Finding my feet

A whole year’s worth of seasons since my last post, and my lord how things change. In the past year we have gotten pregnant, sold a house, bought a house, moved, gotten the ‘vid, went to Ireland, had a baby, survived newborn parenting, and tried to figure out our new life as a family of three. It often feels like a thousand lifetimes have passed just since April when our little babe was born, but I’m working every day on finding my feet, even when it sometimes feels like two steps forward, one step back. (I still haven’t found all of my knitting needles, which were put in a box last October and supposedly made it to the new house.)

Motherhood has meant major shifts in every area of my life, and that includes creatively as well. Besides all of the insanely cute newborn things I have been working on, I am feeling a shift in my design sense and what I’m drawn to creatively as well. I went through a dry spell last year where I didn’t make a single thing for about 5 months, and it was tough, but it taught me a lot. Since Q was born I have felt a burst of energy and creativity and have done just a truly terrible job of documenting it all - so many baby bloomers, hats, felt play toys for his play gym, and every day I feel like my “to make” list grows and grows. It’s amazing. I used to really do a great job of sharing all of this on Instagram but with all of the shifts on that platform as well, I think I just need to dive back in and start sharing again, however makes sense.

I’ve missed this space and I have two really special projects coming up that I’ll be sharing more about soon, both collaborations with wonderful wonderful makers that I feel so lucky to work with! Things are moving so fast, but I don’t want to miss the chance to share and to document all of the wonderful things about this season of life.

Five Days in NYC

Last month, when the glow of the 4th had faded and the month stretched out in front of us, we traveled for five days to New York City.

I really don’t want to be dramatic, but it was pretty much a completely perfect vacation.

Yes - it was completely hot and sweaty the entire week. Yes - we got downpour rained-upon while leaving the MoMA and had to walk home absolutely soaked. Yes - I sprained my ankle on the fourth day walking home after dinner in clogs. Yes - one of my rolling suitcase wheels gave up on me on our last day of travel. Yes - it turns out that decriminalizing marijuana plus the summer heat leads to some STINKY neighborhoods, as it turns out.

But man. It really was perfect. We were absolutely so jazzed to be traveling, to be in a beautiful, big place and feel so safe (thank you, thank you, thank you vaccines), and to be together celebrating my husband’s incredible achievement of finishing his medical training. What a guy. He’s the hardest working person I know. I can only think of one time the entire week where we even got a little miffed with one another, and almost everything we wanted to see or do was open (except for, sadly for me, Purl Soho). I did, however, spend an absolutely wonderful hour making a return visit to the Brooklyn General Store and managed to completely treat myself, so don’t worry.

The last time we were together in NYC was over five years ago (when we were celebrating his match into residency!). This time around we stayed in the East Village in Manhattan, had the world’s best cocktails, bopped around to several museums and art experiences, walked around everywhere, and ate as many carbs as we wanted. I’m still dreaming about the blue crab pasta I ate for lunch in Brooklyn at Frankie’s 457 Spuntino. Life changing, I tell you. We spent an hour sitting and listening to jazz in Central Park, and spent a morning at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens where summer was in full swing. We walked around The Battery and saw the Statue of Liberty through a bed of blooming coneflower and drank so much water and iced coffee. We sat and read books and knit in coffee shops and in our tiny studio apartment that we rented and just spent some amazing days together.

In my mind, most of my ideal vacations are to the countryside. My favorite part of our trip to Montreal was the day we drove out of the city and saw all of the tiny ski villages and mountains, and I miss my summers hiking in Colorado so much. But I absolutely loved this trip to New York in all of its stinky, crowded glory. We are already looking forward to the next time we’ll be able to go back (and perhaps this time, in the fall, when we can trade our shorts for peacoats and our sunglasses for scarves). We’ll be riding the high of this amazing vacation for a long time though, that much I can tell you.

I love you, B.

Sunday Morning Shawl - Live! (and a discount code)

The Sunday Morning Shawl is now live under the “Patterns” tab of this website and on Ravelry!

There are so many special things for me wrapped up in this design. The yarn was purchased with a dear friend at Black Mountain Yarn Shop in the Fall of 2019, before the pandemic, before so many things that I never could have dreamed. At the time, it was a huge splurge and the Woolfolk used here is so luxurious. I hadn’t started designing patterns when it was purchased but I had all of these ideas in my head for what these colors could be together and it was a kind of leap of faith to really invest in the dream of designing.

When I finally sat down to work on this project, I tried out a few different design ideas,. But this winter, I really just needed a project in my life that was incredibly cozy, incredibly simple, and soothing no matter what the day held. Its name comes from the Commodores song “Easy Like Sunday Morning” and I think that encapsulates it perfectly. I also love that, because of its generous size, it can look so different depending on how you drape it. More stripes! More color! Less color - a mishmash of the two.

I love to include one new skill that a knitter may not have tried in each pattern that I write, and in this pattern it is the applied i-cord edging which is knit on the shawl after it is complete. It adds such a nice, finished edge to it and really ties it all together. In this design, I did the edging in turquoise, but in the pattern it is written for color B (in this case, the tan/khaki) just to make sure you have enough yarn to complete it. (It would be SO sad to get halfway through and run out of yarn).

This month I am also, amazingly, celebrating my first year of work as a knitting designer. It has been a steep learning curve for me both personally and entering the “business-y” side of the craft world for the first time in over five years and I have a lot more to say about it, but for now I’ll just leave you with a celebratory discount code “WHATAYEAR” which will get you 50% off any patterns here on my website or on Ravelry, just enter at checkout.

Thank you for all of the love on this design and for my journey as a designer! I can’t wait for much more creativity, self-expression, and knitting love to come.

Sunday Morning Shawl coming 7/16

Hello! We are back from just the most magical vacation I could ever have imagined. It was so, very, incredibly hot. But nearly everything we did was so, so perfect. I will be sure to share more soon. For now, I wanted to pop in and share that the Sunday Morning shawl will be coming this Friday, 7/16. I wrote just a little bit about it on my IG today but this pattern has been the coziest, simplest thing I have knit all year this year and I really hope that if you are needing some comfort and quiet stitches, this one makes it on your needles wherever you find yourself this summer.

More details on Friday, but this design is knit in four colors of Woolfolk Tynd (two skeins of one color, and one each of three others). If you have the chance to knit with this yarn, I highly recommend it.

Looking forward to Friday <3

What's Old is New Again

If you are at all familiar with the Enneagram, it would surprise you, I think, very little to know that I am a solid 6. Sometimes I feel as though I have a 7 wing, sometimes a 5. but solidly, solidly a 6. The 6 is all about security, and preparation, and dealing with their anxiety in the best way they know how. I think that as a 6, I also have a quite strong propensity for nostalgia: of remembering former times in my life and, because I can look back on them and know them, feel like they are safe spaces. Who feels nostalgic for the year 2005?! Me, apparently. I have been reading old blog posts from Posie Gets Cozy (again), and thinking about the little boutiques that I would stop in and visit as a teenager, how much I loved monogrammed things. I’ve been going back to the last page of my Ravelry favorites and, in quick succession, finding myself purchasing someone’s stash of discontinued Debbie Bliss Chunky Tweed for a pattern that I have had saved for at least seven years in my queue. I have been listening to a lot of The Shins.

I find myself feeling very poetic about how things used to be which I have come to realize is a really dangerous and inaccurate space to live. We have come so far as a society, and we cannot go back, nor should we want to. We can’t glorify parts of the past without considering the world as a whole, and it is naive to think of the past as “better times” (better for who?). But even my recent yarn purchases have made me feel like it’s ok to remember when online crafts were a little more eclectic, and more things came in the mail, and the fanciest thing I knew to order at a coffee shop was a London Fog.

I think these feelings have also been influenced by our recent trip to Nashville. One of my dearest friends is having a baby any day now and B and I went for a visit for a few days to the place where we met, fell in love, went to college, and started our life together as a couple. You remember things differently, and you remember more, when you are in a place that you used to know so well. Oh, and our friends also introduced us to the Huji app, which makes everything you take a photo of look like it was from 1998. Amazing.

I’m not sure there’s really a point to this post other than just to say what kind of headspace I’ve been in recently, and how interestingly, it has made me so creatively inspired too. Between this mindset and my “lack of internet” breakthrough a couple of weeks ago, I have made incredible progress on two new designs, one of which I am going to be submitting for publication for sure, and the other we’ll see. But I’m really excited about both of them and for the inspiration that they’ve brought to my life, connecting my past and my present and sharing something absolutely cozy with you.

I have not forgotten about the Sunday Morning shawl, which I am hopeful will be on its way to being released in a few weeks. I’m also working out the kinks on my e-reader cover that I shared on IG last week and have had some interest in seeing written up as a pattern (this one will be free).

What happens when you get off the internet for 36 hours

Last Wednesday, we celebrated seven years of marriage, and this weekend we went on our first ever camping trip together. We have historically been huge fans of farm stays, having stayed in a converted Airstream, in cabins, in an 1800s farmhouse in Eastern NC, going to farm-to-table restaurants, but never have we fully committed to the great outdoors until now. (And, to no one’s surprise, this campsite was, you guessed it, on a farm.)

We set up camp after a normal person’s dinner time in the miraculous still-light evening that only comes this time of year during solstice when the world is bright at 8:30 PM and ate buffalo chicken sandwiches looking out over the most incredible pasture. We woke up and made coffee on a crooked little campfire and burned bagel sandwiches. We hammocked basically all day with a short break in town for lunch and texting our cat sitter. We napped. I slept terribly. We read, I knit. Our phones didn’t work at all - the entire weekend - except for our brief stop in town. We had downloaded music, and that was pretty much it. I knit and re-knit a sock using some hand-dyed yarn from Posie Gets Cozy that unfortunately for me and you is now sold out. I would absolutely love to make a sweater in this yarn.

I think that this may legitimately have been the first time in I don’t even know how long - five years? Ten years? Where I truly have not been on the internet at all for over 36 hours. Realizing this fact was extremely depressing and anxiety-provoking, but I think it’s true. I’ve never deleted Instagram off of my phone or taken a true, intentional break there, either since I downloaded it in 2012. Even when we have extensively gone to the mountains, our cabins always have WiFi. Being off the grid for even just a weekend was kind of a wild experience (no pun intended), and I can’t say that I am glad to be back quite yet. When I had no choice but to just be present, I suddenly felt so nostalgic for my years growing up when this was just my normal, every day reality. Sure, I was on the computer all of the time for school, or texting my friends on my pre-iPhone smart device thingy, but it made me realize just how caught up in it I am now in my life. We had some big talks about our dreams, and how we spend our time, and what we value, and there was no input or comparison from anyone else in the world to consider when we had those conversations. Is that pathetic? Sometimes I think I am too impressionable and social media just makes that so much worse. It kind of made me question why I make any of the choices that I do in my life: do I actually want and value that goal, or do I just follow a lot of people who want and value that goal? Do I actually want XYZ item in my life or am I just constantly getting ads for it on every social media platform I see? Am I actually stressed about big life decisions or am I just hearing a lot of ads on podcasts for Modern Fertility and Better Help?

Honestly, I’m not sure yet. But I know for a fact that getting off the internet and just knitting or just reading or just being feels like a whole new concept that I plan on doing a lot, a LOT more this summer. I’ve also been listening to music from back in high school on actual CDs (I know) and y’all, it has me all in my feelings.

In other, less philosophical news, I will be releasing a new shawl pattern SOON and I am so excited to share it with you. It’s so meditative and lovely and perfect for taking with you anywhere that adventure may call this season. More soon!

Everything’s Changed, Everything’s The Same

Ah, spring!

We mop our floors, we dust off our windows (unless you are me, apparently), we organize and host destash sales and ride in our cars with the sunroof open. We have so much energy for all. the. things. that it can actually be quite overwhelming. We let several punnets of strawberries languish in the fridge until far beyond their jamming potential, and then go back to pick up some more (at least if you are me).

This is our fourth spring in our home and our “murder shed” looms large still and our raised bed still remains uninhabitable. I accept this reality, knowing for certain that this will be the last spring it is like this. We have big, beautiful dreams for our home and our outdoor space that grow fonder each passing day and we can’t wait for all that is ahead. All the while, every cat-proofed sunny sill is completely overcrowded with house plants, green onion shoots, hanging planters, and sprouts as soon as I can make a trip to the garden center. It is a strange and wonderful thing to see the same azaleas and camellia bushes burst with color, just as they did every spring before, and feel like everything is very much the same, and yet everything is different this year.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time deciding which patterns to make out of the precious fabrics I have accumulated over the past few months that I end up not working on any of them at all. This is a tragedy! My antidote has been to just decide that day, the day that I am actually going to work on the thing, what the project will be. It still leaves lots of room for back and forth for the stacks of fabric on the shelves, but it at least takes it down a peg with each new project. I just ordered some vintage bedsheets on eBay to make a ZW Gathered Dress that will likely become my new favorite nightgown (I hope). I have been obsessed with vintage nightgowns over the past year and they’re basically all I want to wear now. Of all of the pandemic sewing projects I have done over the past year, I have realized that the oversized, boxy look is incredible for some, but not for me, and yet I just can’t get over this dress. So nightgown it is. I’m also trying to decide what to do with all of my aforementioned boxy garments, whether to try to refashion them as is, or give away. I have an incredible stack of mending to do and the thought of re-doing them is a bit much, although so is giving them away. (See that spring energy I mentioned?) I am imagining the most ridiculously cozy winter this year featuring this nightgown and my someday quilt-coat layered on top to make me feel like I am actually in bed, all the time, but if I was also feeling reallllly stylish. :)

I am working on a new shawl right now that is just…wonderful. She is so simple and the yarn really makes all the difference in the world here. I shared a peek last week but will have more soon. Honestly I am going back and forth on whether to sell this or just share the recipe, because it is so simple, but we’ll see how she keeps shaping up. I also ordered this incredible stack of O-Wool o-wash fingering, one of my absolute favorite yarns, for a new idea that has been kicking around inside of my head for weeks. I am trying to work on one thing at a time right now but it’s making it very difficult to do. I can’t wait to see where that one goes.

My favorite mittens, my new pattern, are coming out next week and I haven’t even really shared them here, so be on the lookout for soon and if you’re curious, you can visit my Instagram page (@abbygoodknits) to see the peeks I have shared thus far. I am once again so grateful to my tech editor and test knitters for bearing with me and all of the disorganization that I bring to this process, it really does mean the world and I am looking forward to sharing another pattern with you all to warm your fingers as winter fades into spring.

Wash Day

Washing day at the house of Goodman.

Washed my socks, washed a sweater, washed my hair.

Still in that season of the year where I wish I had a wood stove instead of a drafty fireplace in our front room to dry my woolens by. Someday, someday.

P.S. - This is the best smelling wool wash in the world.