My life has been consumed by tech editing squares. It’s a great change of pace. I almost don’t notice the lack of knitting.

This month I was published for the first time in the summer edition of Love of Knitting!  It was thrilling to see my name in print.  I am so glad that Amy helped me get started.  I brought a copy to the store for show and tell.  Imagine my surprise when Joan already knew about it.  A mutual friend had seen the magazine in a book store, leafed through it, thought “hmmm, that looks like something Jae would knit” and then called the store when she saw I had designed it.  Any time we gather around the knit table for conversation and laughs, inevitably some will brag about it on my behalf.  My mom bought a copy within hours of learning it was available and so did my aunt.   All of this is my way of saying that I am grateful for the support I receive from my family and friends. 

Unfortunately, the laughter has been balanced with tears.  I cannot begin to express how saddened I am that my friend will never see the shawl I designed for her.  At the young age of 46, she lost her fight against melanoma. It is hard to believe that it has been over a year that we made the deal to trade talents.  She had just finished spinning all the yarn I would need of the angora / wool blend. I have every intention to knit the shawl, but I don’t think I will keep it. It was never meant to be mine.  I will listen for her voice to tell me it’s new owner.  And I will miss her with every stitch.

Onto more pleasant things, I had one of my patterns, Tendril Gloves, picked for the Intentions Yarn Club.  Squeee!  This is the news I had to wait to announce to ensure I didn’t give anything away before members received their newsletter.

To distract meyou from the waiting, let’s talk yarn. A few weeks back, I attended a yarn tasting at ThreadBear Fiber Arts in Lansing. I have never visited any of the local yarn stores in the city. We decided to make a whole day of it. Thus, there was yarn oohing-aahing before we even got to the final destination.

I know I am spoiled with the gazillion (ok, several dozen but it seems like a gazillion) quality yarn stores conveniently located within easy commute. However, Lansing isn’t hurting for good stores either.

And they have a coffee shop that sells chocolate with a drive-thru. Coffee, chocolate and a drive-thru! I almost up and moved right then.

The thing I love about a yarn tasting is the chance to try before I buy. There is nothing worse than buying a sweater’s worth of yarn to discover that it pills, doesn’t knit remotely to gauge, the drape is all wrong, or any of the other tragedies that could befall a sweater’s worth of yarn.

The thing I love even more is the hanging out with fellow knitters talking about the potential of a sweater’s worth of yarn.  I know she isn’t talking in this photo, but we really did do a lot of talking!

Of course, the laughs over almost dropping the camera from a moving car while photographing the capital building through the sunroof were a high point in the day too.

This is my I’ll-get-around-to-this-on-the-sixth-Sunday-of-the-month pile. Also, known as the dear-knitting-gnomes-I-will-pay-anything-to-make-it-go-away pile.

Somewhere in there are WIPS that whisper their sorry state of neglect to me at 2 AM. There is a design idea or two gone horribly wrong. Forgotten yarn adds their mantra to the WIPs. There might be a few project leftovers hanging about – too small to be used on their own but too large to be tossed without regret.  Even a childhood stuffed toy bear is buried under all that best of intentions.

But like any mountain, I’m going to move it one shovelful at a time.  I’ll probably start with a WIP. I could use the sleep in the early morning hours.

How do you wrangle your stash and UFO’s when they get out of control? Better yet, how do you stop it from getting this bad?

Instead we made chili, opened up more wine,

and played Sequence. 

There might have also been some bobble head impressions from my husband.  Or not.  He is strongly denying any such thing in spite of witnesses.

My husband and I met the first minutes of the new year quietly without noise or celebration.  The last minutes of the first day were the exact opposite.  Those minutes were loud, full of laughter, and spent with friends from our wine club.   I cannot think of a better way to start a new calendar than with family, friends, good food, and wine.  If the rest of the days of 2009 are more of the same, I will consider myself very blessed.

Lamb cutlets with Romesco – Food and Wine, August 2006

Lamb is an ingredient that is often experimented with in our home.  A hold over from my hubby’s many years in Australia.  So it was no surprise when I asked him to choose a new recipe to make that he found this one.  He received bonus points for choosing a dish that was not complicated or time consuming.  With almost no effort on my part, I had a dish that looked like it took hours to prepare.  Next time you want to impress your family, you should give this recipe a try.  The lamb could be easily replaced with pork, or dark chicken.