December

One last post for 2014!

It's been a busy two weeks. Been using my time off from work to declutter, clean, organize, sort, pack up or throw away basically half the decorations and other items in the house. (I even cleaned through my birthday on the 21st! RAWRRR!) Many many boxes have been filled for good will and countless trash bags and other items have made their way off to the trash heap. Hasn't been much fun, to be honest, because it's been SO MUCH work (almost like moving) but it was very needed. I've felt for a long while that I have entirely too much 'stuff'. You go through a grieving of sorts as you bin it but then a few days later you realize you don't notice it's gone at all. And if that sounds drastic - it is............but it's also not. I still have PLENTY of stuff left! :)

(Psst. There is stuff to be given away at the end of this.)

 

It's too bad I live in too rural an area for a yard sale because I could have a FABULOUS one in the spring with the stuff currently living in boxes downstairs. Ah well. If that's the price I have to 'pay' for living on an off-the-beaten path itty-bitty slip of  a street that's hard to find even when you are looking for it, so be it. It's also quite nice when you can go hours and hours without even seeing a neighbor's car drive by. :)

So. Didn't get much knitting done for Christmas or anything else for that matter with all that going on. 

A pair of socks from November were finished and I washed/blocked the wad of blanket squares that I had finished in the last few months. (Counted this morning and I now have 82 squares completed. I think at least another 48 will be needed to make a good sized blanket. 48. *sigh*)

A new hat for Christmas.......well.......it's in progress. The lobsters are growing a little each day.

The tree finally made it up - on Christmas Eve. Better late than never, eh? 

Very nice to have it up after taking last year 'off' because KITTENS.

Said cats were nice enough to *cough* get us a present this year. (Which I generously paid for. And shopped for.)

Huh. Cheeky little buggers!

After that massive decluttering/cleaning I wasn't much in the mood for all the decorations to be put out so I kept it to the basics: stockings, various holiday candle holders, lighted pine garland on the staircase, etc. 

And I changed up my little 'stitchy' basket with a winter theme that should last until spring. :)

I thinned out my cross stitch patterns as well and have a big stack of them to give away if someone wishes to pay for the shipping on them. There is a bit of everything in there from Bent Creek, Lizze Kate, The Drawn Thread, Cricket Collection, etc. 

 There are also a bunch of Shepherd Bush patterns *without* the kit materials they originally came with. 

I've gone through each one very careful to make sure they are in order and no pages are missing, etc. It would probably be like $10.50 for a priority mailer in the US, international....I'm not sure. I would need your address to figure it but I do enough 2-3 ounce overseas packages to know it would probably be upwards of $20-25. 

You must take the whole thing though. I'd rather stab myself in the eye than have to piecemeal it, sorry! Leave a comment if you want them, if more than one person does I'll just randomly pick a name after a week or so.

Ok, I think that's it for 2014! Have a happy new year everyone! 

Bit somber here, I'm afraid, as my husband's uncle just passed this week. He had been battling cancer for a number of years and it had recently traveled to his brain. It seemed like he would have more time but he started to slip away on Christmas day. I feel so bad for his cousins who have now lost both their parents and all their remaining grandparents within the last four years. Starting the new year with a funeral means you've already gotten the worst part of 2015 out of the way, right? :(

November!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Almost missed my picture post for November!! *scramble*scramble*scramble* 

Getting in just under the wire. :)

(This post was a real labor of love, too, because I hit something on my keyboard in the middle of it that split all the paragraphs and symbols into gobbledy-gook and, well, it took some doing to figure out how I had screwed THAT up. Turns out ctrl-alt-something will change the formatting of your keyboard to.......something that does not benefit an English only speaker. Ha!)

 Hope everyone in the US had a nice Thanksgiving.  I cooked a lot......and ate a lot. So two thumbs up for the holiday from me! (Also: watched some movies I've been meaning to get to, like Catching Fire, that I never make time for.) 

 (Much better Youtube link)

The husband was  a little more pro-active than me, as he participated in a bike run through the woods in the morning, put on by the local bike shop. (Which is also a fledgling beer company. Beer and bikes! That's aweso.......wait, what? I'm not sure they thought that one out. lol)

I will admit I was still sleeping when he got back from the run. 6am on a holiday? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. lol) 

 No crazy Black Friday shopping for either of us. Not my scene, I have to say.

Went to a not-at-all-local show up in Mass. instead and got some handmade gifts for others and a couple for myself, like Mr. Sheep here. Not sure where I am going to put him yet but I couldn't pass him up!

  

 It's been an insanely busy month because beads, beads, beads, and more beads. Every day a new pile of beads made, packed up and shipped out. Thankfully, December is a little easier because that month has more to do with personal sales (gifts, etc.) than designers loading up for their holiday shows. Just keeping my head down and plugging away at it, trying not to think TOO much about where/when I'm going to knit up some gifts for Christmas. Heh.

All the pretty 'leafs' are gone for the year now. :*(

I enjoyed snapping pics of the nice ones in my travels. I love when they look like they are on fire.

'Stitches East' socks............put to bed. 

Trekking XXL striping yarn. Fruit Stripe Gum pattern.....again. 

It's so much fun I make have to make a dozen socks in this pattern before I'm tired of it. (Pair #3 is already completed, but not photoed yet, and pair #4 is in the very, very, very early stages of being completed.)

Tomorrow is a very exciting day because...

...I finally get to start my David's Tea advent calendar!

You have to get these the SECOND they come out if you want to grab one so I've been staring at this big box for a whole month now, trying to wait until December 1st. Soooo hard! I love advent calendars in general but one that gives you a little tin of special tea every day? Ho, ho, ho!  *fans self*

I got the winter collection at the same time to keep me busy or otherwise I never would have made it. Never. Ha! :)

(Not an actual Grumpy Cat. Sweetest, Gentlest Thing Ever Cat.)

Meisha is still doing ok, so that is a good thing. Her levels are worse every time we test for them (grr!) but she still doesn't have any major symptoms. 

 I got her a new doctor, someone who can devote a little more time/energy to a rare case. Did another whole round of various tests and there is still no cause to be found for her hypercalcemia. (It's certainly not for lack of trying, that's for sure.) The testing was great overall though because her kidneys and joints showed no calcification yet, which is AWESOME. She's the healthiest terminally ill animal you've ever seen! SO FRUSTRATING! @$!@$!@#$

*ahem*

I gets angry sometimes. Just saying.

Someone pass me a holiday cookie to distract me. 

See? I feel better already. Eating your feelings WORKS, guys. 

IT WORKS. Never forget that. Heh.

October.

 Yay! An update! I keep meaning to do this and meaning to do this but it never seems to happen. Grrr! I lost a bit of time there in September due to a vacation week and - even more importantly - a BRAND NEW COMPUTER. I am no longer computing like it's 2006, people! 

My old computer actually wasn't in terrible shape, aside from being nervous of a hardware meltdown happening at any time because, you know, that stuff wasn't built to last forever and 7-8 years is asking a bit much of it. *ahem* The bigger issue was that more and more things weren't working with Windows Vista now that it's no longer supported so, rather than upgrade an old computer, we just got a new one! (A Windows 7 machine though because, MAN!, have I heard horrible no good things about Windows 8.) I was dreading moving everything over but apparently things have changed a LOT since I last bought one of these dang machines and it was actually pretty easy. *blink*

ANYWAY. I'm in a good mood today (mostly) because tomorrow is the Stitches East show and I looooooooooooooooooovveeeeeeeeeeeee the Stitches East show. And now it's here and I'm excited, even though I haven't been knitting much lately. I did so much knitting over the summer that I decided to take a break from it for a little while and get more stitching done. 

Turns out when you work on stitching a little bit each day (or most days) you actually FINISH THINGS UP. I know, right? It's miraculous.

These finishes here are the L*K Song of Spring kit , the rabbity 'small' that comes with that and the 2nd part of the BBD Honeybee Hill. (I haven't had occasion to use that sparkly green linen before and I quite like it here with Mr. Rabbit. )

I finished another piece as well but that may/may not be a gift so I don't want to post it and I have a big Plum Street piece 'in progress' that I am plugging along on. I can't go to the SE show without something on the needles though so stitching progress might be halted for a bit while I get my sock knitting on. :)

Relatedly, that new iPhone x-stitch app making the rounds is quite brilliant. An online/device accessible detailed accounting of everything in your stash?  YOU KNOW I had to snap that up immediately because I *LOVE* a good spreadsheeting, organizing, finger snapping, alphabetizing project. 

I went through pretty much everything I have pattern wise, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and.......

Honestly, it's not AS BAD as I thought it was going to be! Of the 315 patterns I own, about 75-80 have already been stitched. Now, that is still more than I can probably REALISTICALLY finish in the years I have left to me (or have left in my eyesight/hand dexterity). And it doesn't take into account that I own 14 years of the JCS ornament issues which, well, have a lot of stuff in them. But. It's STILL not as bad as I thought. I would have guessed I had no less than 500 patterns to get to, so, yay? Buy more? ;)

(Also not counted: the patterns I have given away over the years. I gave away a GIANT stack of used Shepherd's Bush/misc. patterns at some point, a fact I am a little bitter about, to be honest, because REASONS. Things did not turn out well on that one. *sigh*)

After the patterns were done, I did my hand dyed threads but not my DMC. (Because I own ALL OF IT so I don't need a stinking list for that. ) All of the info is in that mysterious Cloud thingy now  and I can open it up on my phone or Mini so I have NO EXCUSES not to keep up on it. The app is really great and I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone with Apple devices and a wish to have an easily searchable database of their stash.

OH well. I probably had a million other things to say but this will do for now, right? :)

BTW - those little guys at the top are the new Mummy beads I posted on Etsy/my site this week. Cuties! :)

September

I am a bad, bad blogger because I seem to have missed a post for August. And most of July. Whoops? There was no way I wasn't going to get on here and talk about my (truly) beloved Woodstock Fair that is held on Labor Day weekend and the fact that I...

WON BEST IN SHOW for knitting again. Woooooooo! 

I LOVE THAT WHEN THAT HAPPENS, I'll admit it. I only enter stuff in that I think is better than average, which means I don't enter in stuff every year, but I'm still surprised this year by my win because, man, there were SO MANY great handcrafts this year in all departments, not just the knitting one. It was a great year for the contests and I loved spending my time pouring through all the contest barns (three).

My Fruit Stripe socks also did well. :)

I have no idea what it means to have a Superintendents Award (they were new this year) but I'll take it! THE MORE RIBBONS, THE BETTER.

So very good year for my knitting. I registered the mittens when they were barely started *gulp* and quite literally didn't finish them until the night BEFORE I had to drop them off. Heh. Luckily, I'm quite familiar with mitten construction/Fair Isle colorwork so I didn't hit any road bumps along the way with anything. 

Unlike a champion animal, both of these guys will be put to work this winter and get a lot of use. (The last pair of Best in Show mittens have since gone on to put in time shoveling snow and actually getting DIRTY and quite roughed up.) No rest for the woolies come winter, no matter what they win. :)

I won't bore anyone with endless pictures of sheep, bunnies, chickens, etc. I have folders full of them but, honestly, they don't change at all from year to year. The above photo is my first attempt to try a panoramic shot with my iPhone, atop the hill where the tractors/old timey machines live. Because of the hills, you only get about 1/3 of the fair in there though. What a gloriously beautiful evening though! The weather was perfect!

I've never entered in any cross stitching but I'm thinking about it for next year because the theme for next year is 'America the Beautiful' and I do love a patriotic stitch. You have to get prior authorization to submit into the theme contest though so I'm still mulling over ideas and researching it. (If you have a favorite good sized, somewhat primitive/sampler-ish, good contrast patriotic design that comes to mind, please feel free to share.)

There has been a lot of knitting in general this summer for me. (Along with a lot of reading.)

 There's been a scarf finish, in this wonderfully nubby and WOOLY, sheepy Icelandic yarn.

 More socks, with varying success. I couldn't hate the purpley ones MORE if I tried. I've tried to use that yarn (which is expensive but will remain nameless) several times for several projects over a great number of years and it's never worked in any capacity for some reason. Doesn't work for these socks either but I didn't have the balls to just throw them out. Sigh.

 More work on squares for the Neverending Scrap Yarn Blanket. (Plus another batch in my bag that need to be blocked.)

I think I need a small break from it though before I start something else. As soon as we came home from the fair I drug out my stitching and put this to bed:

Honey Bee Hill by BBD. I only had a bit in the left corner to do so it was an easy finish. I do love my bee patterns. :)

Also, this happened this weekend:

A customer packaged returned to me. Look closely at the date though. *ahem*

Now THAT'S a first for me. WHERE HAS IT BEEN ALL THIS TIME?

Think about THAT next time you are complaining about a slow package. COULD BE WORSE.

Like, a WHOLE YEAR worse! Ha!

An update of sorts.

I haven't much felt like updating this spring (obviously, since it's been so long), for reasons I'll save until the end of this to delay the depressing part, but things aren't all bad.

I'm quite happy that *my* hawks are back this year and in the nest above my bedroom window that they built last year. This picture is a couple weeks old now (probably from my deck around Memorial Day weekend) but you can see momma up there doing her thing. Exciting!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Last year we didn't get chicks. (The parents had a big fight with a pack of crows one afternoon while still brooding and then they never came back to the nest after that.) I was obsessed with watching them come and go at such close quarters and took it quite badly when it came to an end so quickly. So this year I've tried not to get too attached. *ahem* 

My patience has been rewarded though because this year we have two chicks! At first you could only see the occasional fuzzy wing flapping up but, as of a week or so ago, they are now regularly waddling around the edges of the nest and staring down at the house, trying to make sense of things. 

The leaves have filled in on the trees now (FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!) so picture taking is difficult but they look a lot like this picture from the internet. (I can still see them from different parts of the deck.) A little less fuzzy each day and a few more feathers and awareness. Should be no time at until they are starting to fly around.  I will truly miss them when they are gone but there is always the chance the parents will be back next year. FINGERS CROSSED. (Fact: There is no point at which I would be bored, blase, or not over the moon at hawks nesting in my yard. Ever. It's cool to infinity.)

(Also a fact: the husband and I are too dumb to figure out what kind of hawks these are. We thought sharp shinned last year but they are MUCH too big in size for that I've now decided. They are like full sized turkeys roosting in a tree. So possibly red-shouldered hawks? WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR US??????????)

The husband continues on with his weaving. We are AWASH in scarves here. What the bloody hell am I supposed to do with it all? They just keep coming and coming. (He's finished TWO more since this picture as well.) I should set up an Etsy shop for him but I'm exhausted at the thought of it and can't quite manage it yet. (It's not as easy as all that as I have no choice but it roll it into my own online business, which changes everything I currently do for resale taxes, property taxes, income taxes, etc. UGH. They do NOT make things easy for people who WANT to do the right re: small businesses. /end rant)

What the scarf god gives, he also takes away.

 I finally came to terms that my Vail scarf is unwearable in it's current form. The yarn is too light and airy to be a scarf. It has no structure and a scarf that lies like a dead thing is a useless scarf to me, considering how cold the winters are here. After two years of using it not even ONCE, I bit the bullet and...

...unraveled it. Bye bye hours and hours of knitting. Painful, but no less painful then it's useless scarf-like state. /shrug. That's the thing about knitting with natural-based yarns - you can generally just unravel them and start over again. (If you have the balls to do it, that is. :)) Oh, it looks like a bunch of crazy hair doll there but a long soak in the sink and hanging to dry on a plastic hanger for a few days....

..and it's right back to being normal and ready for something else. I'm not quite clear what the something else is at the moment but I am glad not to have that beautiful LOOKING (but useless) scarf making me feel bad any longer.

As far as the badness.....well. My sweet, gentle, baby Meisha is dying. That sounds overly dramatic written out but I honestly don't know how to pretty it up. 

There has been a lot of testing over the last few months, with both good and bad results. A bit of confusion. (The vet has never actually had a case of idiopathic hypercalcemia in his practice so we're figuring things out about how to proceed together.) Her soft tissue is being mineralized as calcium builds up throughout her body. There is no cure but there are things that can help some cats. We're doing injections of B12 at home for a few months to see what happens with that. So far, I am not optimistic but there are many months and many more injections in The Currrent Treatment Plan. There is no way of knowing how long she has. (Months? A year?) Her kidneys could give out and give us no options or they could hang in there and leave it to us to decide when the pain is too much, or the anorexia is too much, etc. She seems on this side of 'ok' and more thin than 'sickly' for the moment but things are changing from week to week. This week we are adding in an ulcer medicine, for reasons I don't want to get into because it's depressing. It's all depressing (I AM depressed...or my soul is depressed) but what can you do? You do a bit of face down crying, get over it, get on with things, and get used to the new normal. (The new normal sucks though. Just to be clear. I want my old normal back. Sigh)

This and That. Ends with Cuteness.

As tired as I am of the cold weather and winter (which is still here, regardless of it being a lot sunnier overall than last month at this time), I do love that I can still really enjoy a hot cup of tea for the moment, inside and out, as I use it to warm my hands up as well as my insides. I'm most definitely not a 'hot drink' drinker once the weather turns and ice tea isn't quite the same so time is running out for this little pleasure. :)

I took inventory of my loose/bag teas in January (written down on paper no less!) and, well, that was sobering. *ahem* I swore I was going to stop buying any for a long while............and OF COURSE  I didn't stick to that, but I really have been a more judicious in my purchases since then. Except I've recently fallen down a bit on that though as I've discovered the new-to-me Harney & Sons tea line. Oh my! Such nice teas! And they come in these brilliant little tins that I have no idea what to do with but, gosh, they are pretty. These are my three latest (all fairly 'fruity' ones) but my favorite so far is the Hot Cinnamon Spice which tastes like a robust black tea with a Hot Tamale candy melted in it. If you like that kind of biting cinnamon taste, it's dead on.

Finished stitching the last of the three stockings in this L*K pattern book and finished them off with a bit of flossing cording which, I have to say, I really have no love for stitching on. It takes so much time if you want to do it neatly and hide your stitches. So.....much.....time......

My favorite of the three is the 'Noel' one. I like the holly border/beads at the top. Second fave though is the sampler one.

My finishing, as always, is fraught with one mishap or other - as you can see I, uhhhhhh, sewed one inside out on the back. Whoops? I had some thoughts as to patiently ripping it out and redoing it..........and then those thoughts vanished into the wind because I plain ole don't care enough about it. lol

Until flowers and pretty things start popping up outside, I'm going to have to fill in the color gaps in my life with brightly colored yarn, I think. It's only fair, right? The one in the back (Poste Yarn from Simply Socks Co.) might be a tad too neon even for me. (There is no such thing, of course, but I'm trying to picture that as socks and it makes me laugh EVERY TIME.)

Well, there. I broke the streak of posting only once a month. *bows* I'll finish this off with a couple new pictures of the 'kittens' because they haven't been around the blog in a long while. 

 (You can't comb out the curlies. You can but they are right there again an hour later. It's like the worst magic trick ever.) 

(Livvy and her 'chinny chin' aka goat's beard.)

Kittens. Ha! At almost nine months, they aren't kittens but definitely not adults either. What they are is HUGE. And PUFFY. With fur. Oh_so_much_fur! Does that LOOK like a belly that is combed out every other day? ARGH. The bald spots are from where I've had to cut knots out. You just blink a few times a knot forms on these guys. I really hope their fur 'settles down' and gets less sticky as they get older otherwise they are going to be SHAVED BALD for the summer! lol

*waves*

 Oh, dear. Just not into this blogging 'thing' lately, I'm afraid. :(

Can't say it's for any particular reason either, other than general 'winter has gone on MUCH MUCH TOO LONG now' malaise that is probably affecting almost all of us in the northern hemisphere. Busy with work, yes, as always, but things are moving along as normal otherwise. 

Figured I should get in here before TOO much time goes by and I forget how to do it all together. Plus, I had a stack of  this hanging around that I'd like to put away:

Blogging or no blogging, I still pile finished things up to be photographed. It's like they aren't TRULY done unless their existence has been logged online in some fashion. That's a little sad, I think. I mean we DID 'exist' in our pre-online lives, didn't we? (And you can just shush if you are reading this and too young to have ever had a chance at a pre-online life, ok? We do not like young whippersnappers poking at our older selves. lol) 

Thanks to some tv-binge-watching (both seasons of House of Cards in EIGHT days! Eight!) I've actually been plugging right along on a bunch of things. Most of the individual photos I went for came out cringe-inducing awful though. Grrrrr. I only managed to take a decent picture of my newest pillow finishes:

Sadly, I did not put these 'together' in time for the holiday this year but I did finish STITCHING them in time. That has to count for.............something? I could only dig up two other appropriate smalls for this holiday so I figured it well past time I did a few more. The heart pattern is from a designer I saw on Etsy and the other two are freebies from The Primitive Hare. Used random scraps of linen and bits and bobs of lace and what not that I could scrounge out of my craft closet. 

I'll have to retake the photos of Most Hated Socks Ever and my L*K stockings. :)

I'm going to end this with another clover pic. A day late, of course, but I have a sweet spot for this holiday. For one, it's ridiculously easy to celebrate (wear green!) and comes with really tasty food and, two, I just plain ole like the color green. We need more fun, color-based holidays! :)

Hmm.

Well, I guess I'm not going to update here any more than I did last year (roughly twice a month....in a good month) if *THIS* month has been an indicator. Ha! 

Though it has to be said: Winter is not my favorite time of the year. It certainly is pretty with the snow and all but, man, is it gloomy, gloomy, gloomy at times. Last year I didn't feel it so much but this year is not as good. I have some potted hyacinth bulbs popping up now in my living room and I don't know if it makes it better or worse. It makes the contrast between deep winter and spring so much worse somehow. lol (I'll take it though. I have them in pink and purple and I do love the flash of bright color.)

One thing I would like to do this year is read more. I started off SO GOOD last year with that but it dropped off in the summer...because of life....CANDY CRUSH obsession (ugh ugh ugh)........definitely didn't finish on a high note in regards to reading. I have SO MANY books downloaded or on the shelf here. It's not all about the numbers, of course, but there's no doubt it's better time spent than ANOTHER HOUR of Candy Crush gaming (UGH!!!!!!!!!!). 

The first book I read this year was The Hobbit. A re-read after I realized I could NOT remember how it ended *and* couldn't tell how much was new and what was original in the 2nd movie that we saw over break. (Otherwise known as, I have officially read too many books (thousands) and am starting to forget even the ones I've read more than once. Getting older is not being kind to my memory. *sigh*)

Interesting fact: I still have the Tolkien gift set that was gifted to me when I was 12-ish. AND it's in pretty good shape. (That would be 30 years ago. *ahem*) The husband had his OWN set of Tolkien books when I met him at age 19 and I've always read HIS copies instead of mine. Because I'm evil like that. Ha! (His are really rough now.) I think we need to upgrade to digital copies though because the pages are seriously yellowed and dry. I'll still keep these forever though. They certainly aren't for everybody (I actually hated them when I first got them - not much in there for a pre-teen girl, you know?) but I know I will still enjoy reading them again every so often.

First finished knit of 2014............sort of. I did MOST of it in 2013. Actually, I think the only bit I did in 2014 was the bind off and blocking. Heh. 

It's just a simple drop stitch scarf. (Truly. SERIOUSLY simple.) Why work so hard when the yarn is this pretty, right? I'm content to let the yarn do the heavy lifting here. (It's a Mini Mochi yarn. The tags are long gone but I THINK it's called 'Autumn Rainbow'?)  It's single ply and slubby so I'm slightly worried about the yarn breaking if any of the yarnovers 'catch' on something I'm wearing (like a zipper, etc.) but I'll think of something if/when disaster strikes.

Also finished another Flora McSample stocking. Just one left to stitch up on these guys! (In progress.) Fingers crossed I manage to turn these into actual stockings before next Christmas. I really like these and will be sad if they get stuffed into the drawer for too long. :(

The 'kittens' turned 7 months old earlier this month. 

Well, maybe not so much kitten-y any more. Almost full grown with their adult coats coming in like gangbusters, is more like it. I really need to get a picture of them jumping around in the snow. I still let them out on the deck for a few minutes when it's sunny out and they both LOVE snow. Eating it, digging in it, etc. They are like big, fluffy snow bunnies out there. :)

Not so much loved: the thorough combing they have to get when the snow melts and they dry off. They HATES that part. (Bitey little creatures, they are! A handful of treats afterwards soothes all though.)