Yarn Along - I'm Back!

I have been absent for a couple weeks because of vacation and then the chaos of reorganizing and unpacking on our return.  We have made several trips over the past couple weeks and pictures will soon follow but I wanted to join in with Ginny's Yarn Along today!  Come have fun with us too!

My heart aches right now because I returned my brother's beautiful Nikon D500 and although I am grateful to have a point-n-shoot for continuing to capture our life, the pictures sure don't compare in quality.  However, I am truly trying to focus on being grateful for the extended time he let me borrow it and the fun I had with it.  Taking pictures (I hesitate to even call it photography because it was probably less than amateur) had become a huge creative outlet and joy in my day but not so much anymore...

I finished knitting Lyddie's Sunday Sweater while on vacation- I still need to weave in the ends and sew on the sweet buttons I picked out on one of our trips! I was so glad I had enough yarn to add another inch back into the bottom, I didn't like how short it turned out on her since I stopped early, and now I love the length.

Somehow I have never purchased size 8 needles, so I have been unable to start Millie's "In Threes" but will be ordering a Knit Picks interchangeable needle and cord to try out now that our new budget has begun for the month, since I am wondering if I would like their interchangeable needle set.  If I wait around in hopes of buying the Addi Clicks set, it will just never happen and Knit Picks is so much less money.  If you are reading this and have experience with either set will you leave a comment?  I usually use Addi Turbos and they have consistently been my favorites for several years but now would love to upgrade to an interchangeable set. I have read several reviews and comparisons and they actually both seem to be fairly well loved from what I have read. 

Instead of kid garments, I have been making my first attempt at designing a pattern - just for doll (or bunny) clothes.  The first - the blue one- is inspired from this little dress but I pretty much took the beginning and ignored the rest of the pattern since I wanted to knit it in the round and I just couldn't quite figure out how to transfer the flat knitting of the bodice into the round knitting.   For the second (the green and yellow) I used the same technique as Tikki's Acacia for the cast on and neckline/shoulders and then had fun making a fluffy ruffly skirt.  I was inexplicably proud of being able to just make things up as I went, especially because I always feel like true creativity is usually too far beyond me in almost any artistic endeavor, besides, perhaps, cooking. And last, on my needles right now is another kitchen washcloth.  I love this Diagonal Knit Dishcloth.

I am hoping to cast on Millie's sweater as soon as I get a chance to order and receive those needles! 

On my nightstand: I just finished On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson and loved it.  It was sort of slow to get into and it took me a while to read for that reason.  I appreciated the wit from the beginning and would have loved it even more as a young adult, I think.  But once I was about half way in I was finally caught by the plot and intrigued and I will definitely be picking up the second of the trilogy from our shelf in the near future.  Instead, though, I got Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit at the library last week and have been itching to read it.  We caught the movie on TV last year or so and I never even knew what the book was about in spite of always skipping over it on the shelf at the library while growing up.  I am loving it and recommend it highly for a fast and beautiful read.  I started it two days ago and with just a little bit of reading time in the evening, am already halfway through it. I saw the movie, I know, but I totally can't remember how the book ends so it's like reading a whole new story!

So that's about it around here besides frantically catching up on laundry after vacation and camping, celebrating our seventh anniversary, trying to preserve some foods in the middle of the heavy harvest all around us, and hoping eventually we'll wade out from this disorganized mess of toys and clothes as we transition to my favorite season - fall!  I will try to get back into the swing of posting regularly again but have been a little overwhelmed by the pressing needs around me and even now am sitting down in the midst of a very messy house with lunch dishes still crying out to be done and don't even get me started on the laundry!  At the least the children are all either sleeping or resting with books so I might be able to get a little grip on the whirlwind they left behind this morning (and, if I'm honest, yesterday and probably the day before...)