We have done a ton of traveling over the past two weeks. Nothing too far from home, but I've had some time to knit in the car lately. I've made some progress on my "striped" shawl, but even though I brought it with us, along with a couple other projects, starry, starry night has seen no progress. Between illness and exhaustion, I just didn't get as much knitting or crocheting done as I'd like. All the deadline knitting for design proposals kind of wore me out, too.

I feel like I'm just getting a lot of rejections lately, also. I heard no back on my baby. It's okay, actually, I will write it up and knit a top for myself and get it published. I hope by the fall. Still haven't seen anything from the two magazines, yes or no, but I'm assuming one is a no, as they tend to get back sooner for yes, and I honestly have no idea on the other two. So, here's the weekly reminder to like Arabian Knits Designs on Facebook, if you haven't already. 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 and that helps me. Thank you!


Kollage Riveting, which is a yarn made of recycled denim.
While Rich and I were on our trip we made a a stop in Cashmere, while it was no longer on fire, and picked up some yarn for me and some applets and cotlets from the factory after going on the tour. We also bought some Turkish delight. I failed to notice that I bought the cream colored yarn in a worsted weight and the blue yarns in a dk weight. So, I will double the blue yarns to make them the same weight to knit with the cream, and make a gradient type top. The big family trip for the funeral was too packed for us to stop at any yarn shops, and we even missed Trader Joe's.

I do ask your prayers for the fires and firefighters in our state. We have several in our county and within 30 minutes of our home right now. So far, we are completely safe, but a lot can happen in a short time. Many people are losing property and homes, though the loss of life has been minimal (I think none, but I'm not sure).

Instead of knitting or crocheting or designing, I have been reading more. I have finished a couple books: Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home (Pentecost and Ordinary Time) which is part of a series of books on living the Church year, largely aimed at Protestants, definitely western Christians, with a few things in there that are on point for Catholics and a few mentions for Orthodox, though the suggestions for family activities/foods/crafts are appropriate for Christians of all backgrounds and I started and finished Maisie Dobbs which I loved! I actually was surprised by the close of the book, which is a rare thing for me. Now, I need to see if our library has any more of this series.

On our trip, we read another chapter in A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter. It was our car read aloud, and I was glad to find Alexander listening in again. As our most recent trip was for another funeral, I finally picked up A Christian Ending and have found it to be a conversational book that is really accessible and gives a lot of understanding and history as well as practical advice and instruction. We are looking at how to word our legal documents to reflect our desire for orthodox, Christian, natural burial.



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On and Yarn Fanatic Party.

Labels: Books, Crochet, Design, Family, Homemaking, Yarn, Yarn Along