Gerald at 48

My brother Phideaux Xavier ( www.bloodfish.com ) sent me a link to a marvelous interview with Ian Anderson here: http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/interviewiananderson2012.htm. As a young person, I adored Jethro Tull and followed their music over the years. I made a few friends around my love of Ian Anderson's music, and recently was saddened to find one of them had passed away, as I went to share this article with her.It is always a shock to find yourself face to face with mortality and the possibility that our time is limited. We really never know what will happen to us, and how much time is left to finish all of our projects, complete our brainstorms and finally work on that magnum opus. Telling folks you love them is always big on the list, and as we never know, it is a reminder to make each day count. Goodbye, Pamela, and may you rest in peace.

Spring in February?

The weather today is a balmy 55 degrees F, and crocuses and hyacinths are coming up in my yard.

Certainly this has been the warmest weather I can remember for this time of year. I am glad for this, as our heating bills have been less! Leaving more money for yarn I suppose. Speaking of which, I wrote up and posted on Ravelry my pattern for Garter Stitch Circular Shrug, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/garter-stitch-circular-shrug
which is a stash-busting pattern. I decided to offer it for free and see how many variations folks would make of it. Also I didn't do all the calculations , so I felt it was a bit of work for folks to figure out, thus, free..

I'm still working on patterns for a few other sweaters, but somehow writing them up is not as much fun as knitting them! I love the figuring-out-on-the-fly part but not the spreadsheet part...
In other news, I am still looking for the right buyer for my marvelous house, and will be on the RiverArts Artist Studio Tour this year. That should be fun.It is April 28th and 29th, 2012.  I plan to hang as many of my quilts as I can and have a kind of retrospective for myself. Perhaps I will make a few small new pieces also.