I've gone through a number of life changes in the past 4 years including staying in Virginia to care for my 92-year-old mother.  I have had no time to keep up with my blogs, but things have settled down and I am back in Florida and intend to start a couple of my blogs up again.

This site is under construction, so please be patient.2016

UFO:
Jane Eyre Shawl - might have to take out the flame pattern and make a leaf.  Difficult directions.
Infloresense I decided to make another repeat of the lace.
Black & Pink Cowl
Green Cowl
Red/Yellow baby sweater
Mary Hoyer doll clothes
Preemie dresses
Reader's scarf
Rasta hat
Eli's Sweater
Kids Aran sweater
Oddments vest
LolliePop hat
DNA hat
DNA scarf
Oliver Twist scarf
Pastel blanket
Super Hero Hat
Tilden Hat
Felted purse
Felted vase
Felted bowl
Terry baby sweater
(Some of these are not actually UFOs, but things I have kitted and in the bag and they need to be done by Christmas.)

New:
Black or Red sweater
White Aran sweater: Aidez
12 Cowls
20 Hats - done! I still have several more I want to try, so I'll change this to one a month.
12 Mitts
Knit-a-long shawl To be decided

Oddments - 16 Patterns to be used with a "bag of 1 skein oddments of yarn  We found we needed to use more patterns because several were for wool and my group Amelia Knits is from Florida.

YIKES!  I'D BETTER GET GOING!

Slytherin Socks

Scrap Yarn Sock Advent Calendar pattern by Anna Johanna - lace or Fair Isle.

Green graded yarn from BJ (shawl) ???  Which, I don't know.

A Knitting Assessment

I am leaving for Virginia tomorrow and have spent the day packing up all the knitting projects I'll need to last through Christmas. My mom has had a small stroke and I don't know how long I will be there. I've spent the last week making the final decision on my Christmas knitting and then gathering everything I need. (And then some!) I will also be turning in my charity knitting to From the Heart in Richmond. Going through this process is very revealing. The first thing I noticed was that I have enough needles for myself and 3 more very active knitters! Why do I have so many needles?

Reason #1 I got some needles on eBay and they contained the needles I wanted and a whole lot more! It was like Christmas when they came. I was looking for some very small but long double point needles and at the time, they were very hard to find. What I bought was some knitter's stash of needles and tools. It was so exciting when the package finally arrived. Along with the needles were all sorts of tools from the UK which we don't have here. That was about 15 years ago and a few months ago I finally figured out what one of the last tools was for...a knitting machine.

Reason #2 I have been working on UFOs for the last 3-5 years. As each project is finished, I collect the stitch markers, the needles and the stitch holders. I had NO idea how many needles and such that I had tied up in UFOs! It's very gratifying, but what am I to do with all these needles? I gave some of them to a young knitter in my group, but she is moving to Seattle in a few days and won't be settled for a while. I need to sit down on the floor and take inventory and then cull, cull, cull.  When that is done, I need to find another new knitter and and make her very happy!!

Kofe Haus Meeting

There were 3 of us at the Kofe Haus meet-up this morning and as different as we are, we found lots of things in common. We have a retired teacher and librarian, an archeaologist waiting to get into grad school and a writer and mother of two; two female, one male. I think that is what I like about knitting meetings. They bring together such a wide variety of people who start out only having a love of knitting in common, but we grow by interacting.

I also love the "knitting in public" movement. People stop by and chat about knitting and I am amazed at the people who say that they always wanted to learn. Some say they'll do it when they retire and others take up the hobby because they need an island of calm in the midst of a chaotic life. My mom says that she thinks better with her knitting needles and I find that to be true for myself also. Knitting calms me and grounds me. How often do you see and adult just sit down in a chair and think? We always need to be doing something and so often the thing that we are doing takes up too much of our attention to really think. Not so with knitting. I can sit in a chair and just knit and as I do, bits and pieces of my life seem to sort themselves out.