Ramblings

Gee, my 60th post. It’s funny, for something started on a whim, blogging has certainly firmly entrenched itself in my life. All last week when I was absent from the blogosphere, I kept finding myself composing in my head little narrative vignettes of bits of my day and taking loads of pictures of anything remotely interesting. To my surprise, I missed blogging. I’m not much of an exhibitionist in real life but somehow, it feels odd now not to share quirks and highlights of the day with the wider world out there and have it respond back by way of comments. I didn’t just miss rambling about me either, lest you think me excessively self-centered. No, more than writing my own posts, I missed finding out what the writers of my favorite blogs were up to. Had they finished knitting that sweater? Did they start work on a new stuffie? Really, it’s the wonderfully generous community of knitting and crafting bloggers that has made permanent my attachment to my little corner of the blogosphere. I don’t think I can ever tire of learning about and being inspired by everyone’s projects. That and the responses of those kind souls who actually take the time to read my verbiage always makes my day that much brighter and happier. Looking back on that sleepless night in February, I’m terribly glad that I gave in to my blogging impulse.
Speaking of embarking on blogging, my good friend Rachel has just joined the ranks of knitting bloggers. She’s my only friend who knits (and thus the one who has to put up with the most of my fiber-related yammerings) and as my former roommate, the one who first introduced me to the wonders of knitting. Today is her birthday so pop by her new blog and say hello. She has delightful pictures there too of alpacas from shearing day at an alpaca farm (a farm that, lucky girl, her fiancé’s mother owns.).
Happy Birthday, Rachel! I’m sewing away as fast as I can on your present.
As evident from the decreasing ratio of knitting-in-progress content to sewing content on this blog, sewing has taken over the upper echelons of my project list. I've been rather impatient with project progress lately and it's really just that much faster to make something when the fabric is already present, rather than requiring one to create it from threads! However, after seeing Jeanne's beautiful Hedera socks, I feel newly inspired in lacey sock knitting so look for pictures of progress on the long-neglected Pomatomus soon.
One more thing before I stop prattling away. I neglected to mention the inspiration and sources for my pincushions in the last post. The sheep pincushion is a pattern that I made up after seeing a similar one at Wee Wonderfuls in a picture that I now cannot seem to find. It's just made from two fabric squares sewn offset from one another. The directions and patterns for the flower cushions come from a terrific Whip Up tutorial . As for little round blue cushion with the flower, it is a variation of the bottle cap pincushion by Very Big Jen. I used the plastic center bit of a tape roll instead of a bottle cap (at last, validation for my pack-rat tendencies!). All of these were very simple, fast, and endlessly amusing to make so go forth and pincushion! You'll thank me later. I’ve already found the next type of cushion I want to make (addiction? Yes.). Now, I just need to find some walnuts and someone to eat them…