Wow, it's been a while since I posted. But with the past month I've had it's not surprising. Here's a quick recap before I move on to new things. Since July 2nd:

Got a dog
Mr. Cleaver turned forty
Released the Smocked Tank

Tour de Fleece happened and I have about 600 yards of handspun yarn
Turned 28
Saw the final Harry Potter movie
Helped write and turn in our major funding application at work
Took a business trip to Buffalo and spent inordinate amounts of time in the Philly airport

Saw an Elvis Costello concert
Released Alaria with Quince & Co.
Submitted a potential project packet to a knitting mag
Painted and revamped my studio
Knitted a design for another knitting mag to be mailed off today
Had a giant BBQ in my backyard with over 30 friends and a live band.

Whew! and I thought summers were supposed to be slow!

I'll post about the BBQ later this week, but today I wanted to show off my newly revamped studio space.

As you may recall, when we moved in, the first floor bedroom looked like this:

In the early days of moving in, we stripped the wallpaper and I'd been using it as a studio in this configuration.

While the hearts and bears stenciling was an improvement over the baseball wallpaper, I still wanted an update. So my big birthday request was to paint the studio (I ended up with a much bigger gift than that, but more on that later this week).

There was a heat wave the weekend of my birthday, so we waited to paint until the next weekend.

Steinbeck was very helpful and only stepped in paint once.

The color is Yolo Colorhouse Water .02 - a fantastic blue that looks at alternate times of day anywhere from periwinkle, to lilac, to grey. The trim is the same Air .01 as in the living and bedroom.

The other major change comes from hanging things on walls, particularly the addition of the pegboard.

Pegboard makes me feel so organized.

Some other notable items - the original Ms. Cleaver portrait by Sharon Barto and three old knitting magazines courtesy of Bristol Ivy.

I still want to put some kind of yarn storage on the wall to the left of the loom, crates or hatboxes maybe and eventually all the carpet in house should be replaced, but other than that, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to start making stuff in there!

John and I got back home late Sunday evening after a wonderful week with the family in Southern California. It was nice to have so much time to spend with everyone. We could relax and enjoy the beautiful to us (cold to them) weather.

I am especially grateful for the stories I learned about various family members, like how my great aunt and uncle met at a roller skating rink he was running, and how when my grandfather was born they had to light the stove in the farmhouse with walnuts, because all the wood had already been taken to the new farm his family was moving to.

Mr. Cleaver and I stayed with my Grandfather, who requested a turkey dinner for Tuesday night, so my brother and I spent the majority of the day cooking Thanksgiving dinner #1, which included turkey, stuffing, pumpkin cake and whoopie pies. Mr. Cleaver took on dish duty. We were joined by my sister-in-law after work, and Grandpa invited his friend Patricia from church to join us for supper. Patricia has encouraged my Grandpa to take up yoga at the age of nearly 83!

On Wednesday we explored San Dimas and joined my Aunt, Uncle and cousins for some ten pin bowling followed by In-N-Out. Mr. Cleaver was excited to bowl over 100 for the first time ever.

Thanksgiving day was spent at my Aunt and Uncle's, playing games (like Clankers( like horseshoes, but with washers), Corn Hole, and Skittles), chatting round the fire, eating delicious food, and gathering in the rec room for slideshows.