I know it’s been a long time since I updated. Mea Culpa. I’ve been a little busy elsewhere, and I often find that when things start moving that quickly for me, they pick up speed, going faster and faster until I fall down in a heap and shake the dust out of my hair and wonder how far I got before falling.

About a month ago, I started working on a wholesale dye order that was different than working on stuff to send out to L&V listeners. Wholesale always is, I suppose. There’s an expectation of professionalism that I just don’t have when I’m dealing with friends. And anyone who listens to the podcast? Totally a friend by default. (I’m still semi-professional, but in a casual friday kind of way, not a button-up-that-last-button kind.) I needed new tags or skein wrappers. I needed to do much larger batches than I normally do (3 to 4 of each color, versus the 12 of each for this…). I needed to make sure every color was a winner in my own eyes.

That picture above? Part of that wholesale order that weighed so heavy on my head for a while. I carefully stacked each, gave them the silliest names I could think of, and made ballbands with yetis with glittering green eyes. I put them all in a box and shipped them off, biting my fingernails and hoping it’d be okay.

I think people — or some people, at least — are surprised that I’m so nervous with stuff like this. I think they see what I do and think I’m just all-confident, and it’s just not the case. I can worry myself into a nice little tizzy when I’m doing something new.

Luckily, The Loopy Ewe likes what I sent. Ordered more, in fact.

If you suddenly felt a large wind that was warm like a relieved sigh around noon yesterday? That was me. Seriously.

Now I’m looking forward to a little downtime. Or at least what passes as “downtime” in these parts. A few farmer’s markets, some home rennovation that isn’t rushed, and finishing up on a few books I started and kept putting down from distraction. And probably even some knitting time, since I need XP and all. (Have you signed up for KnitWars yet? So motivating. It’s explained up in the upper right, under the KnitWars link.)

Speaking of home decorating, I did this while my husband was gone for two days this past week:

before –

after –

amazing what a difference one coat of paint can make. That blue, while not bad, was eye-searing in that bedroom. And once the curtains are sewn (the fabric’s just tossed over the curtain rod in that picture, to show what they *will* look like, soon…), it’s going to be like a whole new bedroom.

Next time, I won’t wait this long to updatate.  Pinky-swear.