Just in time for the heat to hit us, I finished Elijah's sweater! He is delighted, which thrills me, and told me that it was comfortable, which is high praise from him. He is very sensitive to textures and how things feel, so I'm glad that this feels nice to him. The good news is that even though we are in the high 70s, sometimes reaching the low 80s, during the day, the nights are still cool, and honestly, even in the 100 + degree weather in August, he wears sweatshirts and wraps himself up in thick blankets. Being a desert climate, while the sun is up, it is hot, but we're high desert and there is almost always wind, and the evenings and mornings are usually still cool (or at least cool, relative to the high daytime temperatures - our temperature spread can be up to 40 degrees). Also, Rich pointed out that since our kids grow up and not out, he'll probably still fit in it this fall.

Another finished item is the working pattern for Ventus! My testers have it now. I found a couple errors in it, and had to upload an edited copy, but it is ready for them to work on it and help me find problems and places that need clarification. Yay! Ventus should be ready for publication by the end of this month, or the beginning of June.

If you haven't already liked Arabian Knits Designs on Facebook, please do. That's where I put updates and testing opportunities and other design news. Your liking it gets me more visibility with folks who may not know about my patterns. Thank you!


I have started a late birthday present for Nejat. Her birthday isn't for another week and a half, but I already know this will be late. It is crochet, and I am slower at that, and it is a relatively large project, an afghan with some fiddly sewing on of appliqués at the end. Plus I want to make matching pillows. The good news is that Nejat can't read calendars yet and doesn't know when her birthday is. I found this photo tutorial to be of inordinate help when getting started with the star blanket pattern. The instructions were kind of confusing to me as a beginner, and seeing how it was supposed to work made it much simpler and quicker.

My reading is still somewhat limited. A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter has been our read aloud book as we drive. Rich drives, I read. I'm almost finished with my brain candy book: The Terror of the Southlands (Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates).



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On

Labels: Books, Crochet, Design, FOs, Homemaking, Knitting, Yarn Along