Mother's Day

I hope all of the mothers out there had a great day yesterday!  My children made a lovely breakfast for me and gave me flowers and chocolates.  I think they even made an effort not to argue!

I made three dish cloths for my mother which I placed in a basket of goodies.  The basket was from my sister and me together.  I'm quite proud of the cloths, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Mom will keep them in a drawer since they're too pretty to use!

Sherlock Blanket Squares

"Hello!" to anyone who hasn't given up on me!  The weather is lovely compared to when I last posted.  The morning sun is shining on me while I dust off my poor, neglected blog.

These last couple of months, I've been knitting blanket squares that are based on the BBC Sherlock series.  There's a "knit-along" for the blanket on Ravelry, which is fantastic.  Many creative and clever knitters have designed fun squares representing all sorts of things from the show.  I've also designed a few myself!

Each square is 10 inches and I'm planning to knit about 30 of them.

Here are my first four Sherlock Blanket Squares:

January Continues

As I set out on this journey through 2013, my path has been somewhat crazy!  Some days, I'm cheerful and optimistic.  Some days, I'm sorta blue.  This is not unusual for me in January, so I accept it and keep going one day at a time!

The weather is participating in this craziness.  We've had days in the 60s (Fahrenheit) and days in the teens.  Sunny days and cloudy.  This is not usual for January.  We typically have full cloud-cover and dreary cold.  I'm enjoying the variety, walking when it's warmer, hibernating and knitting mittens and other woolly things when it's not!

Single parenthood is kicking my behind.  Come Holy Spirit!  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Enough whining!  Here are the lovely gloves that I knit for my mum for Christmas.  I made the cuffs a bit longer, but otherwise stuck to the pattern as written.

Vanalinn Gloves for My Mother knit in Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk

I just finished another pair of gloves yesterday, but I'll save that photo for another day!

Goals for 2013

Hello, everyone!  Hope your New Year has started well!

After some reflection, I've decided to have a couple of goals this year instead of a theme:

1. Inspired by St. Dymphna, and through her intercession, I pray that I will see every circumstance and every person with Heaven's eyes and not the eyes of the world.
2. Inspired by Mother Mary, and through her example and assistance, I want to desire only the will of God the Father and desire no created thing.

Of course, both of these goals will be impossible without the grace of God, so I'll need to stay close to Him at all times and rely on his grace!

Here's my visual aid of my New Year's Resolution:

New Year's Resolution for 2013.  Continue to juice and read my Magnificat everyday!

I'm not being very productive in the knitting department, but here's a picture of the hot water bottle that I knit last month for my dear niece:

Ravenclaw HWB cover for Christina

New Beginnings

Happy New Year!

I don't know what it is about new beginnings, but they fill me with hope and joy!  While this year was a tough one, there were many good things about 2012.

1. My kids have been healthy and God's been good to us.
2. I started taking karate and I love it.
3. I stuck to eating healthy for most of the year and lost over 20 pounds.
4. I continued to pray through the hard times and I know God is bringing good out of them.
5. I knit some pretty cool things and saved a lot of them for Christmas gifts.
6. I met some wonderful people on Ravelry and have become long-distance friends with many of them.
7. I traveled a wee bit.  Okay, it was only to Ocean City, but I left my house and it was wonderful!

There were other good things, of course, but that's a sampling of my reflections at the moment!

So...a theme for this year?  My theme for 2012 was "Hope and Be Not Afraid."  Very appropriate, too!  I believe that I am more hopeful than I was a year ago and I definitely do not fear suffering.  It will come, and we'll be okay with the grace of God.  Better than okay!
I've been contemplating themes for this year and I have two ideas.

1. Pope Benedict XVI has declared this a Year of Faith.  So, it would be fitting to have faith as a theme.
2. Joy!  Taking the song, "Joyful, Joyful!" by Casting Crowns as my theme song.
We'll see how the Spirit leads!

Here's the Knitting Segment of the Blog:

In the Christmas Knitting Group on Ravelry, we had a Christmas Ornament Swap.  It was great fun and here's a picture of the Wee Mittens that I sent to my friend, Pat.  The second photo is the package I received from my friend, Paula.

Christmas Ornament Swap December 2012