What's better than a grandbaby?

 It's been a whirlwind of a week.  

Hayden and her family moved in with us.

Their apartment lease was up the month before Covid hit and he was in the process of finding a house to buy and so they had moved in temporarily with Megan's parents.  But thanks to Covid, Zack was unemployed for a while so no house.  

Jump to July, 2021 and well, they decided they had over stayed their welcome.  Meanwhile, Mike decided he wanted to help Zack out.  Mike had paid for Sarah's schooling but Zack had chosen to go straight to work and skip college.  And now, Zack is regretting that decision.  So, rather than pay for Zack's education, we will give them a basically free place to live while he pays for himself to go to school.

I'm looking forward to spending lots of time with Hayden.

But best of all, Hayden also brought her dog, Teddy.  And that means, I get a "free" dog.  I can play with him and walk him and snuggle with him but I don't have to pay his vet or food bills.  I don't have to make sure I'm home to let him out and I don't have to clean up after him.  I'm getting a free dog and a free grandchild out of the deal!  Can't ask for more than that!

Knitting wise, I'm still knitting the Fable Fur headbands and I've been beading a few more pairs of socks too.  You're going to have to wait a while for a photo of me wearing one of the headbands.  It needs to cool off a bit first.

Have I mentioned how badly I'm suffering from fall fever?

Fable Fur

 I really should be medicated, if not institutionalized.

It's July in Virginia and I've just knit a stack of Fable Fur cowls that measures almost twelve inches high!

And now I'm knitting matching Fable Fur headbands.

Now, don't get me wrong.  Fable Fur from Knit Picks is a delight to work with.  It's incredibly soft and it doesn't shed like mohair.  But it's furry.  And it's July in Virginia which means it's hot and humid HOT and HUMID outside.  It's even hot and humid inside because the a/c just can't keep up with the 10,000% humidity.  The Brazillion rainforest has nothing on a Virginia summer!

If you are interested in finding out more about Fable Fur, visit Knit Picks' website. They have some more beautiful colors that aren't pictured above and I notice they have another sale going on.  

Something else I'm excited to discover about Knit Picks is that they seem to have changed their shipping procedures recently.  For years and years, it seemed my orders always went out on either a Monday or a Friday and arrived on my doorstep about five days later.  Then a year or so ago, it started taking a lifetime to receive my orders.  Sometimes it would take as long as three weeks and frequently, the packaging would be damaged.  Like, smashed with holes in the boxes, damaged.  I stopped purchasing from them as often.  But thankfully, my last few orders have arrived much quicker and in excellent shape.  In fact, my last order was faster than an Amazon order!  I ordered it on a Thursday night, it shipped the next day and was at my post office on Saturday! It would have been on my doorstep on Saturday but our Saturday mailman is a little lazy.  He won't get out of the car to put the package on the porch so he takes it back to the post office and you have to go pick it up.

Okay, advertising aside, Fable Fur really is awesome to work with.  It knits up quickly, only takes one skein to knit a cowl and I can get two, maybe three headbands out of one skien.  I haven't actually tried that third headband yet.  I'm knitting all these cowls and headbands for my Etsy shop and for the craft vendor booth at Winterfest.  I'm so focused on building up my inventory, I haven't wanted to waste time attempting a third headband.  The only thing worse than knitting with faux fur in July in Virginia is running out of yarn and having to frog faux fur in July in Virginia.

And yes, I could dig out my yarn scale and figure out if there's enough for that third headband but that would involve going into my unairconditioned storage area.  And that's probably not going to happen!

Knitting with birds

So, last summer, there was a carpenter bee (I have always called them bumble bees and have just recently found out they are two separate beings) that would come say hello to me every day when I was sitting on the deck.  We got so used to each other that he would land on me and crawl around and I was mostly okay with it.  He even took a nap in my knitting bag a few times.  

This summer, I don't have a bee friend.  Instead, I have goldfinch and hummingbird friends.

Yeah, he's very pixilated.  Sorry.  We are friends, but it's a new friendship.  He comes to see me each morning but he doesn't trust me enough yet to allow me to get a decent photo.

I can't even begin to get a photo of the hummingbird.  Every afternoon he flys up about two feet from my face, hovers just long enough for me to realize what's happening, and then he's gone again.  

I am really going to miss the wildlife here at this house when we move.  And no, we don't know so when that will be but it will be soon.  Well, soon-ish.  We are feverishly working to clear out all the junk from the house and fixing the things that need to be fixed so we can put it on the market.  And once that happens, our search to find a house to buy will turn into panic mode house hunting.  I can't say I'm looking forward to the experience. 

Thankfully, I have my knitting to keep my mind occupied.

And boy do I have knitting!  I finished the granny square baby blanket.  It's being modeled on the new deck railing.  I finished the blanket much sooner than expected.  I sort of went into knitting panic mode because...

I thought I'd mentioned that I was going to be a craft vendor at Winterfest this year but I don't see a post about it so I'm not sure if I never wrote it or if I deleted it some how or if it's there and I'm just blind.  Who knows.  Who cares.  The point is, I'm going to be a craft vendor at Winterfest this year.  I am excited and I am in TOTAL panic mode.  I've never participated in such a big event before and I'm slightly terrified.  But also very excited.  And very, very busy knitting for it.

Currently, I'm focused on knitting faux fur cowls and headbands.  I should have chosen something else to focus on during the summer months but I already had most of the yarn I needed and the projects knit up fast.  I wanted to quickly feel like I was making progress.  ...So, I'm slogging through knitting with faux fur in July and August.

I'll be sharing the Winterfest booth with several other artists and to get some practice working together, we participated in Ashland, Va's 4th Friday celebration last week.  Even though we didn't sign up in time to be advertised, we still had a decent amount of foot traffic and sales.  

In fact, 4th Friday was so much fun, we've decided to participate each month leading up to Winterfest.  If you are local, come check us out.  We have a nice, varied selection of items for sale because we have a jeweler, a seamstress, a paper artist, an all round crafter and my knitting.  There's something for everyone and it's never too early to start your holiday shopping!

Meanwhile, I have a few thousand items I need to go knit.