Lets Try This Again Part 2

     Wow time really flies when you have a baby! I was so tired working through my pregnancy that I completely forgot to blog! Oops! Then life got even busier when the little man arrived! Now I am a Stay at Home Mom which is much harder than I thought it was going to be. If only Little Man would sleep through the night! Haha!

     At least I occasionally have time to craft again, yay! Right now I am working on a beautiful blue cowl out of baby alpaca. Pictures will come later! Besides having a very active and demanding baby, I am having a hard time getting anything done because there is no real structure or accountability in my days anymore. That has led me to return to using a planner.....which means right now I am happily decorating a new planner whenever I get a few minutes to myself. Pictures will be coming of the planner too. For now the baby is asleep so this exhausted mamma is going to sleep too! :)

Long Time No See!

It has been a VERY long time since I have posted. I actually forgot I even had a blog for a while. Oops! Life has been crazy for the past few years though. I went back to school full time and am now a Licensed Massage Therapist. I also went to yoga teacher training last summer and am trying to finish the last of my paperwork to get my certificate for teaching yoga. On top of all that, I am 29 weeks pregnant with out first baby! We are playing with the possibility of me being a mostly stay at home mom so I thought why not get back into blogging. I can't wait to see what adventures await!

Hats

I finally finished this blasted swirl hat. I was really enjoying it until I began to decrease and had to k3tog. Doing this with blunt needles is a nightmare and I don't think I will be making a hat like this for a while.

The Virtual Knit Retreat weekend starts today and this is what is in my small bag. I plan on making at least 3 baby hats and finishing this summer shawl. Hopefully this weekend will go well.

Spring

Spring is here and the caterpillar invasion is beginning. Every time I see one I am reminded of caterpillar hunting with my friends as a little girl. We each had a bug catcher box or a shoe box and would wander around the neighborhood searching for caterpillars. We would catch dozens. At the end of the day we would see who had the most and then pick only a few to keep and let the others go. We filled the boxes with leaves, watched them eat, and waited for them to make cocoons. It was great fun and I always smile whenever I see a caterpillar. Did anyone else go caterpillar hunting?

All this talk about yarn stash has had me thinking about stashes in general and today I found a stash that my younger Shih-tzu, Bear, started on the backdoor step to the patio. Chewy is the one looking out the door. Do you see the pinecone and twigs at the bottom of the picture?

That is Bear's stash and he is very protective of it as you can see. I guess dogs really do take after their owners. Lol!

Something to Aspire To

Today's assignment is to write about something you hope to learn by the end of the year.

1. Cables!

Cables are intimidating but there are sooo many beautiful patterns that use them. I really want to be able to make this hat for my sister by September. This goes along with my goal of having all my christmas gifts made by the middle of October so I can focus on baking yummy goodies!

2. Knitting socks 2 -at-a-time toe-up

When I first started knitting socks I said that I would always use double points and make them from the cuff down. Now, my grandmother and I will be knitting buddies this summer and I suggested we make socks. She was not thrilled with this idea. Apparently she hates double points. The solution = circular needles. Thus the upcoming adventure of knitting socks 2-at-a-time toe-up is born. Wish us luck.

P.S. These are pictures of the beautiful tulips that were a gift from my husband. :) Instead of having a picture-less post I thought a look at Spring would be nice.

2KCBWDAY5

Thank you everyone who has been reading my blog. I really appreciate it. Yesterday was not a very good day and I never made it around to posting but today is a new day and hopefully this pic will make you smile.

2 skeins Ester Bitran Canela and 1 skein Mountain Colors lace

Tidy Mind Tidy Stitches

Organizing is always a challenge for me. I have had some time off work though and the first place I went to organize was my stash so it is looking pretty good for now. It's a miracle you can see the floor! We have a three bedroom house and no kids yet so I get my own little craft room. This is just part of the room....I am afraid to show the rest. This is also not all of my stash although it is the majority of it. I have some hiding in little boxes or bags all over the house. As messy as this room gets it is still my favorite place in this house. Whenever I am stressed or worried I can sit in this room and almost instantly start to relax.

This is the basket that you can see the bottom of in the picture above. It was originally intended for sock yarn but was invaded by everything else.

Most of my straight needles are at least grouped together. These needles were passed down to me from my grandmother who used to knit. I am not a big fan of aluminum needles but these are special to me so I will always keep them and sometimes use them.

I would also like you to meet George, my quilted chicken pincushion, who introduced me to the world of quilting which I hope to be re-entering soon.

Recently I decided to catalogue all of my yarn in a spreadsheet to keep track of how much I buy and how much I really use. The buying far outweighs the using so for the month of April I will be on a yarn diet. I am hoping to reduce my yarn to just 4 cubbies by the end of the year. This will be an interesting challenge.