I have always thought about doing drink and knitting pattern pairings, similar to drink and food pairings. I find a nice wine or fun cocktail relaxing in the same way that I find knitting relaxing. What is better than knitting one, then sipping one? Today I start with a local spiced wine spiking my hot apple cider. This pairs well with a pattern like a washcloth. The pattern may be a little more challenging - counting may be involved. If you make a mistake, frogging is easy,

My husband and I bought our first house at the end of 2017. With it came my own separate office space. No more sharing space with my wonderful but messy husband. I began dreaming of all the wonderful things I could do with the space. I bought a chandelier to replace the old, dated ceiling fan. I could be girlie in this room! My pinterest is full of dream home office pictures (and still growing). Now, I admit, my home office keeps taking the backburner as other things come up.

Welcome to part 2 of our beginner knitting series. If you haven't read vol. 1 yet, I definitely suggest starting there. We are going to touch on a few things left hanging in that post. Today we're going to talk about choosing your knitting needles, along with a few other tools. If you have picked out a pattern for your project, you probably already have an idea of what size needle you need. Most patterns will suggest a specific yarn and needle and then say something like "or

I promised more yarn reviews, and considering how many skeins I have of Kim Dyes Yarn, I thought this was a good indie dyer to start with. But first - I will give you a very quick update on me. You probably noticed I missed a few of my regular posting days. My surgery was a week ago and was a complete success, not that there were any concerns. If you haven't been keeping up, I had a cervical fusion to remove a badly herniated disc in my neck. It really had gotten to the point

Let's be honest - I had no plan for today's post. I frankly forgot it was even Tuesday. I am just shy of 1 week away from my cervical fusion surgery and that is pretty much all that is on my mind. What little things I need to buy, what I need to pack for my stay in the hospital, the cleaning I want to accomplish... my husband is wonderful and helpful, but he just doesn't see dirt and clutter in the same way I do. I have 4-6 weeks of cabin fever ahead of me, I want to at least

Happy Tuesday! Sorry for missing Friday's post, but there was no way for me to get the blog post published while traveling. That just means there will be more finished objects for this Friday! As for how my husband and I spent our Memorial Day weekend, we traveled through the mountains of Virginia, stopping at every yarn shop along the way. All in all, there were 12 shops participating in this year's yarn crawl and we hit all 12 in 3 days. I believe we were some of the first

The last year or so has seen my traveling continue to increase to the levels of my college days. Happily, I can say that I stay in better hotels now than I did then! But it does mean I have learned how make sure my knitting makes the trip successfully with me. Things like TSA rules are always changing, but hopefully these ideas will help you enjoy your hobby on the go. First step, figuring what to take. Now I not only knit for pleasure, I do it as a business as well. So I bri

We made it to the weekend! Phew. Let me start with a little personal oversharing. I have a badly herniated disc in my neck that is compressing my spinal cord. Yup, that is as painful as it sounds. And because I am stubborn, I put off surgery longer than I should. But it is finally scheduled for June 12, and let me tell you, I am counting down the minutes. I have never been so happy to watch the days pass quickly! So another Friday is a win for me. I'm probably not unique in t

Happy Tuesday! I thought this would be a good time to talk about some of my favorite yarns to knit with. Let me warn you now. This is no yarn snob here. I do not only use the finest merino, spun by angels, and dyed by a local artist living on a commune. Don't get me wrong, there is some of that in my stash. I am an equal opportunity yarn lover and firmly believe there is a place in any stash for just about any type of yarn. They all have a purpose. So feel no shame if your on

Happy Friday! Welcome to our first Finished Object Friday. I kinda cheated this time. Since this is the first FOF post, I didn't actually knit everything this week. I did finish everything this week, so I feel like that is in the spirit of the post. Especially when you take into account how much I hate the actual finishing process. I let my projects stack up while I keep knitting, hoping elves will sneak into my office and weave in ends while I sleep. It hasn't happened yet,

Well hello! As is common, let me introduce myself. My name is Traci and I am an avid knitter. My mother taught me when I was young, and then again when I was an adult. I am SUPER type-A, very logical, love math and numbers, and all of those crazy things. Knitting is the creative hobby for the super type-A. For all intents and purposes, it is symmetrical, contained, orderly, and is created with math. You count your stitches to create geometrical shapes. Wait, I didn't mean to