…Michael Jackson, who passed away a year ago on this date. I couldn’t let this day go by without some sort of tribute.

This video is one of my favorite performances of his – From the Bad tour in 1988 “Another Part of Me”.

Today was a good day. Spent the day with family, cooking, laughing, eating. Good times that I cherish.

Hope you day was good as well.

As I was trying to figure out what to write about, I suddenly thought to google ‘blog prompt’ and I found Creativity Portal.

They have this whole section of ‘prompts’ to spark your imagination and creativity. (See the list HERE)

I found the the Imagination Prompt of particular interest. My prompt? ‘Happiness is…’ and that’s very easy.

Specifically – Happiness is knitting my handspun shawl. And generally – Happiness is knitting. But you knew that, right?

Perfectionism is a sneaky thing. You work on it constantly and yet, it keeps rearing it’s ugly head. All or nothing is a trait of perfectionism. Sometimes I can work through it, but often, I don’t realize it’s taken control. Just because I missed a day doesn’t mean I have failed, right?

Thank you, Sophie for the encouragement!

Ok … my main goal for December – get back to spinning. My own personal and unofficial NaSpiYaMo – ‘National’ Spin Yarn Month. Spin at least 10 minutes a day during the Month of December. I’ve worked so hard to learn and improve my spinning and I feel all that slipping away and I don’t like that. Anyone wanna join me?

I’ve taken 2 ounces of the eight ounces of black merino I bought and that’s what I’m going to work on first. I spun for a little bit yesterday. It was weird – I wasn’t totally in love with spinning as I had been the past few months but I didn’t dislike it either.

Another issue is that I messed up my bobbins. Majacraft has plastic bobbins – inexpensive but functional – and a couple of them were a little tight and I got a little over zealous with some sand paper and now they rattle. The manual says to use vaseline on the flyer shaft if the bobbins do rattle but it did not help much. I ordered two more this past weekend and hopefully these will be nice quiet bobbins. One day I’ll invest in some wooden bobbins.

I hope you have a pleasant day.

Pay no attention to the outdated links my the sidebar. (I need to delete them) Instead, here a small list of favorite blogs that I visit often.

the blue blog – The perfect title for a blog. the very first knitting blog I ever remember reading. features knitting, quilting, sewing and general life stuff. (also the author of Charmed Knits)

The Weaving Studio – formerly ‘Cabin Cove’ – a blog by a very talented guy – lots of spinning, weaving, photography, cats, and a wee bit of knitting.

tiennie knits – truly an inspiring knitting blog. her photography of her knitting is great too!

Hoxton Handmade – knitting and the ‘Electric Sheep’ podcast

bowerbird knits – features knitting and some awesome spinning.

Simply Recipes – a newly discovered favorite. I fully intend to try the ‘Cashew Chicken’.

the Akamai Knitter – another talented multi-crafter – spinning, knitting, jewelry & cross stitch are what I seen so far. Handsome cats make appearances as well.

a thing for string – another awesome spinner. Also has knitting and crochet.

cauchy09’s flickr photostream – a crafty photo blog at minimum. another talented multi-crafter – lots of quilting, embroidery, knitting, spinning and an occaisional chicken hat.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all the blogs I read. Maybe you’ll find a new one here that you’ll enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by!