Sneak Peaks at (some of) the wips

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on my last post (and those who didn't but thought about it or contacted me elsewhere).  You all are wonderful - I've forgotten how supportive this community has been, and I hope to start finding my way back into it in the coming months.  I suspect a lot of my feelings are going to be channeled into more creative pursuits, because that's my jam apparently.

Also, I have about 10 projects that I'm actively working on right now, never mind everything that's in storage.  Yeesh.  Here's a sneak peak at 5 of them.

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The Lonely Shawl is finished, I just need to get some good pictures of it.  Guys, the hugs it gives me are wonderfully warm and cozy, and I'm so glad I chose it as my coping project.  Also, I think I'm hooked on triangle shawls now.  I'm already plotting more, though I've told myself I have to finish a project before I can start one.

Ugh.  Stupid rules.

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This is my latest weaving project.  No, I haven't shown you my first one.  More on that later, when I've made a bit more progress on this one and get a pic of the other.  I want to tell you all about weaving!  This tapestry is for me - it'll be my housewarming gift to myself. 

Oh hey yeah, I found a place to live!  Great basement apartment with lots of light and a few awesome features I'm not telling you about until I give you a tour when I move in.  :)  I'm so happy to have found a place so quickly - the instability of not having a place to live has been eating away at my mental state big-time, despite all of the wonderful people who have welcomed me into their homes.  It's not the same as having your own space.

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I've also got a few sweaters on the go.  This one is my second Marion sweater (the first is a god-awful shade of green and a bit too short) and is knit from the most scrumptious merino/cashmere blend in the world!  Though I kind of wish I'd picked the burgundy shade after all.  The light brown shade isn't talking to me right now - which is probably why I'm not that far into it despite starting it back in November...

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This sweater is a wee one for my employee's brand-spankin' new baby!  Well, once he's aged a bit - making a larger size because Sproggy's Grandmum knit him approximately 10 bajillion sweaters up to about 9 months old.  He'll be cold once he outgrows them all, so this one should come in handy.

Granted, that's only if I actually finish the darn thing.  I made a big mistake on the collar and now it's in the wip timeout corner until I'm willing to undo the whole bind off.

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And this last one is just a hint at the colourwork sweater I mentioned in my last post!  I couldn't resist starting to swatch the colourwork section - though I suspect I've got the wrong needle size here.

SO MANY BROWN SWEATERS OMG.

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The final wip is, of course, me.  No pic right now though.  Though I think we're all wips - you never really finish you until you're dead!  But ah, I have my good days and bad days, but everyday gets higher up on the slope to doing better.  If today's progress was a little shallow, the steep incline that finding an apartment more than makes up for it.

Thank you again for your support.  I can't tell you how much it means to me.  <3

wip: A Lonely Shawl

I started writing this blog post a few weeks ago, but things took a sad turn in my life soon after, and now the subject of this post has come to mean something else to me.

Back in January, I hosted a pop-up shop for Megan Samms, a textile artist out of Atlin, BC who weaves fabric and dyes yarn from Custom Woolen Mills (a wee mill in Alberta, Canada) using natural dyes.  Her stuff is just lovely, and I have all the yarn I need to knit this gorgeous colourwork sweater.  (Keep an eye out for more on this project - I'm desperate to start it.)

I also bought a skein of her handdyed 1 ply yarn in this greenish-grey shade dyed from the South American Quebracho tree.  See, I've been itching to add a triangle shawl to my wardrobe, and while black would've been far more practical, I couldn't put this pretty yarn down.

I balled the yarn up (by hand because this yarn breaks like a mofo if you put too much pressure on it, hense vetoing my ball winder set up), and found the pattern I wanted.  But, I've been under a lot of stress lately, between the store, our busy schedules and no time to spend with the boyfriend, financial concerns, and some health issues that are rearing their heads of late.  A tiny spat that got blown out of proportion showed that the boyfriend and I were obviously bottling crap up and lead to a talk that evening.  I wanted us to work on drifting back together after so much time drifting apart.  He didn't want to try.

So uh, I went into the talk expecting to making plans to work on our relationship, and basically left it homeless and alone.  More alone, I guess.  I was already near the breaking point, and this ratcheted my stress levels well beyond it.

But I've learned that I have an amazingly supportive group of friends here in the Yukon, and I'm so thankful for that.  I'm not good at reaching out for help when I need it, but they've all rallied and are giving me the support I so desperately need right now.  I don't have a home, but I'm not without places to stay.  I'm overwhelmed with the store, but they're covering shifts for me so I can pack up my stuff.  I'm so hurt and lonely, but they're pulling me out of my head and giving me strength.

This is more personal than I ever wanted to get on this blog, but I need another outlet, a place where I can reach out without having to ask, a place where I can write down the good things, but still look at the hard bits without downplaying it to the friends who worry about me.  I'm going to be fine.  I'm a strong and independent woman and I've survived much worse.  This one just pulled the rug out from under me unexpectedly and it's going to take me more time to get my feet under me again, I think.

All of this leads back to my triangle shawl.  I started it a week and a half ago because I needed a more complicated project to keep my brain distracted and my hands busy, but nothing too complicated that I couldn't figure it out with the on-average 4 hours sleep/night I'd been getting.  And this shawl was the perfect project.

It only recently occurred to me that the pattern name, the Lonely Tree Shawl, was probably somewhat apt.  It's become my coping project - the thing I pick up when I need to not think about stuff anymore.  Sad name and what it represents aside, it also doesn't escape my notice that, once finished, I'm going to have this lovely item that will literally hug me when I wear it.

And while the shawl will probably always represent a sad point in my life, I very much appreciate the symbolism here.