Wandering through the 2016 holiday was somewhat daunting with all that was going on. I thought “Surely holidays go better than this?” So I decided to look back at the 2015 holiday.

Guys, guess what? The 2015 holiday was crazy busy and WONDERFUL! Seriously, I only have the best memories. I was in the midst of the bathroom renovation, completely stressed out and trying/learning new things about home improvements. I was scraping the adhesive off 196 old blue tiles so I could reuse them and attempting to remove the smell of mold from my home. My hands hurt and I caught a cold. I was inspired and busy and introverted but productive. I was still enjoying the warm glow of a new home (Ok lets be honest, I STILL enjoy that glow, it’s just not new anymore) and I was so impressed with myself for taking on such a large project and succeeding.

So much has happened in two years, and not all of it good by any stretch of the imagination. But, it’s nice to look back and realize these are cycles. We’ve had a rough patch with a lot of big emotional stuff going on, but we are coming out from under that now and hopefully headed for an upswing. It’s nice to look back and realize these are cycles and patterns.

Now on to more crafty stuff. I finished my Rikaart shawl on Thursday evening. It didn’t take me all weekend to weave in the ends after all! In part, I believe, because there were lovely little seams at the back to weave them into. While I sometimes don’t spend a lot of time blocking garter stitch, I did so with this one as the shawl seemed a bit small to me. I wanted to open it up as far as I could without pulling out blocking wires. I think it worked pretty well, but it’s hard to tell, as I didn’t take measurements ahead of time. It did soften the orange yarn quite a bit.  In any case, this was a pretty fun knit and I really enjoy the blocks of color and unusual construction.

I have a very nice amount of brown handspun leftover, which is great because it’s extremely soft! I am sure I’ll be able to find another use for it in the future. I also have plenty of the white, though I am not sure what I’ll ever use it for. Then again, it was a surprise to find it worked so well for this shawl, so perhaps I’ll figure out something else in the future.

Another nice day is likely here in the heartland, and I think we are planning an afternoon bike ride. Mr. Ink saw a tree he loves and wants to get a picture of, so we are on a specific mission. Beyond that, I am not sure what else we’ll get up to today! Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.