Saturday Mornings!

{Coconut Raspberry muffins - modified
from a blueberry muffin recipe found on
www.elanaspantry.com. Delish}

This Saturday morning is a particularly interesting and beautiful one indeed. You see, I had plans to go shake it up at Zumba, but somewhere along the way I decided that a walk with my dear little papillon would be better. Fresh snow on top of Autumn colors is really what makes a November morning such as this rather grand. But somewhere along the way, I decided to use my "free" Saturday morning to eat a coconut raspberry muffin (my new gluten & dairy free baking secret - coconut!), listen to Debussy radio on Pandora and catch up on my blog! So here I am. My lack of posts does not mean I have not been knitting! Since my last post, I've had the chance to bestow a couple of my Summer knitting projects to a couple friends as gifts and start a lovely lace scarf.

{On the needles: Shell lace patterned scarf knit with Prism Symphony in Shadow
Alternating two skeins due to differences in dye lot - big lesson to buy all you
need when you buy the yarn!! In this case, I decided I wanted another skein after
I started knitting the scarf and had to tear out what I had already knitted to
alternate yarns and accommodate for the differences in dye lot.}

{Applewood Beret (on Ravelry) knit in
Mountain Colors Twizzle in Firestorm.
Gifted to my lovely friend, Bre!}

{Susie's Reading Mitts (on Ravelry). Cannot remember the
yarn I knit these in. I gifted them to my dear friend, Amanda!
I learned a new skill knitting these - the Picot Edge!}

The General Craftarian Dilemma

THERE ARE JUST SO MANY THINGS I WANT TO DO!!!!!!

Yep. I just said it - and Pinterest is not helping this little fact.
Trying to reconcile all the little projects I want to do, what I need to do, and ... ehem ... real life might just be driving me a little nuts.
Things I want to do that have just come to mind in the last few minutes:

• Knit cute things
• Knit cute things for friends
• Knit cute things for the world (think humanitarian-ness)
• Be a good daughter/sister/friend and maybe, just maybe, someday be a good wife & mother :)
• Be a good dog owner
• Organize my life! (fun little idea I had this week, take a week of vacation and organize EVERYTHING! 'Cause when I get a roll baby, there is no stopping me!)
• Go someplace completely spontaneous (another cute idea I had this week... schedule a week of vacation, wait until about a week before my vacay and see what plane tickets are on sale! Hopefully someplace I've never been before and that I don't know anyone. Trips are just more fun that way)
• Visit New York City and the Oregon Coast again!
• Be a supreme organic gardener extraordinaire and eat seasonably and all that jazz
• Make my own clothes (since I haven't been buying anything, I need some way to spruce up my wardrobe!!)
• Be good at braiding my own hair
• Go hiking, biking, running, zumba, dance. Something active that doesn't involve the elliptical machine.
• Make cards for people
• Play passionately voluptuous romantic era music on my violin
• Play old time church hymns on my ukulele and sing along
• Take lots of pretty pictures of all my adventures
• Get involved in meals ministry at church
• Get involved in a downtown youth ministry
• Be a gluten free baking expert
• Do a good job at work so I can get promoted so that I can earn more money to afford all the things I want to do and have more vacation so that I have the time. Oh and enjoy the personal satisfaction that work brings too :)

I've been telling myself that I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do - if only I had more vacation time, or maybe if God had created a world where we just got 2 more hours each day. I'm pretty sure though, that with even more time, I would still feel as spread out as I do now. I also keep telling myself that if only... if only there was a man that would marry me.... someone who was secure in his career. That maybe I could have good health insurance through his work. Then I wouldn't have to work. Or maybe I could work just part-time - at a cute little interior decor shop, or own my own yarn shop. If only. Even then, I know I would be too spread out to be a good wife and mother. 

No offense to anyone out there, this is purely my opinion: I think us craftarians are one big group of control freaks, with our lives tied together with pretty bow that we wove and tied ourselves. I'm beginning to think that this might be a great big exercise God has me going through in letting go. Letting go of selfish ambitions and the perfectionist idealistic modern-day renaissance woman mindset. Let God guide my daily footsteps and show me what's really important.

So, this is my public declaration: My Pinterest Pinboard includes a lot of things that I want to do. If Yahweh so wills, I may, or may not accomplish it all.

Anyway, I did finish a guinea pig sweater! It's awaiting it's time to be worn by the little guy. I will of course take pictures of that event. I really wish I could write a pattern for how I knit it, but I did it kinda freestyle. Started out with a 3x2 rib, connected it in the round then worked stockinette, binding off and casting on for the armholes, shaping it for the belly so that, by request, it would not drag around in feces and ending it with a 3x2 rib. Very exciting little project!

My cardigan has a few more rows knit on it and I have a skein of Mountain Colors "Twizzle" (85% Merino, 15% Silk) in "Firestorm" that wants to be a hat. I might start on that soon ;) ... Oh! and I bought two sewing patterns today - so that I might one day sew a polka dot skirt and some hiking pants.