Goodbye 2010 Hello 2011!

Where did it all go? This has been a very eventful year for us and like all eventful years it has blown past us in a rush, even though some moments seemed to stand still in time. Here is a bit of a look back.

Last January this girl joined our family, for 48 hrs and then she took off for a 4 day adventure which gave me a heart attack. We got very lucky, she was found and taken to the local animal shelter who called us right away. Now we can not imagine life without her, full of energy and a total lover she fills our day with furry joy.

Then in Feburary Will lost his job two weeks after we decide to tie the knot and make it legal. He freelanced enough to keep the bills payed but there wasn’t room for a lot of extras. Thankfully in August a freelance job turned into a good full time job for him.

We tied the knot in July at SF City Hall and had a small but fun BBQ party the weekend after.

As our wedding gift my Dad’s side of the family flew us back to Wisconsin to visit everyone and we had a nice week and a half trip that included a drive up to scenic Door County for a night as a mini honeymoon. This is from Cave Point County Park on Lake Michigan. Will said he didn’t believe me that it was a lake.

Back tracking a bit, in May we got the chickens, they grew from little balls of fuzz to this:

We get about 4 eggs a day, sometimes more, we aren’t sure if all of them a laying and right now the shorter days suppress their laying.

These are just main highlights, lots more happened too but if I keep going on this will be a never ending post. But Will and I agree in general it has been a good year.

For 2011 I don’t really have any resolutions, I hope it is even more awesome then last year though. I want to get back into blogging again as I took an unofficial hiatus these last couple months. I want to work on my photography more, I got a bunch of fun photo apps for my ipod touch to play with. I have plans to join a sketchbook blog-a-long and of course there is always lots of knitting, dye and sewing to be done.

Bring it on 2011!

 

Batts and Wicked Lady

Last weekend was the annual Lambtown Festival in Dixon. This year I signed up for a class on blending fibers on a drum carder. My mom gave me her Petite Strauch carder in a round of cleaning out things she just wasn’t using, score! Until now I have only used it a few times myself on uncarded fiber but never for blending really.

Here you can see the two base wools (left) that I started with, the batt after two passes with some brown llama also mixed in (bottom right) and then the final batt with some copper Angelina Fiber for subtle sparkle (top right).  The class was taught by Keena Golden, she was a fun instructor and all the students had a great time. I wish there was time to snap photos of other folks batts but as it is I only got half my fiber blended. Keena teaches at Urban Fauna Studio so if you have a chance take one of her classes. For more photos from Lambtown, just click on the photo of the batts.

In other fiber news I have finished the garter stitch section of the body on my Wicked Lady Sweater.  In this photo (cropped to close in on the knitting) you can see it as I was checking the length of the garter yoke. Now I am on to the Gull Lace section. I want to try and get this finished before our trip to Wisconsin next month so I have something cute and warm to wear.

The classes for Stitches West 2011 went up this week, I signed up to take a class on double knitting with Melissa Leapman. Generally I just go to the market but I have wanted to take a class for a while and this is a technique I have been interested in for a while. Now that I have my registration in I am off to start queuing double knit patterns on Ravlery!

We Tied the Knot

It has been a crazy month and even crazier week, but it was all worth it. Now just trying to recover as we get back into the swing of normal life again. I’ll share more details in a few days when my head stops spinning.