A Decade of Discovery

Today is my 70th birthday. This is mind blowing to me...I still feel 35-40 inside. Well, they say 70 is the new 50, and I think they're right.

The last decade has been one of immense personal growth for me, the one in which I found myself.  I'm in such a different place than I was ten years ago, and I'm profoundly happy about it.

This April will be ten years that I've lived in Rose Cottage/Fortuna. That's longer than I ever lived anyplace else in my life. I've been in Humboldt County for nearly 24 years, a few years longer now than I was in Los Angeles before I left in 1971. So Humboldt is my real home (altho LA will always be my hometown).

I'm close to finished with another pair of socks for myself. And this week I'll start another sweater.

I completed my big stamp-collection project over the weekend, that I've been working on since November. I have a pretty awesome collection now, having pulled all the stamps out of the stock books and small albums I got in the fall, and putting them in the larger albums. Plus a ton of stamps left over to use in collages, etc.

And today is beautiful (albeit cold) on the North Coast, a break between rainstorms.

Hope you're all having a lovely February! xx

What to Name a Sweater

I decided to name my handknit sweaters after the color name of the yarn...so here is my Chalk sweater, completed as of yesterday.

Lot of firsts with this sweater: first one knit top to bottom; first one knit in the round completely; first one knit with my recently-purchased and much-loved ChiaoGoo circular knitting needles.

Chalk fits fine too...altho as with every sweater I use a commercial pattern for, there are things I'd do differently, were I to knit it again.

Instead, I think I'll go back to designing sweaters for myself, which I've done with success in the past. I know knitted garments look and seem complicated, but knitting is really just about basic math. Number of stitches and rows per inch multiplied by the proper measurements and shaping.

I still have three of my handknit sweaters from previous knitting times (all the others sold or given to friends or charity), two of which were self designed. One in particular, which still fits me, remarkably (altho of handspun yarn, therefore very itchy), has features I'll knit again in a future sweater I'm planning for later this year. That is, after I knit a couple of intervening sweaters and a couple more pair of socks.

Last fall I bought a lot of yarn, specifically to use this year. I bought enough of each yarn that I'd have a range of garments I could knit up with each one. So my knitting plans this year are to work with what I now have in my personal stash. Instead of continuing to buy more and more yarn throughout the year. Another way of looking at it is that I invested in a stash of yarns I'd want to use, without always looking to see what's out there yarn-wise. I know what's out there. I'll get to it when I get to it. I think maybe they call this maturity, or self-discipline.

xx