Has It Really Been A Year?

| on
October 24, 2016
Wow, has it truly been one year since I last posted?  Crazy!

A lot of things have happened in my personal life and my knitting life.  I lost my beautiful Zora, my 13 year old lab on Thanksgiving weekend last year.

Loosing a pet, at least for me, is much like loosing a deeply devoted friend or family member.  We knew Zora's time was limited.  I bought a black lab puppy to see if Zora could pass on some of her wonderful, beautiful traits to Marla (my little girl named her: it means "black bird" or "raven" in Italian) the new pup.  Unfortunately, Zora passed earlier than expected.  

Marla is a beautiful dog, but so far, training her to work with my kids with their special needs has been hit and miss.  Her nickname that my mother, "Gram," gave her is "Black Devil."  I didn't want Marla to be lonely, so I bought another Lab, a yellow one that my other daughter named "Charles."  He is silly, licky, and so full of play, Play, PLAY!  


I'm now used to these two dogs bolting through the house, knocking things over and having wrestling matches on my lap whilst I'm trying to read to the kids.  They have learned that "Mommy-Human" goes a bit nutty when balls of yarn / works in progress are nabbed within the course of over-zealous canine play.  

On the knitting front, I did go to KnitEast here in New Brunswick Canada and had a blast.  I called it my Norah Gaughan weekend because I took ALL of her classes and they were so much fun!  If you ever get a chance, check out her classes.  You can find her on Instagram as norahgn.   

Fast forwarding to late spring 2016 to current.  I'm really excited that I've taken another new step in my knitting:  Technical Editing for knitting patterns!  I finished the first class given online by the inspirational and very savvy Joeli Kelly.  If you ever wanted to dive into tech editing, Joeli is the one you want to teach you.  She is smart and gives loads of excellent tips to help you succeed.  You can find her over at Joeil Creates.  There is an entry level course and an advanced course.  I'm currently enrolled in the advanced course and it is awesome!  I'm at the point of taking on clients, which is really thrilling!  My tech editing site is knittingpatternstechnicalediting.blogspot.ca 

Designing-wise, well, I've got a few designs almost ready for publication and a few that are brewing in the back of my mind.  I hoping now that the kids are back in school, I'll have a few more minutes during the day to work on my designs.  I sorely miss designing.  And knitting, for that matter!

And now I'm looking ahead.  I've started Bullet Journaling, and I'm in love!  Goals are the main focus, and I'm thinking of what I want to do next year, breaking those goals into monthly tasks, and breaking those down into weekly pieces that, if completed, get me closer to my big goals.  What's one of the big goals for 2017?  Knitting travel!  I really want to go to Vogue Knitting Live NYC 2017 this coming January.  A huge factor will be money, of course, and what classes will be taught.  I want to learn things that I cannot get here in my Province or online.  Plus the networking is fun!   Another knitting plan is to go on one (or several!) of Helene Magnusson's Icelandic knitting tours 2017 summer and fall.  And KnitEast here in New Brunswick.

But right now, I'm working on my close-to-home bucket list.  Like knitting up as much of my yarn stash as possible.  Why?  Because I have a HUGE yarn room/design room reno coming up!  And that leads me to another item on my list.  Learning/re-learning how to play with power tools!  

So, that's pretty much what I've been up to.  How about you?