Back in the Saddle Again

So... how have you been? ;)

I don't know about you but I have some serious separation anxiety with my computer. Isn't that awful? I have been ranting here and there about how things need to get simpler and less impersonal and I was thrown into a massive wake-up-call that could have been avoided. BACK UP YOUR STUFF. Do it now, I'll wait. All done? Good.

The day after Thanksgiving we lost everything on our computer thanks to one of those lovely viruses that (insert not-nice word) across the world think up. The kicker is that I knew I was behind on backing things up and had put it off to the new year when I would buy either an external hard drive or some zip drives and that would be that. Nope. Had I done it when I knew I needed to I could have just bought a new computer and reloaded everything (which would have been the cheaper and less painful route). We didn't recover all of it; some of our pictures are gone and my patterns are in a state of unfinished chaos that I am working on cleaning up/re-writing. Lesson learned.

But, I am back now and wanted to say a public THANK YOU to the public library system that allowed me to get online at least once a day (on most days) so I could get my quick internet fix. And thank you SIL K for that last post explaining my unnecessary absence.

A brief summing up of the last few months: The minions are doing well in school. They had lots of fun decorating for the Holidays and we all had a nice time with family and friends. It's Winter so there was illness here and there which is to be expected. My RN gig is going. I'd rather be home enjoying fiber-related pursuits full-time but the paychecks are helpful and I have been busy dyeing up a slew of skeins for our local Knit In (though it's officially called Sticks and Strings now) next weekend and for my first shipment of the Lord of the Rings Club that a few other dyer friends and I are putting on. I am behind on photos so I will post the first two shipments of that when I get a few spare minutes.

Really, I don't have that many photos to put on the blog right now. My "day job" has killed some of my productivity but I did manage to get some photos taken of some of the Holiday gifts I made and of a test knit for an upcoming pattern of mine.

One of my personal Holiday traditions is the handmade ornament. I was looking at our tree this year and was rather pleased to see that about 80-90% of the ornaments we used were handmade - some by me, some by others. I love it! Though it's no secret that I am all for the handmades...

This year's ornament was the sweater. I can't tell you how addicting these things are to make and this isn't even a full display of the ones I made. I will be adding a few more for next year though I'm rather excited about the ornaments I will be making for this year!

Sometime during the Fall, I sat down with each minion and asked what they wanted to give their teachers this year. They both chose handmade objects (such a proud Mom moment for me!). Little man knew that his teacher loved to swim so he sat down with me and we worked out a simple wave pattern and my rule is that they each have to help me by actually knitting some of the stitches. He chose the leftover yarn from his Gansey for the main color. (Cascade 220 in the Atlantic Colorway).

Little miss has the same teacher little man did last year. She still wears a lot of black and white and other neutral colors so little miss decided that she needed a pair of mitts "with a thumb" so we looked through the stash and she saw the mitts I gave to my SIL for part of her Holiday gift and decided that her teacher needed a pair of those too.

Shortly before little man's birthday, it became clear to me that his feet are growing at an alarming rate and he needed new socks. Again. He chose to use a skein of Silk Sock by Fresh From the Cauldron in the Charlie Colorway.

I am working on a new pair for little miss right now as well but I am just getting started on her second sock. Actually, I'm working on 2 pairs for her right now so stay tuned for that. One of them is a new pattern of mine that I will be releasing soon hopefully - it depends on how much bonding time the computer and I get over the next couple of weeks and how many of my patterns I can recover.

These are a pair of mittens for my MIL. She chose the colors she wanted a while ago and I dyed it up, paired it with a textured pattern and voila!

This next project I did not knit. One of my Thursday Night Knitting gals was kind enough to test knit a blanket for me. A blanket that eats up yarn. She gave it to me to photograph and it is warm and squishy and lovely and I might just have to make one for myself sometime though it might take me a few years. This was knit out of Cascade Ecological Wool.

The Midwest has had an unusually snow-free Winter thus far and according to the weathermen that will change in the next few days so the minions will finally be able to go out and play in the snow. Hopefully. The weather has been cold and windy lately and everything is brown or gray and it's rather depressing. What I would do for some color... We even had a freak warm front where the temps in January were in the 60's. It was glorious! Right now it's crazy cold and I need to go find some mitts to wear around the house.

Until next time...