I've had this ottoman for ages that I dearly love. (Do you recognize it Mark? It's from that chair and ottoman that Fern gave us) It came to us from a friend after a serious envy problem I had. The chair is no longer with us, and I'm still missing it. And now the ottoman. Serving as seating and end table for years can do a number on a piece of furniture. A cinder burned a hole in the top and a beagle got a hold of a corner. Who could that have been, I wonder? Anyway, we were in need of a recovering, big time.

So I ordered some fabric and assembled my tools. I realized after I started that I should have taken a "before" photo, but at that point there was NO WAY I was going to undo the work I'd done. Apparently I have little patience for projects such as these.

Still, I muscled through, and look! A whole new piece of furniture. The colors seem really vibrant to me after the faded stripes of the ottoman of old, but I have enough to cover a floor pillow, so hopefully after that it'll be less jarring. But hey! After a major drought, I made something.

A colleague of mine is having his second daughter in a couple of weeks, so I jumped right in to knit up some baby caps for his soon-to-be TWO little girls.

More beret than baby cap. Raspberry Berets! Pooh says, "oh la la!"

I am so overwhelmed right now.  My head feels full to bursting with thoughts and ideas, fireflies of light flitting across my brain too fast to catch or latch onto.  It's not just the kitchen. It's a lot of other things. (Number 9, I'm looking at YOU.)  Something compelled me to creep upstairs to the Blue Rain Room yesterday afternoon where someone had forgotten to turn off the air conditioning (!) and grab this lap quilt.  It's from Bend the Rules Sewing, and it has languished, draped over a closet door for two years.

Languish no more little quilt.  I've finished the machine quilting, and it's on to the binding.  Those rows and row of straight lines set a rhythm that settled my mind, at least for the time being.  Who knew?

So last weekend when the temperatures soared spring-like, and I had ample opportunity to sit idly and recover from my bout with the flu did I do so?

No.

With the prospect of a house guest coming this week and a party for the faculty of the school where I work the following weekend, did I attend to my housewifely duties and clean and dust and mop?

No.

Based on a suggestion from friend Megan inspired by a blog post she saw here, I decided to organize my yarn stash by color.

I'm so glad I did!  The Blue Rain Room is just bursting with color.

I simply cannot get enough of it.

I feel sure I've described the situation of my little studio, but please forgive me if I don't go digging through blog posts to see for sure.  It used to be the master bedroom of the little gray house, but when we bought the house an addition was being finished that included a kitchen and master bedroom and bath.  The old master bedroom became obsolete, somewhat of a walk-through room.  You have to go through it to get to our bedroom.  It would have made a lovely nursery had we still been in nursery days.  It's hard to know what to do with a walk-through room.  I think we have visions of someday including an upstairs laundry/closet, but that will have to wait until we redo our master bath which will incorporate our present closet.  And that will have to wait until we have money.  You know, when Callum's out of college. If ever.  But you know how houses do that to you.  Especially the old ones, it seems.  We're always saying things like, "If we took that wall out and moved the water heater out to the utility room..."  Presently it's the kitchen inspiring these conversations, but that's a story for another day when I've been folding the laundry in front of HGTV while I'm recovering from the flu.  How I ramble on...

Anyhoo.  The walk-through room makes perfect sense as a little studio, and I took this picture while standing in the doorway of our bedroom.  This is what get to look at when I get up every morning.  Lucky me.

For the real eye-candy, I dedicate these last two photos to my friend Marianne.  She's a brialliantly-gifted jewelry designer who won't let me buy any more of her jewelry in any shades of green.  I think you can see why.

My new scarf matches my coat even better than the one I knit for it.

See?

Happy Christmas Scarf!  I love, love, love it. It really is just enough ruffles, this version in Manos.  I'm wearing it back to school today.  I forsee other versions in my future.  Ah, re-entry, I have a helluva week coming up.  But a pretty scarf to keep me warm and cheerful!

I did some holiday knitting.

Hat and socks for the nephew.

More hats for the kids in the 'hood.

Of course there was more.  Scarves for my mom and dad, both of which, like an idiot, I forgot to photograph. 

And that little red scarf is still smoting me, but the friendship socks are done.  It's my fastest sock ever, but the gauge seemed a bit big.  They'll end up scrunchy, cozy, Monkey socks.  Here's hoping they keep going fast.   I've cast on for the pair for my mom, and I'm anxious for a pair of my own. 

And still there was more.  I did end up with a Christmas knit, but now that Alfie is gone it's blocking on our guest bed.  You'll just have to check back for that one.

I've done a lot of knitting this Christmas.  I'd been on a bit of a hiatus, but the bug bit back with a vengeance, it seems.  I go through these creative spurts occasionally, obsessively working. I hope it doesn't go away.  I'm having fun. 

So I finished with the Christmas knitting, officially, on Sunday (but not the finishing, I need to pay attention not to lose that part entirely, it's so much less...fun).  It's been ages since I've made anything for myself.  When I started knitting, a few years back, I started leaving myself a project under the tree, new yarn, maybe new pattern to gift to myself in the event of the eventual post-present and food orgy letdown.  When we were in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, I went to this amazing yarn store and bought myself some Manos (first time ever) and thought it would pair nicely with this pattern, and there you go, "Happy Christmas to me."  I'm looking forward to it.

When my mom was here we went to my local yarn store (Closing this spring, to my...well I have mixed feelings, but that's a story for another day.), and I bought a lovely Berroco red to make a scarf and she went a little crazy, buying sock yarn for herself, a friend, and yarn for a vest.  All for me to knit, of course.  That evening I finished up the Christmas knitting and promptly cast on for a red scarf for myself.  I'd spent some time on Ravelry looking for appealing patterns, and I knew pretty much what I wanted.  But it was all fiddly, and I ripped it out and started over.  And again. And then I tried different needles.  And I ripped it out again, and again.  I'm not kidding. 

It will sound totally dorky to say that I try to listen to my knitting.  If I'm having to rip it out, maybe the needles are wrong, or the yarn won't work for the pattern.  Or maybe I should be knitting something else entirely.  This is a long way of saying that some part of my mind thinks I shouldn't do any knitting for myself until Christmas. 

So last night I gave up the ghost and cast on a Monkey.  It's the yarn for my mom's friend, and man I love this pattern.  They had a funny little thing, my mom and her friend, one of those "I think she's mad at me..." moments, and I don't know, if I'm not going to knit for myself just yet, I may as well knit this, because hey, we all have moments like that.

Yes, I know it's been awhile since I've picked up my needles.  There were some projects scattered here and there that I neglected to mention (and more importantly, forgot to photograph): a pair of socks for my mom's birthday, a scarf or two.  Nothing too exciting.

I'm enjoying this baby sweater though, intended for my new nephew who we will meet for the first time over Thanksgiving. It's the child's placket neck sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  Man, I love that book.  There is project after project that I'd love to tackle in its pages.  The yarn is a trip:  Kollage Corntastic.  Made out of corn!  How crazy is that?  Corn!  And you know what else?  Machine washable!  And dryable!  The color is moonstone, kind of a deep purpley blue, and I'm thinking of adding perhaps yellow stars or red firetrucks for the buttons.  One sleeve and the lower body down.  I'll keep you updated.  Promise.

I'm not angry, really.  I know it looks like I'm hollering something like, "And mister you better come when I call you.  I have been on this porch calling your name for the last ten minutes.  Now get in the house and wash your hands for dinner."  But I'm not.  I'm actually very happy to have finished this apron that I started, oh, four months ago.  I wanted to make it for when my mom came to visit at Easter, and here she is during summer vacation and I'm finally done.

It's the Emmeline apron from sewliberated and I knew I wanted to make it as soon as I saw it.  Oh my gosh, I love this apron.  There were some parts that tripped me up for a bit, like the first time I cut strips on the bias.  I know, I know, how easy?  But when faced with something new, I tend to avoid until I'm feeling really brave.  The neck ties sat for weeks and weeks.  When I finally got up the gumption to sew them on, the universe was against me:  snapped my needle, bobbin ran out, stitching all wonky and needing ripped out.  So she sat again.  Until this weekend and the impending visit from Ama.  I just had to have her finished this time.  In the end I didn't follow the directions completely, opting to machine instead of hand sew some parts, and the sticking is still wonky in some places.  But she's done!

Best part?

She's reversible!

You can't imagine what it's taken to get me to this headband-loving place in my life.  First I had to get rid of the headaches.  Seriously.  And this is probably a whole other "before/after" kind of post, one I've been thinking about writing for quite awhile, but, in brief, headbands used to give me headaches, and I had to stop getting headaches in order to be able to wear headbands.  There was a whole long twenty three years of non-headband wearing there for me.  Sad, but true.

Now that I can wear headbands, and in fact need to wear headbands (thank you hot yoga, my sweat tastes DELICIOUS), I have discovered something very interesting.  I must have a really small head.  Any headbands I've tried, including the super-tight, intense sport-grip headband, slide up the back of my head.  (It's either the smallness of my head - whatever - or the slope of the back of my head.  Seriously, can you believe I spend time thinking about these things?  You all probably know me well enough by now to make that much perfectly believable.  Ahem.)

Heather Bailey to the rescue.  She has a great headband tutorial that has, get this... TIES in the back in addition to the elastic.  TIES!  What a great idea.  They were super fast and easy to whip up, and gave me the perfect excuse to A) keep on keepin' on with the sewing thing and B) use the awesome pincushion ring that Megan gave me for Christmas this year.  I think it looks like a funky little alien on my finger and I love it.

Almost as soon as I trimmed the threads, I yanked back my bangs with it and headed to yoga for a test run.  Can I say that my headband rocked?  It rocked.  Just tight enough, because of the TIES, I suspect.  So perfect that I went straight home and made one for Jean.  That's the one you see up there.  She was tired of eating her own sweat too.  So hooray for headbands.  In all sorts of ways.  If you know what I mean.

I've been inching my way back into the Blue Rain Room.  Ever so slowly.  Despite our damp and chilly weekend, it must be a spring thing.  Have I said it before?  I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  Whine, whine, whine.  My friend Marianne, who makes jewelry, makes these beautiful labradorite necklaces and earrings.  I have a pair of earrings, and the stones have a beautiful blue-grey iridescence.  Labradorite is supposed to help you find your true purpose, and seriously right now those earrings are not enough.  I want her to make me a freaking tiara. 

Part of me says, just accept it that you're a crafting dabbler.  The urge comes and goes.  You can put colors together and make some nice things, but as far as any real skill, eh.  Would I love to be an Alicia or an Amy? And write books and have a little etsy.com shop?  To spend my days thinking about my life and writing about it on this blog and capturing it on film.  To write books?  Books?!?  God, yes.  Oh, god yes.  But instead I get lazy and knit rectangles of scarves rather than challenging myself to do more.  I rush to go to work and cook dinners and watch Project Runway, and I yell about homework and I don't vacuum enough.  And I think that if I had a real creative spark, I'd be up in the Blue Rain Room every second I could.  I wouldn't just pass through on my way to fold laundry.  I'd have genuine ideas of my own instead of shades of copies of everyone else's. 

I'm hard on myself, I know.  This is where my friend Sarah and I would say, "If I'm not going to be hard on myself, who will?"  (Hey buddy!  I'll e-mail you back soon, I promise!)  But I've been thinking this way a lot lately.  Thinking more than doing.  In my more rational moments, I realize that I've had a strong creative push at work this fall and winter, and that it's hard to be creative in too many places at once.  So, okay.  I don't feel okay about it, but I guess I have to be. I'm still trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing here, anyway.

So this weekend I dipped my toe back in the work.  I saw these rice pillows over on wisecraft, and I loved them.  So of course I stole the idea (totally giving credit, of course, and hey, she posts instructions right there on the blog).  I made one as a quick birthday present for a friend who's having a rough month, and after that we were off and running.  Back in another life, when I was a labor support doula, I made literal rice socks for all of my clients.  I wish I could have sewn these back then.  Super-duper easy.  Seam, seam, seam, you're done.  I have one with lavender, and two without.  I'll send one of the unscented ones to my sister-in-law who is on bedrest and due with her first baby in a few weeks.  If I had more lavender, I would have made about a million more.  As soon as I pick some up, I will. Rice pillows for everyone. 

Maybe if I drape one over my own shoulders (2 minutes in the microwave), I'll slow down and relax a bit.  It's just the tiniest bit possible that I could go a little easier on myself.