Hello Dear Blog

 Fatty Lumpkin (rav link)

It has been just over 2 years since I last did any blogging.

~I have moved to Laguna Woods, in South Orange County and love it.

~The boys have grown up and are on their own

~We remodeled our little condo.

~Scott's mom (on the left) moved up last January

My mom on the right. Don't they look like sisters?

~I am still going up to San Gabriel Valley on a weekly basis to see

my knitting friends and help them out with their knitting. 

  

~I am still just as obsessed with knitting, crochet and all things fiber.

Vegas Sonnensegel (rav link)

 

~Life has settled down and I find myself looking for my next thing. 

I am in a "what do I do know with my life" stage.

This is a first. Even when I started College I know what I was going to be doing and did it starting at 16.  I have always had lots of direction and goals for my life that where very real and things I worked on every day. From playing and teaching flute and piano, to directing bell choirs for 25 years, being a mother and wife and becoming a Waldorf teacher. When I retired from that I began working and teaching out of the yarn store until it closed and the started Marvels of knitting from my home. There has always been a lot filling my life. 

Since we moved, all my "jobs" have disappeared  and I find myself with the world in front of me and not knowing which way I want to go. I am not even sure what makes me happy except for my husband and knitting. 

Our health and what we need to do to be vibrent has been front and center for both of us. I have taken up dancing and go to a dance studio to workout several times a week and have met some great friends there. 

One goal I have is to make friends with my kitchen. I would love for it to become a happy place. I want to learn to make some good whole foods, ferment foods, sprout, kombucha etc.  

But I have to say that over the last two years I have cocooned myself. It is something I needed to do and I am very greatful to have the oppertunity to take the time for myself.  

Now I am looking for other ways to express myself. I went back and looked at my blog. I like my blog. As I looked it over it brought back lots of memeories and I remember how much I did enjoy it. 

So as a way of stepping out of my cocoon I am going to start writing again. I am not sure what I will write about. I'm sure it will be a mixture of all the things in my life as before. But mostly, I just want another way of getting out there again just to see what happens. 

So Hello Dear Blog!

Bling for Your Knitting

To list your March UFO's in the right "comment" section   Click Here

Sunday Inspiration is back!! 

I love Fiber more then anything and it is one of the main reasons I love to knit. Watching the color and feeling the softness as I create somethig out of string is heaven for me. One thing that takes the whole thing up a notch is markers. I love using them and looking at them as I come to them every few stitches.  

Here are some of the many Stitch Markers from the wonderful creative people over on Etsy.com. I have a couple of these but most of them are on my wish list. 

I do have to say that the last one listed by "Miss Purl" are my favorites so far. They don't catch on the yarn anywhere and mine are a lovely shade of green and they sparkle. Need I say more?

Miss Purl just got back from Stitches West (feb. 2012) so her inventory is a little low. But I am sure she will have more in the next month. 

'Bling for Your Knitting' by flmarvel

Bejewel your knitting and you will enjoy the process even more!!

OUTLANDER Gabaldon Book Stit... maryfaithpeace $75.00	Stitch Markers Set (12 piece... magic $31.00	Custom soldered knitting sti... DesignsbyTami $30.00
Knitty Fish Stitch Markers ... jennybuttons $35.00	Stitch Marker Box Set - Star... JudySwag $29.99	YARN SNOB - Handmade Handsta... knitcessories $35.00
Kitchener Stitch - Stitch Ma... BluOnyxExpress... $30.00	Precious Metal and Pearls wi... jeanettejed $23.00	Pineapple Lace: The Crochete... thesexyknitter $22.00
Woolly Sheep Stitch Markers ... weeones $20.00	Circular SnagFree Row Counte... jeanettejed $20.00	Aqua Petrol Designer Stitch ... blingyourstrin... $20.00
Sheep in Pink knitcubby $14.99	Ringlets - Brown & Gold knitifacts $14.00	Bits of Blue Double Duty Sti... MSotherdenArtG... $13.00
Purle Markers and The Miss i... MissPurl $14.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

March to Eliminate UFO's

 

Happy Leap Day!

Today feels like the first normal day I have had since we made the decision to move last August. So what am I doing with this extra "normal" day of the year you ask?

Going through knitting stuff and coming up with crazy ideas that I want to share with you all. 

I have gathered all of my unfinished projects (UFO's) together and find I have an issue. One that I know many of you share with me and I know it is all my fault because I am such a good enabler.

But fear not, I have come up with a solution!!

 "March to Eliminate UFO's" 

Let's see how many of those projects we can complete over the next 31 days. You will be amazed at how close many of them are to being finished. Once I start doing this I always wonder why I didn't just "cast this one off" or "weave in these ends".

I count ten, yes that would be 10, UFO"S so far. I am sure there is one or more lurking some where and it will jump out at me just when I think I have this under control. 

My stratagy is to tackle the ones closetst to finishing first. Case in point: these clogs just need to be felted and they are ready to warm my cold feet.

Instant gratification is the motivator here. Then with a new spring in my step, I will take on the half finished sweater, yes there is one of those in the group. It would be amazing to have all of these off my table by the end of the month. One of the projects is from the "unraveled days" for goodness sakes. 

What? You don't want to face what is hiding from sight under your bed or in the corner of your closet? How about this?

    Let's Make it a Contest!!!!

For every project you finish I will put your name in the pot and I will give out 3 prizes next month. 

The Rules: For those of you that love rules, you know who you are, here they are:

~ Add the "name of project and what you had to do to finish it" to the comment section     of this blog post. Only projects posted under this post will count. 
   Don't post you project under any other blog post. It won't count. 

~ must have the project casted off by midnight March 31 and listed in the blog post to      count. 

~ If you are so lucky to not have any UFO's hanging around congratulations. You can
   cast on and finish as many porjects you want this month and add them. All casted on       projects need to use at least 100yrds of yarn. No little tiny dust bunnies.

~ If you want to post pics of your projects we would all love to see them. Post them to         our Ravelry group. It would be great to have conversations going on over there. 
    So talk away!! 

Prizes?  

Yarn is the obviouse choice but I might surprise you. 

So lets get those UFO's conquered and next month we can have a cast-on frenzy and not feel guilty!!

Hello from "The OC"

My feet have landed but I am not sure the rest of me has. We bought a condo in Laguna Woods, a retirement comunity (more on that later) in south Orange County.. We were able to close on Dec. 28 and move in on Jan 3. This has been a daunting proccess. As I mentioned in my last post, yes that was months ago, I have lived in the San Gabriel Valley for a very long time and there is a lot of things that I am letting go of as I move to Laguna Woods. At the same time I pinch myself everyday because I am living in Laguna Woods and I am so close to Laguna Beach, my old stomping grounds in high school and college. I love it here and part of me really feels like I have moved back home. I am only 20 minuets from my old house in Fountain Valley. 

(A "Saville modle" like the one we bought in Laguna Woods)

Now a retirement comunity is not what we were looking at. But there was this one modle that kept showing up the computer that I loved and the price was amazing. But it was in the 55+ comunity. Well that out, we don't want to do that yet. We are just 55!!But we checked it out anyways. No stone left unturned. We the model we loved was great. Very open and much bigger then anything we were looking at and up to $40-$50 thousand then the other things we were looking at.

Then our realtor showed us clubhouse 4 (there are 7). This houses junior college level workshops for woodworking, photography, pottery, fine art, sewing, jewelry making, silver, lapadary and I am sure I missed something. OMG. Use of the facilities is free except for supplies you might use. They also have classes that are free plus supply fees. Did I say OMG!

Wel,l besides the location (15 minuets from Laguna Beach) and being able to buy a much bigger house for much less money it was a no brainer. We are lovin Laguna Woods. 

Knitting has still been going on during all of this. I think it kept me from going totally insain. I will do a "finished project" post next time. 

One of my FO's

I am going up to the Valley every week now and knitting with all of my friends. As of this week all the drop-in/beginning knitting times are up and running at several wonderful locations. I have to get pcitures over the next few weeks of our knitting spaces. 

If you want to join us check out the times and locations here.

I am also coming up with a contest for March so stay tuned for the fun!!

Hint: How many unfinshed projects do you have??

Fall has Arrived

I have no idea where the summer went. I did take the summer off from teaching project classes and just running the weekly beginning knitting and drop-in classes. I was starting to think about fall classes and even begane to knit up class samples so that I would be ahead of the curve for once. 

Then all h#$% broke loose and we decided, out of the blue really, to sell our house. It was the end of August when this happened and by Sept 18 we had our first open house. In the 3 week period I packed up half of the house, decluterred, decluttered and decluttered some more. The house was painted on the out side, beautiful and the backyard brought up to pretty. One month after that we are signing pappers and as of this weekend all the continginsies are gone and I will be moving out of my 1918 craftsman bungalow by January 6, 2012. Wow!!

Our plan is to by somewhere in the Laguna Niguel/Laguna Hills area. We both grew up around the beach and always go down to OC for weekends away to be near the water. The prices in OC realestate has taken a hit over the last coupld of years and we found that we can probably get into a small condo, with no mortgage and live 5 or 10 minuets from my favorite beach. Heaven. 

Needless to say this has been a shock to the system around here. I have been in the San Gabriel Valley for 35 years now. All my family has moved on but I have remained. So I am pulling up a lot of roots that have grown very deep over the years and my many reincarnations. My knitting comunity is going to be the hardest to replace. 

I know that knitters are great people where ever you go but I love the group of people I knit with and teach. Thank goodness I am only moving 1 hour away and will still come up and knit with my friends on Friday's in Arcadia. But I am going to have to work out another solution for Thrusday evenings and Saturday mornings. There are many wonderful offers from some of the knitters to use their houses for getting together and I am sure that I will be taking advantage of that. I am also thinking of seeing if there are some stores in the area that I might be able to teach out of. 

Good news is that I am 95% sure that I will be renting in the area at least until spring so unlike the selling of the house whirlwind, I have time to find the perfect solution for as many of us as is possible. 

Spring Knitting Retreat 2011

14 of us are off tomorrow for our 5th retreat in the past two years. We are going to Murieta, Ca, just north of Temecula and San Diego.

Doesn't our house looks like a French Chateau on a hill side in some part of France? That is the way we are thinking of it.

As alwasy there will be food, drink, lots of knitting, conversation, laughter and some sleep. We will be tasting the fruite of the area at some of the wineries and maybe some shopping on the way. 

Click here to see pictures of all the above in full action!

Happy Mother's Day

 

All that I am or hope to be
I owe to my mother.
-Abraham Lincoln