It is the little things that make life what it truly is, an adventure. It is these same little things that should be savored, whether they are good or bad. Here,you will find a bit of everything, from craft ideas to my own savors and thoughts. Enjoy!
Today, my swap partner, Vwoman and I were able to meet at a local Mexican eatery "Los Palaminos" for lunch today. It was great to be able to meet her and her mum, and introduce her to Jerad as well. We had great food and great company, despite the cold weather.
As part of our visit, we swapped our packages. It was fun opening them and watching her open hers as well. In mine I received the beautiful shawl pictured above,
Three beautiful fingerless gloves. The pair on the right matches the shawl. I love all of these and will be strutting my stuff at work! These will help, even in the Summer time when the store has the Air Conditioning on and it gets too cold for my hands. I will be nice and cozy all year round!
Some colored pencils, an adult coloring book, a pattern for Reindeer mittens, and a recipe for Russian Tea and Date balls. I'm pretty sure that my Mimi (Dad's mum) made the Date Balls, but never shared the recipe. Which, of course had the grand kids coming around for more. They may have been figs, instead but they look very similar. I just know that whatever it was it was yummy and I can't wait to try out these recipes!
Some safety eyes for the toys and dolls that I plan to finish, buttons to add to my collection and two Dahlia bulbs (which Jerad was surprisingly excited about). We have been wanting to start a garden and these will be perfect for it. Now, we just have to wait for the frost to stop making appearances.
Lastly, a beautiful skein of Lion Brand Heartland yarn in the Bryce Canyon colorway. I am excited to find the perfect project for this yarn. I think I might actually have a second skein in my stash. Or my dark purple would look great with it. Hmm...I guess we know what I will be doing on my days off. Pouring over my library of patterns to find the perfect one.
Thank you, so much! I enjoyed our visit and I am enjoying everything you have made for and given me. I am excited to start the next package!
Please remember that you are beautiful and well loved.
Feel free to leave comments below and check out some of my other posts! I always love hearing from you.
I have decided that I'm going to try my hand at knitting, for the third time. I love crocheting but I can do anything that I have a pattern for and I have been writing patterns. I will continue my crocheting but I'm up for a...new, not-so-new challenge.
About a year ago, I went to the craft store and bought this "I taught myself Knitting" kit that came with a book. I didn't really look at it too much because I mainly wanted the needles. I worked on a make-up remover pad after getting frustrated with a scarf. Neither of which are in the book. Where those patterns are, I have no idea.
This book, scares the life out of me. To start, with the cover: The girl looks like she wants to kill me and laugh while she is doing it. If there hadn't been needles in the kit, I probably would not have bought it. She scares me.
Then, I open the book and starring at me is everything in three languages! Awesome. This certainly does not help soothe my worry about trying to make something nice out of, what looks to be, steel chop sticks and some yarn.
There is a scarf, some potholders and a...Poncho? Seriously? The poncho is the third pattern that they decide to put in a Beginner's book? I'm sorry. I'm still trying to decode K2 P2 M1...and you stick a PONCHO in the midst of that? Only a couple patterns from that are sweaters. You know, the thinks that have sleeves and holes for your head....those things. That is NOT a small project!
Granted, when I started crocheting, I went from one scarf to an afghan. But that was with one hook, not two needles! I didn't even start wearables until a year or so into crocheting. The idea that I'm going to make something that someone is going to wear, all day, is frightening especially when the reason why I stopped knitting was because I can't figure out how to pick up all of the stitches I drop without undoing the whole project!
So, here I sit, with two sticks (yes, I know they are needles) some string, and a book that I want to toss.
If you have any suggestions for a less intimidating book or pattern, please! I beg you, leave comments below. I've been searching Ravelry and found some patterns but I'm thinking they may be on the advanced side. I have size 6 and 8 needles.
Please remember that you are beautiful and well loved. Have a blessed day!
Hey, there! I am so excited because I have been working on a blanket for someone who is getting married this year and I finally finished it. Seriously, I wove in the last end maybe fifteen minutes ago! I bought this pattern back in September,for $5. Nancy Liggins (I am in no way affiliated with her or her patterns) has many designs in her Ravelry shop and I have seen some of her blankets published on Mary Maxim. She is going places and isn't hard to see why. Her patterns are easy to follow. They are mostly charts, but she provides the number of stitches needed between the clusters. I'm glad that I chose this pattern because I was really struggling with clusters/bobbles/popcorn stitches and after a couple months of doing them, I can do them quickly and without hurting my wrist!
I am wanting some of her other patterns but I'm also trying to focus more on some of my other unfinished projects (stuffed dino, playbook, three blankets and probably more to come) as well as my own pattern writing.
Speaking of pattern writing, I did write a Free pattern for a Holey-Moley Washcloth. That you could check out.
Feel free to leave comments, I do enjoy hearing from you. What projects have you recently finsished? Which ones are you working on?
Also, check out my other posts!
Please remember that you are beautiful and well loved.
This is a poem that I wrote a few years ago. At the time, I was struggling, heavily, with how I looked and finding every flaw in myself. The other day, I went back and read some of my poetry, like I sometimes do and this little gem melted my heart and helped me see exactly how I want to see myself. The attitude that I/we should all have. It is one thing to want to be healthy it is another to criticize every minute detail. I worked very hard on this poem and most of the time I do not share my poetry with people. Please, do not copy this poem as your own. You may share it, but please, credit me for the work and heart poured into it.
Masterpiece
Cassie Taber
Look at me!
Just look at the disaster I have become!
These colors don’t blend well.
The shape, here, just won’t do.
There are scratches that won’t fade
And spaces He didn’t fill.
The paint has bubbled here
And drips where it shouldn’t.
The colors are too pale,
Too bright or light for anyone to see
Yet, He calls me His masterpiece?
Some work of art I am!
I am nowhere near perfect.
There is so much that is wrong,
So much that I would change.
“But I’m not finished with you, yet,”
A gentle voice tells me,
Hurt by my thoughts
As a brush clinks against the jar that held it.
His steady hand guides the brush to my canvas.
Who am I to tell the artist
What is good and what needs to change
When I am the one who cannot see the whole picture?
After
all, He calls me His masterpiece.
Feel free to leave comments below. I do always enjoy hearing from you. Also, check out my other posts!
Please remember that you are beautiful and well loved.
Warning: This post is not about crafts. This is some serious stuff.
I didn't realize, until last night, when I broke down in tears because I'm trying to juggle life and there may have been a few more lemons added to my pile, that I'm not who I was. In some ways I am:
I'm no where near perfect
I am independent to a fault
In my imperfections, I struggle.
Before my parent's divorce, I didn't see myself in bad light. I was starry eyed and believed what everyone said. I could take compliments. All that changed in the divorce. I'm not exactly sure when it was but I started seeing everything that was wrong.
My legs were too long, and thighs to big. So, I refused to wear shorts.
My feet are long, so I wore sneakers and kept my feet covered.
I refused to let anyone touch me. I refused to let anyone see me. I hated myself, how I looked. I hated it when people said "You look just like your mother/father" so I piled long sleeves and pans on. I didn't want to be noticed so I wore doofy glasses and I didn't give a care what anyone thought. I wasn't pretty. I didn't want to be pretty.
I wanted to be invisible for several reasons. I was happy when my classmates didn't know I existed when the subs called my name and I quietly raised my hand. I was happy when they didn't know me. I was invisible in the classroom. I felt unseen at home and to add to it, I literally began to fade into nothing. I stopped eating at school. I would go to the library during lunch hour. I barely ate at home, only when I felt shaky or my stomach hurt from having nothing for too long. When I was in High school, I weighed less than 100 pounds at 5'7".
When I came to college, I started to go to church. I wanted to take better care of myself so I asked people to help me remember to eat, every day. After attending church, for some time, I began to feel beautiful, not just because I was eating but because I truly believed that God had made me beautiful. I was that starry-eyed girl again. I didn't mind the hugs. I didn't mind the compliments, I knew my flaws but they didn't hang like a dark cloud, over me.
Then, I moved to a different town. I didn't have a church to go to (and I'm not saying that this is the church's). We began to struggle financially when I did my internship. So, I ate less. I would skip breakfast, have a snack for lunch and ate very little for dinner. It has since continued. There are honestly days that I try not to eat so that my husband will have enough food. Even though we have food in the house. I am, again, teetering on the line between okay weight and underweight.
I see my flaws, all of them and it looms over me:
My thighs are big, my legs are too long, my toes look like monkey feet, my hair is a mess, my face broke out with acne, I have a bit of a stomach, my teeth aren't pure white, I have so many scars from the past and I bruise easily.
This week, I have been struggling, at work, to feel like I'm doing my job well. The way some people talked, I wasn't doing a very good job. Although other factors were involved with me not being able to complete my work, I'm never one for excuses.
I struggled this week, at home. We have been without a vehicle for over a year and I see how it affects my husband. Knowing that I am unable to provide that small luxury to him, for this long, makes me feel worthless. I work five to six days a week but when I'm home, I am lazy. I feel like society says that even if I work outside of the home, the home is still my domain and therefore I must cook, clean and take care of all of my famillies needs. My husband is sweet and keeps up on most of it. He never tells me that I have to clean or cook. I feel like I should. In that, it adds to the feeling that I am not a very good wife.
When he compliments me, I counter it with a flaw. He says he likes my legs, I say they are too fat. He says I'm perfect, I say I have a stomach, he says that's normal, I feel like I want to cry.
Then I read some notes that I had written on Facebook. I will have to re-post them here. They made me realize how I am to myself and I want to cry in shame. How long have I been writing these posts and I close out with "Remember you are beautiful and well loved" and here I am not believing that.
I struggle with how I see myself. I don't see myself in the way that everyone seems to see me. That's the truth. I don't say things to fish for compliments. When I am "down on myself" I truly believe what I say. I struggle with eating and I struggle with trying to please everyone and never feeling like I do. I don't expect anyone to understand but it is very real to me. My struggle is real and we all have our battles.
In the next few days, I will be publishing some of my notes and perhaps some poems I have written, to this blog. I know that it isn't yarn and I have been working on my yarn projects. I haven't really finished anything yet. I keep jumping projects. When I do finish them or start a new one, I will update the progresses.
Until then, if you will please remember that you are beautiful and well loved, I will try to remember too.
Please, feel free to write comments below, I always do enjoy hearing from you.
A lyric video of a song I turn to help me feel better.
