Life has gotten in the way.

Hey there all you wonderful people out in blogland!  I've missed you.  Last night we had our first backyard bonfire of the season.  It was wonderfully warm during the day, I went to the park with the kids twice and then had a great time with friends and wild children over in the evening.  We ate fantastically unhealthy food and way too many smore's.  It was so good to enjoy the outdoors with our friends.  I can't get enough of the dirty children running around staying up too late laughing hysterically with each other.  

But several weeks ago, one of my very close friends suffered a terrible tragedy.  She lost a much wanted little baby girl and we nearly lost her in the process.  She need about 3 people's worth of blood to get her through and ended up with a hysterectomy at the end of it all.  It was seriously  scary.  While she has physically recovered with an amazing quickness, all of our hearts are still heavy with loss. 

It's easy to see how words have escaped me during this time.  I hope to have more interesting tidbits and fantastic featured artists in the near future!  I certainly have enough of them running around in my head just waiting to be shared.  

So please give your loved ones, be they friends or family, a big squeeze and remember to appreciate them.  And if it works for you, send my friend some love in your own special way.  Thanks everyone.

SPRING!

It's coming, it's coming!  The birds are out and I adore listening to them.  I've been able to shoo the kids outside and bring my knitting with while I watch them play.  I've been eagerly searching for buds on trees and they're still a bit hard to find.  But they will come and I'll be so happy when things start greening up a bit around here.  

The warmer weather brings slower business in my neck of the woods.  And that's alright with me.  I think I'm really enjoying taking the slow road (not sure that I had the choice to take the fast road, but hey) in growing my business.  It's been fun to think of things to implement next fall or next year etc.  I found a fantastic cotton blend yarn that I'd love to work with more to offer some spring and summer friendly items at Blue Star Butterflies.  Here's a sneak peek!

I've also thoroughly enjoyed finally learning to knit this year and dreaming of all the future holds with the added possibilities it brings.  I'm doing a LOT of personal projects as I hone my craft before putting it out there for all of you.  So here are the latest two...  Of course I think the kids are particularly cute as well as the handcrafted pixie (or alien for my boy) hats!

Snowy weekend

It was -9 when I woke up this morning. It blows my mind and I love it all at the same time. You'd think a girl who grew up in Southern California would have a more difficult time settling down in Minnesota, but I really love it. Our kids love it too and that's even better. They had so much fun yesterday playing in the piles of snow while Daddy used the snow blower, shooting streams of light fluffy snow into the air. The temperatures plummeted while they were out there so I cooked up some hot chocolate for all.

I stayed inside where it was warm and got to work on creating a cowl in every new color and a couple fun variations. Today I'll photograph them and hopefully they'll be listed by tonight. Snow days make good 'work' days. They also make for messy homes. So I'll be needing to do a lot of picking up and cleaning before I get started on my next project. I have a huge stash of yarn waiting to be worked into something exciting. So hopefully while I'm getting the house in order some of it will 'speak' to me and let me know what to work on next.