Not a Luddite, Just Procrastinating

Well, well...I guess it's been a while since I've posted. Almost a year and a half.  To say my life has been thrown all out of whack would be probably the biggest understatement of my life.

When last we met I had just been put on notice for taking on too many holiday projects and was informed that I just can't do that again.  Well that probation still stands, I can't make gifts for people, with the very real exception of all the babies coming into the world this year!  My bff is having her first (a girl!!! SQUEE!), a few friends of mine have added to the football team of boys we have, and I am also doing my part to add to that team.  Baby Boy Swanson #2 is due this summer!

I have been crocheting and knitting this whole time, not accomplishing much, but starting a great many projects that I cannot wait to show off when they're finished.

Hopefully now I'll be able to escape and blog a little more now that things are calming down some...HA! I am so funny.  Calming down....with a new baby on the way.

In any event I plan to add this to my schedule that I have been working out since my hubby and I closed on the house and effectively became a stay at home mom.

I will be in touch!
Off to play Destructor of Blocks!

I've been put on notice...

That's right avid readers, I have been put on notice by my husband.  For the next year I cannot make gifts for anyone except myself and my son.

No this does not mean I'm closing shop for the next year.  I can still take orders and accept money for the goodies that I create...I just can't gift anything out...Which I had a hard time accepting.

Here's what happened, every year (for the past five years or so) I've made gifts for people.  Afghans, scarves, stuffed animals, etc.  And every year around Christmas I start to stress.  And I dont mean normal people stress I mean like saving the world stress.  Projects wouldn't get done and the ones that did wouldn't be up to my (stringent) standards.  It's horrible, and this year Matt has had enough.

I didn't take it too well either.  But that's what being married is all about, being able to be completely honest with the other even when it's something you know the other person doesn't want to hear or accept.

However, after a "full" nights sleep (Lucas and I are still working on the sleeping through the night business, although we are getting close), and a morning of working on a project for me I started to get excited about knitting and crocheting again.  Something that I can now admit I haven't been for quite some time.  When I was pregnant I thought it was my hormones that were making me hate crocheting and knitting, but then even after I had Lucas and life got back to normal (or moved into a new normal) I hated picking up my crochet hook.

This made making my friends wedding gift especially difficult.  It wasn't that I didn't love her dearly, I do.  She is one of my best friends, but it was the day of the wedding and I was still working on the doilies because I hated doing it.  I had to get over that guilt about hating it pretty quick since she loved them so much (which I'm so glad about!!!).

So, all of this being said, I finished my gifts for my family (and not the gifts I wanted to make - but that's another story), got them in the mail today and as of now can no longer make gifts (at least for the next year). Which - to be totally honest - has relieved an absurd amount of anxiety off my shoulders.

Now, I can do other things that I've wanted to work on for a long time.  Scrap booking pages for Christy, essays for the travel journal that my aunt made for me, embarrassing hats for Lucas, and inventory for my Etsy shop.

So really I haven't been put on notice, I've just been made to look in the mirror and finally see the truth, that I need time to be selfish. :-D

Craft Fair, Thanksgiving, and Wounded Warriors Benefit OH MY!

In an attempt to get back to making my crocheting business a success I decided to do a craft fair this year.  I participated in the Otis Library (in Norwich) Holiday Craft Fair.  I did this craft year last year as well and it was my favorite.  The vendors are all super nice and the woman who runs the fair is great too!  She makes sure to stop by all the tables and she knows all the returning vendors by name and on sight.  This year my main push were these totally fun wagon wheel slouchy berets and matching chain scarves.  I had them in several colors and they were sold as a set.  Above and beyond that I had other styles of scarves and hats and one super thick, giant afghan.  

Unfortunately the craft fair didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but I had fun talking to people, handing out my card and seeing the other vendors, so I guess in retrospect in turned out as well as I had hoped.  Below are some pictures of my table.

This year was also my son's 1st Thanksgiving, and in an attempt to make sure he is always embaressed by me as a teenager I Mrs. Weasley-ed it up and knit this totally adorable turkey hat.  He loved it that day, but I can already see the future when his girlfriends see this picture and the others with things I have made him. 

Every year my friend hosts a benefit where the proceeds go toward a charity that supports Veterans and their families.  This year she worked with the Wounded Warrior Project and the turn out was AMAZING!  Vendors donated gift certificates, baskets  and bottles of wine.  The Grand Prize was a two night stay at the Waters Edge (a time share place that - in looking at the brochure - was GORGEOUS!!!!).  We had so much fun and I brought out my little Marine for the party.

All the different gift certificates

Table of donated baskets!

My donation

More baskets!

Me and the AMAZING Gretchen!

My Little Marine...too pooped to party any longer...

Now with November coming to a close I sit here in my living room and look down and see all the projects I have planned for Christmas and of course Christmatine (a holiday that will be discussed in the coming months) and mostly I'm really excited but part of me cringes at the thought of all the projects I've taken on.

I hope you all had a safe and great Thanksgiving!

Spinning is NOT the same as Twirling

Last weekend my friend Gretchen and I went to the New England Fiber Festival.  It was super overwhelming and SOOO much fun!  I wish I had broght my camera to take pictures of all the cool booths there was!

There were demonstrations and vendors and fashion shows and well...the list goes on and on.  Of my favorites were the lace makers (which I dont know how these women were doing this and not be blind.  My eye sight isn't that terrible and I was struggling to see what they were doing.)  I had always thought that lace making was another form of crocheting or something close to tatting, but I found I was very wrong.  Lace making is more like macrame or old school friendship bracelet making.  See the link below for a site about lace making:
http://lace.lacefairy.com/Lace/BeginGuide.html

There were also spinners of ALL kinds.  I had always thought there was only one kind of spinning - you know on a wheel.  But I learned there there is a type of spinning called drop spinning and you use a drop spindle which basically uses its own weight to spin the yarn.

My son has been trying to help me spin the ball of wool I bought to learn on.  All he really ends up doing is being really cute and distracting me. :-)

I'm very excited to be learning this new skill of spinning and can't wait to knit or crochet with yarn that I've spun myself!

I also cannot wait to go back to the New England Fiber Festival next year!!!!

Doilies in the Dark

So I'm slowly learning that having a baby means that projects that I would have rocked through before I got pregnant take a little more time now...or needs to be fit into some other open place in my schedule...umm yeah.  This stay at home mom thing doesn't mean I get to sit around and eat bon bons.  Not that I ever thought that about stay at home moms, but I did think that infants were easier than say toddlers.  WRONG!

Just because the newborn doesn't move around as much doesn't mean that he/she doesn't need constant supervision. Not to mention the fact that they eat every 2-3 hours!!!  So yeah it's MAJORLY cut into my project time.

Like the doilies...Beautiful doilies that I"m making for my firends weddings.  The only time I can work on them it seems is after teh 2:30 feeding.  Which isn't a huge deal, infact I now know that I can crochet in the dark, and accurately at that.  I - so far (knock on wood) have been able to find every stitch, and read the instructions purely from the light of the TV.

What I've taken this to mean is that when my sight goes (and it will, EVERYONE in my family has glasses...and varying degrees of blindness above and beyond the glasses they wear), is that I'll still be able to crochet/knit because I can feel where all the stitches are and so long as I have the ability to count (and eventually read brail) I'll be golden.

*fingers crossed*

Keeping it Straight...

This may come as  shock to some of you but I have slight ADD.  It's not bad, but it does make it impossible to maintain focus on one project for very long.  This is why I do my best work when I have four or five (at the least) projects going on at once.  I had thought (read:hoped) that this would continue into motherhood, apparently not.  Now not only am I fighting my ADD but I'm also trying to sort out what my friends are calling "Mother Brain"  Wait...?  Didn't I just have Preggo Brain?  What do you mean I get to stay as forgetful as I was when I was pregnant but also now get to be scatterbrained???

Well not to fear faithful readers, the organization part of my brain has kicked in and we are finding ways around this insanity.  The main way around this insanity are lists.  I have what seems like thousands of lists.  Lists on dry erase boards for groceries/Target/home projects.  Lists in my daily organizer of my knitting and crocheting projects (which now that Lucas is a month old he is more inclined to sleep in his crib and not on my chest...kind of sad but cool too!).  Not mention using my daily planner everyday to keep doctor's appointments and home appointments straight.  Now that my hubby and I have just closed on our house there is a TON to do.  Painting, cleaning, unpacking, it's been crazy.

But thank god for lists, otherwise...well with a baby, a husband with a TBI, and my with ADD and Mother Brain...well it would all go to hell.

Oops, I'm off - Lucas calls.

<3

Knitting is NOT a One-Handed Hobby

Good evening my avid (and ever patient) readers!

On August 27th I gave birth to my totally awesome son, Lucas!  In the week that has gone by since his birth I've learned some very important things.

1.  I thought that insomnia was bad - it's not.  I beg for insomnia now.  Growing up I've always had insomnia, but there were always books to read, hats to crochet, and infomercials to watch.  Now?  Oh please, I'm so tired all the time I'm lucky if I remember to get under the blankets before I konk out.  Of course it's probably for the best that I'm not under the covers since I'll just have to get up 2-3 hours after I lay down.

2.  No matter how much water you drink or watermelon you eat your ankles will be 3-4 times as swollen as they were while you were pregnant.  This will continue for at least the first week of post-delivery and then all of a sudden right in the middle nursing (or bottle feeding if that's your preference) you'll have to rush to the bathroom and drop 3 million gallons of water all at once.  It's amazing, but it'll be when you can't get to the bathroom as soon as you would like.

3.  If you can drive stick shift you can hold a baby and fold laundry at the same time.  I learned this one today.  My mom was here for the long weekend - along with a couple of girlfriends of mine - and they so completely spoiled my son that now to not hold him is to unleash the devil.  (thanks guys...)  Anyway, Lucas was just not having it, wouldn't lay in his swing, sit in his bouncy seat, lay in his crib/boppy nothing.  So there I am holding him and folding laundry.  Then of course when I was done with all the chores that I wanted to get done he had fallen asleep and I could put him down.  For the moment.

4.  (This is the most important lesson that I've learned so far)...No matter how many lessons or complaints I have Lucas is the BEST thing in the world.  Everyday he's a little cooler because he can stay up during the day a little longer, he is more aware of who's holding him and of what's happening.  It's amazing.  I wouldn't give him up for the world - or an extra hours sleep.

All of the above being said, I am now short a hand for crocheting and knitting.  I know that Lucas is only 7 days old but I'd really like him to be old enough to learn how to knit and crochet already!  Not that I'll be forcing him to learn if he doesn't want to, but at least when he's that age I'll have both my hands back and be able to knit and crochet to my hearts content.  I look at Lucas and fall in love every time, but come on I've got projects to do!   And not one them can be done one handed.

Won't stop me from trying though.