Crazy for Ewe

Happy Thanksgiving!   I am so happy to have all my kids home for the holiday, even Elizabeth who had the audacity to move all the way across the country. Just kidding.  She has a terrific job, loves the area, and is super happy, so I'm happy too.  I do miss her, but as with everything, you have to take the bad with the good.  I was reading an article on mindfulness today and how mindfulness, and gratitude are the building blocks of happiness. The author used the term "savoring." I love that word --  I love the idea of it.   I think it kind of more

I had lunch in Baltimore with my sister, Janet, last week.  A fabulous artist, she took me to a little restaurant inside the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM).  There was a show in the museum called Parenting, an Art without a Manual.  The show featured 36 different artists and dozens of different media.  Each artist presented his or her own experience of being a parent, or being a child, and all the ways there are to approach those complicated relationships.  There were some lovely celebrations of warm happy childhoods, and there were some exhibits that were really sad and kind of disturbing.  It makes you realize just how hard parenting is, especially since babies don't come with very good 

It's been a week since we let our sweet fur baby, Dorey, go to doggy heaven.  It was so hard to do, but it was absolutely the right thing.  The right thing is rarely ever the easy thing I guess.  Dorey had been suffering some time with severe arthritis in her hips, and it got to the point where we simply couldn't medicate her enough to ease the pain.  I told the children that it was time, and we all went to the vet's office together.  They gave Dorey a little sedative, and we realized more

This past weekend I attended the biennial conference of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, an organization with the motto Entrusted with History's Future.  Our mission is to protect and preserve the homes, collections and artifacts of the men and women who labored to bring forth our nation.  Over the years, the some of details of their lives have been lost, and we read only of their great deeds through the history books that clothe them in glory to inspire future generations.  What we really need, however, are their stories, the more

This Sunday is your last chance to see the beautiful Berroco Brielle Trunk Show,, and I really hope you do. Things always look so different knit up, even in a swatch, and when you have garments, that's a real bonus. 

Brielle is a sophisticated fiber - a cotton base with a subtle rayon shimmer more

Theodore Roosevelt said, Comparison is the Thief of Joy.  I know what he meant when he said that.  It's so easy to look at other people's seemingly awesome lives, and be suddenly unhappy with our own awesome life.   It's especially hard with the carefully curated images on social media that seem to scream, "Hey look at all the fun I'm having that you're not."  So, obviously it's a total buzz kill to compare yourself against others in order to judge how much/how more

The wonderful people at Skacel, distributors of Addi needles, Zauberball sock yarns, and several other lines are on a mission.  They want to create 10,000 new knitters in one day, and they've partnered with yarn stores across the country more

We've had several classes on the Cocoknits Method, and everyone has been very happy with their sweaters.  It's a great method, and a fun class with some new techniques to learn, as well as innovative applications of a lot of the skills you already have. It's not hard, but it is new, and this full-day class will take you more

As my son Colton was finishing up his physics homework at the kitchen counter Sunday morning, he said, "You know Mom, there are kids in my physics class who look at these problems - and well, the problems do look hard and complicated -- and it's overwhelming, and they just say screw it and don't do them. "  He added, "When you start doing the problems, they're not really more

It's October -- welcome sweater weather, pumpkin spice, and Socktoberfest!  Yes, Socktoberfest, a fabulous month-long event to introduce you to the work of some very talented hand-dye artists and their beautiful yarns, some of which you may only have seen at more

For the book club this month, we're reading Circe, a novel by Madeline Miller, based on one of the lesser goddesses of Greek mythology.  A textile artist who wove on a loom built by the legendary craftsman, Daedalus, Circe is best known as the witch who lured sailors to her shores and turned them into swine. In more

The Berroco Aero Trunk Show arrived Friday. This is a no-kidding beautiful yarn.  So soft and light.  The designers of this show really got it right - simple shapes that let the yarn take center stage. more