to feel a deep pressure in my chest, I felt like the world was full of doom and it was all hanging down over me. I began to cry for literal hours every night. I couldn't sleep or eat, even plain white rice turned my stomach. I woke up Spousal Unit at 3am and had him give me a blessing. It was the first peace I'd felt in weeks, but it was short-lived. As soon as it got dark at night, everything went to hell. I was having nightmares when I did sleep, I felt sick, I felt horrible about life in general. I dreaded leaving my home, I couldn't get myself to do anything, I avoided my friends and family and their expectations. Just looking at a chore to do could send me into an emotional tailspin. Over all of this was the certainty that I was a useless failure in lif...

I've been doing mandalas on my phone to zen out once in a while. I think I like bright colors. A lot.

So... I've been ridiculously silent on this blog. There's a lot of reasons for this, but I will elaborate--somewhat--on them separately. In the meantime, I've taken on the huge task of catching up on my life in the last year and I didn't want to spam post everything over a year after the event this time, so this post will include links to all of those posts that just never made it onto the blog in 2015. I'm posting them the day they happened to keep things in perspective for myself and for all of you. To give you an idea of what I mean, here are the shots of my blog lists that I keep in a notebook. These have all been backburnered for such a long time, I needed to start getting all of this handled. I have linked them in chronological order down below. I hope you enjoy them! 4-5-15: Easter 2015 5-19-15: Jill's Baby Shower 5-24-15: Nampa Fiber Fair 2015 6-10-15: Kyle's Graduation 6-11-15: Elf Ears! 6-27-15: Surpr...