New to YOU Make-a-long!!!

Hello friends!!

I am SOOOOO EXCITED to announce this epic make-a-long that I am hosting to celebrate the New Year! 

I had the idea to create a make-a-long that would inspire you to do something new. A new craft, a new technique, a new pattern that you've been wanting to try, something that would get you out of your comfort zone. I think it's so important to learn new things as we get older. When I began knitting I always chose a project that would introduce me to a new technique. I wanted to learn something every time I made something new. After 10 years of knitting, I find myself NOT doing this! I have found a comfort level and have avoided some projects that have a technique that I am not familiar with and I wanted to change that.

I also love to bring people together. The maker community is so strong and supportive so why not include all of you and some of my favorite podcasters and makers??? I reached out to a few of my maker friends and we are so excited to host this make-a-long. 

Hosts and links to their spaces on the web:

Cocktail Hour at the Coop (Me and Liz)

Paige the Framer (Paige)

Chevyrell Podcast (Chevas)

Just One N Podcast (Liz Zimmerman)

Earthtones Girl (Denise)

Sweet Sparrow Knits (Julie)

Remembrances Pottery (Natalie)

Treehouse Knits (Rachel)

Here are the details:

Try something new! This includes all fiber related crafts:

knitting, crochet, weaving, embroidery, yarn dyeing, spinning, rug hooking, punch needle, felting, sewing, etc. The possibilities are endless! 

Start date: January 1, 2019

End date: Valentine's Day 2019

(Projects do not need to be complete to be eligible for prizes.
The point is to try something new!)

How to enter:

Use the #newtoyoumal on instagram

or

Post in the Arrow Acres Farm Ravelry page thread

Link here

Prizes:

We will award one random grand prize with donations from all the hosts (how great is that prize going to be??!!!)

Each podcaster will also send a prize to their favorite entry.

What will you try? Let us know and have fun!!

Happy 2019 to all!

Merry Christmas

Today is the day after Christmas. I'm at work today and as hard as it is to leave the house when all the kids are home on school break, I am thankful to have a career that I am proud of and a place to work that is amazing. I love what I do, my coworkers have become some of my closest friends and the company I work for does so much good for so many people. So overall, yes....I would much rather be home with my family right now, knitting, still in pjs and watching movies but if I have to be at work, at least it's a great place to be!

Our Christmas was very nice. We had a much needed lazy day yesterday full of presents, games, good food, cooking, knitting, napping (YES!! I took a nap!!), laughing and movies. The five of us stayed home all day. Never got out of our pjs. It was wonderful. I started knitting a new project and I was able to knit for a few hours straight! It was glorious!!!

Christmas Eve is our night with relatives. For as long as I can remember we all go to church at 5:00 then back to my parent's house for a delicious dinner. We follow the dinner up with presents for all! So many nice gifts were exchanged. We had a secret cousin swap this year. This was new to us and it was so much fun. Each boy got a secret cousin and they had to think about what to buy. The exchange was fun and i'm sure we'll keep this tradition going for years!

This time of year always makes me sentimental. Honestly, I'm always sentimental but this year really brings it out in me. But this holiday felt a little harder for me personally. This past year we lost a lot of people in our family as well friends and friend's family members. 

I couldn't stop thinking about my friend Christina's family. I don't know how they are able to go on every day without Christina and Tyler. So young, so beautiful, so happy and in love and to be taken away in such a violent senseless way still and will forever haunt me. They were on my mind all day.

I also thought about my Aunt Connie. She and Mommom must have loved watching from above as Michael lead us in song on Christmas Eve.

Mr and Mrs Koffler, our neighbors who lived long good lives and passed away within 6 weeks of each other. They would be so happy to know that the couple who bought their house are always working on it, making it look nice just as they did.

My cousin's husband, Pat. His presence will be missed at New Years! He always called Liz the Chili sister. I hope he joins us in spirit this year as we bring in the New Year at his house.

My aunt's husband, John. She mentioned to me that she didn't have it in her to put up a tree this year. I hope the joy and excitement on all her grandkids faces this Christmas took away some of the hurt.

And my friend John's mom, Amy's mother-in-law and Grandma Gracie to Jack and Matt. She just passed away last week after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. These two people are my dear friends that I can't imagine life without. They feel like my family and it breaks my heart to know what they are going through right now. They had lots of tears these past few days.

My heart goes out to those that are missing people at the holidays and especially for those going through all the "firsts" without them. I am beyond thankful for my people...my husband, my three healthy boys, my mom and dad, my sisters and brother-in-laws, my crazy nephews, my grandparents, my inlaws, my dog, my chickens, the herd of alpacas that give my parents so much joy, a job I love, and a hobby that brings me close to so many people like you that are reading this. 

Sorry if that was a bummer at the end!!! But my heart was all over the place this holiday and I needed to write it down somewhere! 

I hope you all have a happy New Year!

Yarn Along

Hi fiber friends!

Only have a few minutes, but thought I would share two quick little projects I recently knitted up. They are both from the Mason Dixon Knitting Field Guide No.8: Merry Making. I picked the book up in Rhinebeck and had it signed by the lovely Mason Dixon ladies. I love the size of the book, the patterns are all great and I highly recommend it to everyone!

First up is the Slip-Stitch Cap. I held Cascade alpaca worsted double to make a chunky hat. I love it! Pattern is very easy to memorize after the first repeat. 

And this is the Appleseed Coaster. Fun knit. Just a heads up...if you have the book, Row 5 has a mistake but the corrected notes can be found on the ravelry page.

I used some Peace Fleece that I had in my stash.

I'm working on a secret Christmas project and I also have a few baby orders I have to do. That should lead me right into Christmas. Ahhh!!! It's TOO CLOSE!!!!!!

Happy knitting!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all our USA friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a wonderful time doing what you do. I'll be watching the parade on tv, possibly braving the cold to watch the rival football game and enjoying some food. Hopefully there will be some time to knit :) 

I hope you have something or someone to be thankful for this year.

I am thankful for my family, having a job I love and a house to live in.

This time of year overwhelms me and I spend more time wishing it was over than I care to admit. Holidays were so much easier as a kid!!! So I'm going to try to enjoy it a little more this year. 

The farm will be OPEN Friday-Sunday this weekend.

Come on by and say hi!

November Yarn Along

Hi friends. I haven't been knitting as much as I would like to be. But I did read a good book. So i thought I would share both here.

I finished reading, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I have read three of her books and this was very good. It's sad at times and you just want to jump in the book and help the women!!! It made me cry. That's how I know it's a well written and good book! I enjoyed it. 

For knitting, I made a little coaster out of the Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide "Merry Making". It was a fun, quick knit. But heads up...there is a mistake in row 5 of the pattern. The errata can be found on their raverly page. I figured it out right away that something was wrong. However, I think about the people that are new to knitting and trust every pattern (as I was at one time) and would have made a mess of this!!! 

I am still knitting my Quill Sweater. I'm almost done!!! Just need to finish a sleeve and put in the pockets. I just realized that I haven't really taken any good pics lately of my progress, so here's a beginning picture to show the color and one of the "feathers" that is in the back panel. The other picture is just me curled up knitting and drinking coffee in the early morning hours of daylight savings time.

Joining in with Ginny at Small Things for this month's Yarn Along.

Hope you are all enjoying these fall days!

Rhinebeck 2018

It's been almost two whole weeks since Rhinebeck. I'm still sad it's over!!! But so happy I get to go to something like this with the BEST group of women!

Lucky for me I got to spend the weekend with my mom and both sisters, three cousins and many knitting friends. It was wonderful. We rent a big house and spend three days laughing, eating, looking at yarn, buying yarn, laughing some more, eating some more and enjoying each other's company.

The sheep and yarn are just the vehicles to bring us all together for a fun weekend. I'm so thankful for it all.

Here are photos from our trip...

On our way!

The view from our back deck.

Needles Up!!!

I finally got to meet Chelsea in person. I am the lucky girl that got to design the Needles Up logo (as well as the logo for Denise, Earthtones Girl) And how cute is that little Lilly?!! What a good baby!

Loved meeting fan girls of our podcast!!!! 

Buns, BEST burger ever.

I savored every last bite. I didn't want it to end.

Fan girls and the Buns guy!!! 

Mom and I : Cheers to day 1!

Day 2: Heading to the festival!

 Our house. I love, love, love our Rhinebeck house.

Carolyn Bloom!!! I met her last year and that's what started the Water Arcade craze in our family. My mom is wearing mine. Liz made it for my 40th birthday. 

My buddies!!! Robin and Purple Debbie. I love all my knitters.

When we all get to the festival we naturally break out into smaller groups. We seem to be the three amigos. We're a good team together.

This was my favorite version of the Tecumseh. There were so many different versions all around the festival. But this one really caught my eye. I kind of love how you can walk up to a stranger and ask them to take a picture of their knitwear and they're happy to oblige! 

Thank you Christina for teaching me the easier way to take a selfie!

Yes, it was crowded. But I don't think it was AS crowded as last year.

My people!!!! We were all waiting for the podcast meetup. It's one of my favorite parts of the day. Seeing people you only see once a year, or only through YouTube. We laugh, we scream like little girls...it's all ridiculous and fun. And this year was especially fun because we have OUR OWN podcast and people actually knew who we were!!!!!! It was so fun! Thank you to everyone that said hello to us!

This is Donna, our podcast winner. We chose her because we loved her sweater. It was also her first time at Rhinebeck. We got to meet in person and deliver her prize.

Chelsea Yarn crew!

The Knot House ladies

Chelsea Purls...and NANA! aka SusanJoy

Paige and Joan :)

Andrea Mowrey...I knew who she was this year! Lol. Had NO clue who she was three years ago and blew her off. Silly me. I also told her how ridiculous I have felt since the first time meeting her. We had a good laugh about it.

If you want to laugh, watch Levi's podcast, WTF Knitting. Hysterical! 

Thank you Kristy for making us all laugh and bringing so many people together! So much fun.

Caitlin Hunter and all the Tecumsehs.

The paparazzi!

YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!! You know how much I love this woman and her patterns! I was just a LITTLE BIT excited to meet her!

I like her even more after meeting her.

Cousin Carolyn (VERY new to knitting) has no idea who anyone is but she knew we were all so excited to meet her and couldn't help get her picture. We all laughed so hard. Thank you Caitlin. You made our day!

Back to the house for dinner, secret "cousin" swap and more laughter. We picked names out of a bucket on Friday night and got to shop for our secret "sister/cousin". We set a limit of $20. It was so fun to sit around and do a show and tell and then gift each other our presents. 

Back for day 2 of the festival. it was CHILLY!!!

Here we are with our twinning Lovable sweaters! Kate and I talked at maryland and decided to make matching sweaters. We both modified the original pattern. I loved her version. They are both knitted with Green Mountain Spinnery weekend wool.

Of course we watched the Leaping Llama contest. Tiny Goat!

More fan girls. This one is all the way from Dubai!

All the colors....

Little one rolling down the hill. made me smile.

Can't wait for next year. My artwork will be everywhere. It's a dream come true.

My haul....

And my gifts...

Thank you Rhinebeck and my knitting house. The memories made this weekend will last me a lifetime and will always bring a smile to my face.