My Creative Spirit

A quick update

tamlking — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:43:55 +0000

Good morning! No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, but there have been lots of changes for us. And quite frankly, I have been so busy that I haven’t been getting online much.

First of all, we moved to a smaller house. Since we are officially empty-nesters, we just didn’t need that 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom house anymore. With the housing market still so yucky and after having the house on the market for a year, we decided to rent it out. We found a really cute house (no basement or 2nd floor in this one YAY!!) that has a yard that Zoey just loves. This house has 3 bedrooms and one bath. We’re using one of the bedrooms as an office and the other is my craft room. It’s been a huge adjustment for both of us and the dog. I was SO homesick for the first month. But we are getting used to it.

I also went back to work. I’m store manager at a toy store in a mall. It’s a great job and I love working for the company. It has meant a lot of long hours just prior to Christmas, but things are slowing down a bit now.

Not much going on in knitting, but now that I’m back to normal working hours that will change. I still need to work on organizing my craft room, too. I haven’t spent any time in there in the 6 weeks we’ve been living in this house. I had won some gorgeous sock yarn on Ravelry and I’m anxious to knit a pair of socks with it. I’ve also bought yarn for two sweaters (for me, of course lol) and want to cast on one of them soon.

After many months of knitting….

tamlking — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:03:38 +0000

I finished this shawl:

Coloring Book Shawl

My beautiful shawl

This has been my most ambitious knitting project to date. I have to admit that although I was pretty intimidated at first, I took it one section at a time and it wasn’t as hard as I had thought. I love how it turned out!

I bought the pattern at Heritage Spinning and Weaving in Lake Orion. It is a lovely shop and the staff is very friendly and helpful. See what happens when you see a spectacular piece of knitting on display?

Oh go on….admit you’re jealous. You know you want to.

It’s a beginning

tamlking — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:16:22 +0000

I sold my first pattern over at Ravelry! The pattern is my first published sock pattern – Mosaic Texture Socks. If you don’t belong to Ravelry and you would be interested in purchasing the pattern just email me. Pattern cost is only $3.50 and will be emailed to you as a pdf.

Mosaic Texture Socks

Cuff

In personal news, we are going to be grandparents again in February! Time to get busy on that baby knitting!

Productive Summer So Far

tamlking — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:49:59 +0000

I have spent the last 6 weeks recovering from emergency life-saving surgery for a condition that I didn’t even know I had until I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. The benefits of having gone through that are:

1) I’ve learned that I can’t always do everything and that it’s okay to rely on others to help me when I need to.

2) the whole situation has really brought hubs and me closer and has really strengthened our relationship!

3) I’ve gotten a lot of knitting and crocheting done during my recovery!

And those are only a few of my projects!

I’ve also listed my first pattern for sale on Ravelry, the Mosaic Texture socks. I’m currently working on another sock design and I’m loving it so far. Just have to decide on what type of heel pattern I want to incorporate.

Good Morning World!

tamlking — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:43:21 +0000

I had an amazing weekend! We went to Motor City Comic Con on Saturday and I got to meet and hug Brent Spiner. If you’re a Trekkie like me, you will recognize him. If you’re not…..I’m sorry for you. He played one of my favorite characters and he is even more handsome without the makeup. Sadly, they made me give him back.

Speaking of Brent, I’ve also been enjoying his series Fresh Hell on YouTube. Click on the title and check it out!

I also enjoyed seeing a few other favorites:

We had such a great time! Lots of people wearing some really creative costumes, but for me the highlight of the day was definitely meeting Brent!

Got those needles flying!

tamlking — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:59:41 +0000

March was a busy month for me. Not only did I have family visiting from out of town, but we also hosted a large birthday party at our house for my husband’s grandchild. Little did I know when I agreed to doing it that I would be stuck with the cleanup afterward. Ah, such is life.

But I was also incredible busy knitting and crocheting. Here is just a sampling of a few projects I completed:

Block of Chocolate Socks

Star Cloth

Baby Hat for Addison

Grrrr!

I have also knit most of a hooded cardigan with cables. It’s the Central Park Hoodie for those of you familiar with Ravelry or Interweave Knits. I bought the pattern from Interweave quite awhile ago and finally got around to knitting it. I thought it was going to be more difficult because of the cables, but this sweater is much easier than I thought! I am having a blast knitting it and am surprised at how quickly it’s coming along. I only have to finish one sleeve and then join the pieces and knit the hood.

The next photo is something my hubby bought me over the weekend. I will leave you to drool over this:

You know you're jealous

The Most Logical Choice, Captain

tamlking — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:58:50 +0000

As I’ve said before, I am a Trekkie and I LOVE Spock. I crocheted this little guy recently, he was a free pattern over at Ravelry.

The most logical choice, Captain.

You know you’re a Trekkie when you pull this little guy out of your bag and show him off like he’s one of your children.

Winter Storm

tamlking — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:19:28 +0000

So glad it wasn’t as bad as they projected for us here in SE Michigan. Oh, we got lots of snow, but only about 1/2 of what they were calling for. I’ve spent almost an hour out there shoveling already this morning, and still have some left. What a great morning workout!

Today is Groundhog Day. Not that I believe in the accuracy of an animal “predicting” how much longer winter will last. It always ends around the same time each year, whether that little guy sees his shadow or not. My question is….will the groundhog declare today a snow day and reschedule? Or will he bring out his little groundhog shovel and clear a path from his burrow?

In knitting news: I’ve finished 2 WIPs from last year! Woohoo! One of them is this top:

Wicked

I knit this top in Knit Picks Bare yarn, then dyed it using Jacquard Acid Dye in Russet. It’s actually a little more of a deep red than shows in the photo. The color was knit in worsted and the remainder of the top was knit in fingering weight.

Reached my goal!

tamlking — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:58:51 +0000

As some of you have read before, I’ve been working to lose 50 pounds. I began on June 19, 2010 and as of last week I reached my goal! I am incredibly proud of myself….not only because I lost the weight, but because I set a goal and actually saw it through to the end. Trust me, I had plenty of days when I would get discouraged or my body would be sore from the exercise and I just wanted to quit and go back to the way things were. I didn’t quit. But I can’t take all the credit here. There was a lot of prayer and an awful lot of encouragement and motivation from my husband.

And no, that doesn’t mean that I can relax and take it easy now. It doesn’t mean that I can eat what I want and how much I want. I know only too well how easily that path can lead me right back to where I was 7 months ago. No way do I want to go back there. I am so DONE being the fat girl!

Knitting? I’m finishing up a top that I deliberately started knitting last summer in a smaller size. I tried it on after binding off the main body of it and it is a perfect fit. Woohoo! And this cute little reversible doll was knit for my granddaughter Kelly for Christmas:

Kelly

Grandma

And if that wasn’t cute enough for you, I knit a Tribble, too:

There's no Trouble with this Tribble

Don’t tell me you don’t know what a Tribble is. Never fear, my Tribble has been genetically engineered so that it does not reproduce at such an alarming rate. In fact, a week later and it hasn’t had any new Tribbles! Yes, I admit it….I am a Trekkie! I have always had a crush on Spock! Must be his logical mind, because it sure wasn’t the eyebrows.

2010 in review

tamlking — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 11:43:14 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,700 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 47 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 203 posts. There were 59 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 47mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 22nd with 57 views. The most popular post that day was Basic Baby Socks on 2 Circs.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were knittingpatterncentral.com, ravelry.com, crochetmania.myfastforum.org, craftfreely.com, and sparkpeople.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for baby socks on 2 circular needles, baby socks on two circulars, how to know the size of circular needles, santa door greeter, and baby socks on two circular needles.