new socks new year

I spent today on all fours elbows deep in cardboard boxes as I sorted through my collection of magazine clippings, art paper, and a decade of correspondence - letters and cards - that I'd saved. The letters were mostly from my mom and my sister.

Within the letters scraps of poems caught me by surprise. My sister, a lover of poetry, is the worst - or should I say best - culprit. What need do I have to buy poem books, when all the inspiration I could ever want I have in the stack of colorful letters that I've collected from her over the years?

I used to make my own journals and sew the bindings together with waxed thread. The tiny one above is from my honeymoon. It's filled with snippets of memory and small watercolor pictures of seashells. I've decided to keep my box of magazine clippings and scraps closer to my desk, these images are as old as some of the letters I rediscovered and I must have kept them for some reason so many years ago . . . so maybe they will serve me well again now as I follow new creative paths.

Isn't it funny how our creative life is cyclical? We think we're done with one idea or mode of creating and then we circle back to it and discover new and richer ideas mixed with the old ones?

Finished the socks in a heroic sprint to the finish this morning and coaxed Garrett into taking some pictures. An addicting and easy pattern with a beautiful and entertaining yarn. We're hoping to get some colorways in our shop soon, but if you're the adventurous type, you could purchase the natural colored yarn and dye it yourself.

Hope you all have a safe and happy new year!