Life Part 2: Where We're Headed

By this time next week, we'll be on the road. Destination? Well, here's a photographic hint.

Mosquito repellent and a book of dog sweater patterns.... Yep, Minnesota! After 3+ years in Albuquerque, we're headed home. This time, though, the "little CRV that could" will have three pet carriers. May the travel gods of animal spirits smile (or at least not frown) on us.

It's been a spring of tough decisions (and, as you may have noticed, miles and miles of comfort garter stitching). Thing is, despite a good job (the one that brought us to NM) and some of the best friends Izzy and I could ever hope to make, we belong in Minnesota. (I'll spare the laundry list of family/personal reasons.) By April, I knew it was time to say goodbye.



We're excited, not to mention relieved happy that our well-loved home in Linden Hills awaits us. A nice reminder that sometimes the universe has a good reason for dropping obstacles (bad real estate markets, property management struggles) on our path — and that even without those obstacles, the path is always winding.

FO: Summer Color Affection

I queued this pattern back in March shortly after I first saw it and even bought three skeins of yarn (selecting shades of my favorite colors: green, blue, purple). Then I made two swatches and couldn't decide — indecision no doubt enhanced by the fact that I was in the middle of making some pretty big life decisions.

Thank goodness for the announcement of a TFA KAL — and the Yarn Harlot getting infected with the Color Affection bug — so that when I posted the swatch photo on Ravelry asking for help, my fellow TFA fans knew the pattern and helped me pick, with a few weeks to spare.

Even so, I got a late start casting on for the KAL since I wanted to finish up another project. But all proved well and good. This is an easy pattern to memorize and really flies off the needles — well, that is, until you get to those final, reeeaaalllllly long rows. Not that I was suffering my way through them — in fact, when I started to worry that I was running out of the Atlantic, I discovered I had read the directions wrong and had already knit an extra six rows of the three-color-stripes section.

Pattern: Color Affection by Veera Välimäki

Yarn: TFA blue label (Atlantic, Plum, Olive)

In the "bigger is better, right?" frame of mind I decided to leave them and start on the Olive border. Warning: This is one big, cozy shawl. It blocked out at more than 7 feet, not that my six extra rows really tipped the scales.

It's sure to keep me warm this winter. But more about that in the next blog...

FO: Stained Glass Is Sweet

More than most projects, this one has quite a few miles on it. I started it before we headed off on our vacation, getting in several rows on that lovely porch swing in Carlsbad. It traveled to all the Saturday ice skating lessons and Thursday practices, and even made the trip to Santa Fe for the competition. 

Mind you, when the yarn contains cashmere and silk, I'm happy to carry it anywhere. Anytime. The pattern was as sweet as the name promised. Yep, pretty much loved this project from beginning to end. What more can a knitter ask?

Pattern: Sugar Is Sweet by Rose Beck

Yarn: TFA Red Label (Stained Glass)