Pumpkin Sunrise

Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen with the overhead lights on because it is tipping down rain outside.  Oh my, another dreary day.  This winter seems to be the winter of dreariness.  Lucky for me I like to be indoors and knit away.  I've noticed that the days are getting longer and the light is changing it's angle during the day.  Spring is slowly slowly approaching.  Slowly.  Right now I'm dressed for the gym but the rain is making me wonder if I really want to go outside.  I probably will.  It's good for me. Right now I'm admiring the books I picked up at our local library book sale.  All the Penny books are for my sister in law who is collecting them.  I have all of them on my Kindle and read them on the treadmill, what excellent company to be in when I'm visiting Three Pines!  The top three books are for my mother in law.  That leaves the pile on the right that is all mine.  It was a great sale. Righ...

I successfully knitted a bear hat and a pair of mittens over the weekend and promptly gifted them to the preschooler.  She was thrilled even though she is battling another cold (preschool!!) and feeling under the weather. I hope I do not catch it. I did a lot of hand washing and using hand sanitizer but I have a compromised immune system due to my autoimmune disease and the medicines I take.  Fingers are triple crossed I have dodged the germs! Anyways, I am done with knitting little hats and mittens for now.  I consider these small projects her PRE- birthday gifts.  What are you working on this week?

My weekend: -no snow - snow - rain - sinking into a really good book - starting and finishing a bear hat - homemade wings - superbowl watching - more knitting - getting all the chores done yesterday - solving another computer issue - writing a mighty list of all the things that need done today -  big salads - loving life right now - hand aches are resolved - completing the food inventory for the menu planning - How was your weekend?

I don't know about you, but January was glorious for me.  The quiet days slipping from one to another supported lots of creative time for me.  I hope February is just as good.  Around here we have no snow and after three days of sunny skies we are back to clouds and dreariness.  Thank you for your compliments on the hat and mittens I made the preschooler.  I started the bear hat last night. I am having some issues with my right thumb hurting (too much knitting on double pointed needles).  I should give the hands a break....should.  But I really want to knit!  The RA doc thinks it's mild OA, I think it's a flare up and it will go away eventually. If you remember last year my RA doctor retired (boo) and now I have a young doctor.  I saw her on Wednesday for a six month recheck, I am slowly forgiving my old doctor for leaving me.  This new one wants to re-diagnose me and so every time I have routine bloodwork every three months do...

Last week I delightfully fell down a fabulous rabbit hole of knitting for the preschooler whom I babysit.  Finally I found a pattern that she was so excited about.  When I arrived early in the morning I showed her the cat hat telling her I needed to sew the ears on and then it was hers. She was thrilled!  Over and over she said 'Mrs. Karen, I love my cat hat'.  She wore it for most of the day. Because she loved the hat so much, I whipped up some mittens as well.  Thank you Jane for the mitten pattern recommendation.  Super easy and fun!  When I finished the first mitt, she tried it on and then said 'Mrs. Karen, you did a great job on my mittens'.  (YUP.) Today she thanked me again for her hat and requested that I knit the bear hat that was pictured with the cat hat on the pattern.  Well of course!

On Saturday we had lunch with our son and his girlfriend, it was so nice to see them and spend the afternoon with them.  Hopefully we will have more visits like this until summertime when he moves to where ever he gets a job.  He's been interviewing so it's early days. Yesterday after Mass, grocery run and chores, my friends came over for some much needed knitting time.  I do love being with them immensely!  I worked on the felix sweater  most of the time.  I am loving how fast it is knitting up! Last night I switched to working on my purple sweater .  I ordered some twist shorties from Handsome fibers .  They are generous with their coupons.  Anyways, I just didn't feel like doing the sleeves on dpns so I thought I'd give the twist shorties a try.  This set will work with my other sets by the same company.  I love this style of needle! How was your weekend?

sweater body finished, onto the sleeves! Yesterday I decided to pull out my paints and paint on watercolor paper.  Lately my artwork has been daily sketching with a little bit of paints on drawing paper.  I love the fastness and the ease of mental  low pressure when I do a daily sketch. I pulled out a new paint set that I received from Santa and I sat at the table with high expectations of great artwork about to be produced by me.  Sadly, I made a hot mess of it.  I was disappointed and frustrated. felix cardigan cast on Of course I will not share the picture!  I almost ripped it out of my watercolor sketchbook but then I thought, 'where is the learning if I don't have documentation of my progress?'  You see, I LOVE to flip through notebooks and see my progress.  The progress isn't linear nor is it beautiful but it's there when I show up day after day.  I capture shadows or a blend colors just right. I have my very first sweat...