Well then. That was a long hiatus. The holidays happened.  The new year is here and we’re in the second month already. I was very busy knitting up a storm and completely aggravating my elbow tendinitis. I knew I was knitting too much. But I was so tired of not knitting, so I kept knitting. Now I’m not knitting again because, guess what? It hurts too much.  Lesson learned? I don’t know.  History says no.  In the mean time, I have lots to show you!

I finished three shawls that were each about 75% done but I had gotten distracted by other patterns.  They are all by Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade.  I really like her patterns and have joined The Shawl Society for the past two years.

The Amulet Shawl:

The Fairyhill Shawl:

And the Sprite’s Fen Shawl:

I also made a few things in order to schedule some classes to teach:

The Amy Shawl (the second commissioned one, for which the owner is letting me use it as a class sample!):

The Sugar Twist Cowl:

And my take on the Rick Rack Scarf:

I also started a mystery sock knit-a-long with Knitter’s Brewing Company:

That is going very slowly because the smaller needles are harder on my elbow. A row here and there.

Since I used up some of my stash with all these projects, I couldn’t pass up the sale at my LYS The Spinning Room. If you got there at 6am, your purchases were 50% off!!! That’s CRAZY! The discount got lowered as the hours passed.  I got there at 5:50, in the dark, and I was not the first one in line.

Here is the madness at about 6:45am:

And there was a beautiful sunrise when I left:

In non-yarn news, I baked a couple of things that were AWESOME!….

Peanut Butter Fudge Buckeye Cake from King Arthur Flour:

And Stromboli from Smitten Kitchen:

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately with some very short reviews:

A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrick Backman: Loved it.

Britt-Marie Was Here: A Novel by the same author was also great.

Starry Night: A Christmas Novel by Debbie Macomber: Nice love story.

Hardcore Twenty-Four: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovick: Fun.

Wedding Cake Murder (A Hannah Swensen Mystery) by Joanne Fluke: Meh.

Necessary Lies: A Novel by Diane Chamberlain: Good but sad. Brought me back to my social work days.

And lastly, a Smudge montage…..

2111111111111. (those numbers were his contribution, stepping on the keyboard)

New favorite toy:

Like he has no idea how my scarf and project bag got there:

“Helping” me work:

Still his favorite spot:

Hopefully I’m back to a regular blog posting schedule.   If my lesson has been learned, you’ll be seeing slow progress on not many projects. Ha! Maybe more book reviews or recipe reviews or other ramblings.