Birthday Wishes

Hi Knitters,

My second child turned 16 years-old last weekend. We spent most of the weekend celebrating this milestone with him. It's hard to believe he's mine. He's more fun than anyone I've ever known. He works hard and plays harder.

I simply want to thank him.

It's quite a process to see your babies become older and turn into capable, happy adult-like people. Parenting in general conjures up words in my mind like big-huge love, fun, laughter, excitement, adventure, worry, thrill, pride, hope, future, joy, tears, the hardest work I'll ever know, chaos, noise, silence, contentment... home.

How about you?
I thought you would get a kick out of this sight. The Collector often leaves me in charge of her baby when she is gone at school. This is the view from my chair this morning and lots of mornings. I don't pay much attention usually but today the sight of that baby wrapped up to the chin sitting next to me made me laugh. She just put her baby next to my chair and didn't say a word about it. Love that. Then when she gets home she always asks me how the baby was during the day. I always tell her perfect and that the baby didn't make a peep. The Collector smiles every time.

That's another toy I'm knitting away on in my bag. Knitted toys are coming out of my ears. I never imagined that toy knitting would become a focal point of my design work. It is a happy and welcome development no question.

You can see the (poorly lit) new wood floor in my studio. I'm pretty excited about it. I had a painted sub-floor ever since I ripped out the awful old carpeting from the previous owners many, many years ago. I just made do and I figured anything would be better than stinky old carpet. The trim and the floor boards need to go back in so I have not fully moved back into my tiny little room just yet. Hopefully by the end of the week I can get settled and freshly organized.
It's a dark rainy day here and I don't have my lighting set back up but I am in love with the new paint color in my studio. It is a Sherwin-Williams color called Open Air. It looks like the clearest blue sky you would ever hope to see. Fresh.

I have a few fun links to share:

For all of you dinner cookers like me, here is a list of links for a bunch of tried and true casserole recipes that you will want to keep around. Jaime made every recipe on the list and verifies that each one is delicious. I trust this girl.

Berroco has an incredible pattern booklet available for little girl sweaters. I really like this one.

Eunny Jang, the editor of Interweave Knits, has a new downloadable scarf pattern that I am crazy about. I really want to knit this one up! It's a snowflake fair isle scarf knit in the round with chunky yarn. Gorgeous!

I am starting my quilting class this week. I thought that my house would be finished by now and it's not. I have packed up all of my sewing stuff including my machine. It could be a challenge to find the space to work free of dust and construction workers. I am still excited to take a class and learn new things. I'll just have to do the best I can. I may not get an "A" in the class but I am sure I will absorb a lot of information. My sister is taking the class, too, which makes it all the more worthwhile. I get to spend time with one of my favorite people doing something fun. Good stuff.

I hope you all have a happy and productive day!

best, susie