I realized Monday morning that it was my first day off in two years. It was the first day that I didn’t have something due very soon and it was a bizarre feeling! I kept feeling the gravitational pull of my design career trying to get me to sit in my work chair because ‘there’s work to do’! But alas, there wasn’t, and I was able to let myself relax a bit, take a walk around the neighborhood, take a four hour (!) nap in the afternoon with the windows open with a warm breeze and birds chirping in the courtyard. It was amazing.

And yesterday I spent a good part of the day cleaning house and crocheting swatches. Swatching is probably right up in the top three things I love to do as a designer. It’s creative and you can try anything you want and even if you don’t like how it turns out you can try something different. As soon as I had done my first swatch though I knew what I wanted to see it become so I dove head first into the leftover stash from The Book and came up with some of this wonderful Moda Dea Fashionista with plenty to do this project:



I’m only showing the infamous extreme close-up because I want to use it for my next book proposal. Yes Virginia, after all the hard work blood sweat and tears that went into 2007 I have a hankering to do another book. It’s amazing how once you break that dam of inspiration the sheer quantity of ideas that comes flooding out. Good notes are essential!

My New Best Friend

And here is something that I discovered not too long ago and have quickly become very addicted to! It’s the 365 Crochet Stitches A Year calendar that Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss just put out. The stitches they have are fresh and beautiful and I LOVE that the calendar is spiral bound at the top, and that it is perpetual; there is no year attached! Here is what the cover looks like:



Click here if you want more info:

365 Crochet Stitches A Year

I’ll Have A Slice of Denial Please

All the signs are there. I can’t ignore it much longer. The neighbors will surely complain if I don’t take action soon. You see, no matter how much I try, I can’t ignore the fact that spring has sprung in Houston. And that can only mean one thing: time to do yardwork. A LOT of yardwork. Beds need to be cleared out, lawns need to be fertilized, flowers need to be planted, leaves still need to be bagged up (a lot of the leaves around my house don’t fall until the spring ones start to grow), walkways need to be powerwashed, and oh yeah, the calico house is still only half painted. For now I think I’ll hunker down with Cleo and Chandler and do what they are doing: