SnarCraft

You can all thank Hannah. Now, let’s see how rusty I am at this. How long has it been? I daren’t look at my previous post to check...certainly it’s been a couple of months… I honestly do feel guilty about that. All the drama that was happening last year before I started the blog (which, to be honest, is partly what the blog was meant to be helping me decompress from) started up again. We, in some ways, are right back to where we were last year, or a couple of years ago, and that’s really crappy. I honestly was thinking about the blog every day I wasn’t writing and posting (which was most days, if we’re sharing and all…).  I didn’t stop knitting or playing with fiber. I didn’t stop having ideas for things to design and I didn't lose the happy feeling I got when I looked at yarn/knitting/crochet/fibercrafts. I just...I just didn’t have the energy to fight my own head and body to be still and focus enough to write. I know that one of the best things I can do for myself when I’...

The road calls, my lovelies. I can practically smell the asphalt, that’s how strong the pull is. I have packed the car (including an entire box of yarn and related paraphernalia), loaded up my phone with audiobooks and podcasts, mapped out every yarn shop and opshop between here and my destination, put petrol in the car, and now I’m bragging updating you lot. I’ve also got two fully charged camera batteries and Liebling’s DSLR. Anything I’ve forgotten at this point I will just buy along the way. (I don’t typically advocate for this sort of approach, but I trust that whatever I’ve forgotten is going to be either non-essential or something so essential that having one more of it isn’t going to be excessive.) Tonight I officially am on a personal holiday. No kiddos, no partners, no real job obligations until next Monday. I am going to cafe/yarn shop/bookstore/opshop/woolen mill hop from here to my destination and back. From now until next Monday, if it isn’t yarn/coffee/book/hobb...

Today is Friday, I should be writing up a Friday Fibre Watch post, but I'm not. (I promise those will be back; I'm expecting next week to see their return.) Instead, I'm going to tell you about all the things I'm currently not doing in the face of impending weekend and only having a few short hours to get my real job done before needing to pick Youngling up from a thing this afternoon.  1. I'm not writing this week's Friday Fibre Watch. Episode 5 has plenty of nifty yarny things in it, and I've been stumped by one of them. I've been stumped to the point I've called in the big guns and asked my mother (an avid crocheter) as well as several other friends how they would do a thing to make a particular thing. This will make sense next week when I have it all written up for you. Currently, though, we are not on speaking terms and I'm shunning that item in hopes inspiration will strike and one of us will crack the code. 2. I'm not cleaning th...

I'm back! No, the tweens didn't gobble me up, though they managed to do just that to pretty much everything else in the house. (Go them!) The first ever Harry Potter Marathon at The Lookout was a success! Youngling was an excellent first time hostess (I didn't hear a single tween drama fest or fight breakout during the entire 10 hour event) and I set a new record for myself at how stealthily I could swap out savoury snacks every time a child tried to walk out of my kitchen carrying nothing but lollies and sweets. Oh there was  Butterbeer  and Firewhiskey (my own recipe) and a proper array of sugary confections that would make even Fred and George proud, but I did try to not send all the children back home at 8pm with nothing but sugar water for internal fluids.  To recuperate from Tuesday I spent yesterday at my LYS. My reward for missing out on Knit Night in favour of supervising five tweens with more sugar in them than sense? I ended up being in the right place ...

Phew, I am exhausted. How about you? Why am I exhausted you say? no it is not because Tour de Fleece kicked off this weekend and I have been spinning myself crooked. Rather, today was the first official day of school holidays. It was the first official day of school holidays AND my tween has a Harry Potter movie marathon on tomorrow. Don't get me wrong. I love stuff like this. It's heaps of fun to do themed parties and watch the kids bounce around impersonating their favourite characters.The prep work, however, can be murder. As an example, today we have been shopping for final missing ingredients (including cinnamon candies, which apparently is NOT a thing in Australia, and sprinkles made with plant-based food colouring), tidied the lounge, done the dishes probably a million times, and baked an array of goodies that would make the lunch trolley on the Hogwarts express envious. Oh, and we did laundry. So I am now sitting here, in the dark, letting the last bits of t...

The other night I decided to cast on the State of Mind cardigan by Veera Vaelimaeki for my lovely friend Laurie. Laurie gets something knitted every winter, but I have yet to make her anything bigger than a small shawlette. (Ok that's a lie, I just remembered I've knit her one top, but it was from the same pattern book as this cardi so I'm allowed to forget...) After a lovely romp at the LYS about a year ago she bought the Inspirations Vol 2 on the grounds that "these two women just get me!" Since said book purchasing, however, Laurie's baby has turned into a full-fledged running (and climbing!) toddler and she hasn't had a spare moment to get me updated measurements for the cardigan. No kidding, I bought the yarn months ago but only just got the updated bust measurement this week. However, in celebration of the new data I excitedly cast on for the cardi. Now I know some other knitter has probably made this same collection of mistakes, but could you d...