sheep geek

It’s been two years since I’ve last done this. This whole sock knitting thing. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the best socks in my sock drawer are the ones that I knit myself, and that there aren’t nearly enough of them. And that the hubby’s one pair weren’t nearly enough either. A pair in silver grey for me with just enough texture to be interesting. A pair for him in a gorgeous green, simple, basic and durable; and that I’ll be wanting to steal often.

A popular pattern. An under-rated yarn(the merino/tencel). A scarf to get lost in.

: yarns from my stash.

-danielle

to try to squeeze the thoughts and activities of the past few weeks into a few paragraphs, but it always turns into an extraordinarily long post in my head. So I don’t write it out, or put together the proper photographs as I begin to realize that I don’t have photographs of the moments that are truly special to me. I tend to leave my camera tucked safely in it’s case so that I can experience things first hand and not through my view finder; life isn’t always meant to be lived after the fact. Instead of trying to tell you about the last couple of weeks I’m going to start things off again with a clean slate and just tell you that these past few weeks have been a wonderful rollercoaster.

Listening to lots of jazz while I work on small and large things alike. Re-discovering a passion for Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong that I had left behind after entering college. And so I once again find myself doodling and drawing as the music had once inspired me to in empty art studios when I was younger. A thought that turns into a smile. That turns into a grin as the thought is put on paper and given color. Sometimes notes just lead into each other and remind you how to live out loud. It’s funny how that works.

-danielle

First I wanted to say thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts. I haven’t been at my computer much lately aside from updates to the WWKiP Day events and event approvals; other than that I’ve been too busy getting used to my new environment, and you know, being busy. It’s taken me a while to finally feel relaxed in the new house, and it’s finally sunk it that it’s our house, albeit in the country a bit, but I’m willing to get used to that

We decided that it was time to bring another kitty into the house so that Vash would once again have a play mate; he spent the first week shouting out for someone to play with. The three floors are a bit much for him to deal with on his own I think. Enter Wolfwood:

A three month old orange tabby. We spent about an hour and a half interviewing potential candidates and decided on this little piece of crazy, erm, kitty. He’s very lovable, and Vash has already begun to form a bit of an attachment over the past two weeks.

Since moving into the house it’s been pretty non-stop activity for us and it’s been really amazing. My mom flew up from Austin last week for the longest visit we’ve had together in the past 6 years, and it really wasn’t nearly long enough. On Tuesday she flew back to her very weird city. This morning Steven and I woke up early and drove less than ten minutes to pick raspberries at a local farm.

{a tiny fraction of the berries we brought home}

We picked just under two gallons worth of gorgeous red raspberries and have since washed and frozen the majority of them. Any ideas on what we can/should do with them? We’ve already made the most amazing raspberry milkshakes…

{to blend}

{to drink}

{to savor}

And then Steve came down with something. After a few hours of sleep and lots of vitamin C he’s feeling better, which is really good since we’re driving to KC tomorrow with a bunch of friends to go eat at Fogo De Chão. Seriously, it’s been a really full couple of months, and there’s no end in sight. Not that I would want there to be. The whole reason why we moved back to the States and St. Louis, Missouri in particular was to be closer to friends and family so that we could spend time with them. And it’s been worth it.

cheers,
danielle

whew.

As you might imagine, there has been very little crafting since I blogged last. The new house is mostly unpacked, it would be completely unpacked but the studio had tons of bugs and spiders in it that the pest guy said we should wait a few days to let them die off before populating the room. So my studio stuff is pretty much in every other room in the house. Steve’s parents drove up from Springfield to bring us things and help us move; 2 friends rsvp’d that they were going to help and then another 10 showed up, that was sort of mind boggling. I can’t adequately put into words how much all the help was appreciated by Steve, Dave and myself. Did I ever mention that my brother in law; Steve’s twin; bought the house right next to us? It’s a bit weird, ok, really weird, but it looks like it’ll work out.

My mom-in-law brought us some gorgeous irises from her garden when they came up. I grew up with irises and love them tremendously, I can’t wait until we have some of our own; maybe some Japanese ones. I wanted to enjoy the beautiful flowers for as long as I could, so on Monday I re-cut them and re-arranged them:

{there were only two of these so they each got their own ramekin; View On Black}

{there were so many of these black/purple ones that I was able to fill a mug; View On Black}

{a few of these went into another mug with a bunch of the following}

{i love the soft blues}

{the veins are so pretty}

{converging points}

While I was taking all of these photographs yesterday I had a load of my handknits in the dryer. They had weathered the washer just fine, but then the dryer decided to shrink two of the 5 sweaters.

One that I hadn’t had the chance to wear yet:

and my absolute favorite sweater:

I’m taking a few minutes out the packing and cleaning frenzy for myself to show you what I’ve been doing while not doing those things.

sad:

{I was almost done with the button band}

{when I tried it on and realized that the v neck was too high up}

funny thing: I don’t like to be choked by my sweaters. who knew?

happy:

{so instead I decided to cast on a top down round yoke t-shirt in a yolk color}

{I call it sunshine}

first flesh sacrifice to the new house:

{while cleaning windows one of the window locks decided to take a notch out of my finger; awesome}

sprayed it with a surface cleaner that had vinegar in it: even better; not sure which hurt more, the gouging of skin or the spray to clean it out. tough one. but all is well now, or rather, as well as it can be with the ensuing chaos. When you move house, do you find yourself purging things that you’ve never used in your current location? I’ve been doing that.

cheers,
danielle

p.s. Last night I played some TF2 on the PC for about an hour and a half to recover from the day, and it felt great. I had forgotten just how much I love that game.

-currently waiting for the surprise apartment inspection that we found out about last night. joy. wait a minute. 2 second inspection was just made and finished. awesome.