Popping over

...to say I still exist. Life and travel started happening for me back in July and my blog languished.

Since I last wrote I made an amazing trip to the east coast. A trip that had trips-within-the-trip. Ostensibly I was making a visit to see my son Ian in Boston. As planning progressed, I wound up with the following additional journeys:
5 days in Manchester, NH for the Crochet Guild of America annual conference.
2 days in Northampton, MA for a visit with friends from my bookseller days, a poetry reading and WEBS
2 days in Holliston, MA for a visit with my friend Kate at her gorgeous shop Kamala, where I participated in a SoulCollage workshop and two lovely women's circles.

In between all those visits, I had lazy days with my son where we just hung out together at his house. Knitting, binge-watching Netflix shows, getting to know my furry grandchildren, Moochie & Pixie.

I got to see the ocean for the first time since I moved to Indiana from Florida two decades ago. I also challenged my travel-phobia by taking a bus back and forth to Northampton by myself and negotiating the T back in in Boston on my return.

It took me a long while to fully return to Terre Haute. It was as though my body arrived back home one day and my spirit arrived many days later. Very odd feeling that was!

I got busy on some new goals. I've decided I'd like to be a better teacher and develop some interesting workshops and that I need to become more confident in my teaching.  To that end, I made plans with Martha at RiverWools to teach three classes in the next few months.

My first class is based on a simple short-row shrug I've designed. I'm calling it "Wedgies!" and will teach a little 'wedge theory' so that, hopefully, students might design their own short-row wedge garments.

I've had a lot of fun working on my materials and presentation and as I worked, my original EZ-PZ Short-Row Shrug became a little more polished and is now called 'Popover.'  I will give students both patterns, I think.

Some pictures of the shrug done in Noro, but it also works up nicely as a solid as well, though not quite so dramatically patterned and colorful!