The last two months have been pretty crazy. While we were accross the world snorkelling and observing wildlife, our amazing broker was busy prepping and showing our condo, and we came home to a few offers. We then started the stressful process of looking for a new home, and were lucky enough to find our dream house within a few weeks. We are finally closing on the condo this week, and soon on the house. Now is actually the hardest part, waiting. Waiting to move into our dream house, start some work, paint, and furniture shop. I've been obssessively reading design blogs, spending hours on Pinterest, and wishing that all the paperwork, the wait, the first few renovations were done so we could actually start decorating. I'm really excited to share with you the transformations, but in the meantime, I've mostly been distracted and unfocused, and haven't really been making much. Truth be told, I haven't even knitted much, but rather I've been looking things up and starting a few projects (socks, shawl) without really committing and without much progress.

Photo credit Heather Hands 

I had planned to have the part 2 of our Borneo adventures ready to share with you this week, but unfortunately, it's not happening. Too much is going on, and I can't concentrate enough to finish putting it together. All I want to do is look up home design sites and shop for furniture. Last night, we made an offer on a gorgeous house, and it was accepted. We are waiting for the inspection before getting too excited, since you never know, but we think we found the one. We love it. For me, it was love at first sight. Graham needed a day to think it over, but soon we shared the same vision, and we are both thrilled, freaking out, ecstatic and terrified. A good mix I guess. So instead of sharing with you the memories that still fill my head, I'll share with you what's been on it since we got back.

I'm not going to lie, the last few weeks have been rough. And, unfortunately, not in the "I really wish my pants had an elastic waistband" or "guess I forgot to drink water last night" kind of way. Well, ok, there was a bit of that. Truth be told, there has been a lot of good, a lot of fun and laughter. But there has also been illnesses, injuries, loss and sadness. A few too many moments where I thought to myself, maybe if I just go back to bed now, I'll wake up and it'll all be over. As I'm getting ready to fly back home to be with family, I'm taking a few moments to treasure the good memories, and try to forget everything else.

It seems like just a few days ago that we made it through the long series of flights to visit my family for the Holidays, and already we are back home. It was a blur of food and wine, of embraces, stories and laughter, and next thing I know I'm back home, snuggling on the couch with my little furry buddy, promising to drink water and eat salads for a while. If you are anything like me, the first grocery trip I make after a trip is filled with fruits and vegetables, enough to feed an army of... not very hungry people. I go a little overboard, and forget to include anything more substantial, going from over-eating to being hungry all day long. Luckily, not for too long, as we are headed to Mt Baker to share a cabin with good friends, wanting nothing more than powder and a hot tub to ring in the New Year.

Baby knits make terrific last minute projects, if you happen to have little ones in your entourage. If you are still looking for inspiration, here is a round up of my favourite baby knits this year. For the beginner knitter, try out a simple baby hat or a few pairs of these adorable baby mitts. For the intermediate knitter, the garter ear flap hat and the Shelby baby hat are a must. Happy knitting!

Photo credit Heather Hands

Christmas is in less than 10 days, and I am completely unprepared. Last year, I had it all planned out. I made our own Christmas cards, had them stamped and mailed in plenty of time. I decorated the house, even bought a cute rosemary tree and filled it with small ornaments, to comply with our loft's spacial challenges. I had my knitted gifts done and sent with some time to spare. A true Christmas miracle. This year, not so much. Maybe it's our recent trip to this great place - more on that later - or the fact that we are going to Quebec city to celebrate the Holidays with my family this year, making it seem like it's not really Christmas until we see snow. Maybe it's that the weather here has been quite warm and sunny, or maybe, just maybe, it's that I've been drinking bubbly and procrastinating. Either way, the last minute scramble is here, and I'm maintaining a decent amount of constant panic, balanced out by some serious excitement to be home for Christmas. Since graduating, work has rarely allowed me to travel during this time of year, and I'm feeling very lucky, thrilled to be in my favourite winter wonderland for the Holidays. So today, I'm putting Love Actually in the background, displaying my adorable snow globe on my desk, and while Graham is browsing the internet to complete his Christmas shopping, I'm getting ready for a creative marathon. Wish me luck.

Our friends recently moved from Boston to Northern California, which I had to take into consideration when planning their baby gift package. I wanted to make another hat, but it needed to be lighter, and definitely less bulky than this one. I had had my eyes on this garter ear flap hat from the ever so lovely Purl Bee for some time, and it seemed like the perfect choice to complete my baby gift series. I wrote down my shopping list for the yarn store, was pretty much ready to go with my coat on, until at the last minute I decided to glance over the pattern and saw the dreaded words: short row. I immediately abandoned my idea, took off my jacket, and said goodbye to this terribly cute hat project. See, short rows have terrified me for a long time, probably because I approached them unknowingly, following a pattern that never mentioned anything about picking up the wraps, and there were so many short rows, so many rows before picking up, and I was so upset when I realized, well into knitting it, that my cowl was full of holes. I realized that short rows create a wrap that needs to be picked up in order to avoid making holes, frogged my cowl and set it aside, where it still is, about a year later. Sad, but true.

When a friend sent me a link to the Shelby Baby Hat, designed by Julia Belsante for Camellia Fiber Company, I knew I had to make it since, obviously, it's one of the most adorable thing ever. Conveniently enough, at around the same time, close friends of ours came by Seattle for a visit, on their way from Victoria, BC, to Edmonton, North Pole, I mean AB. They were relocating there, leaving the beautiful PNW for one of the coldest places I've ever been to. In all fairness, I was there in February, tried to keep up with my military friend in the drinking department, lost my phone, and realized that this famously large shopping mall just, in fact, had 3 of about every store, and left a bit disappointed, albeit with memories of great times with my friend. I imagine that their new life there will be somewhat different, especially since during that visit to Seattle, they announced that they are expecting. I'm picturing that at times, their eyelashes won't freeze together within 2 minutes of being outside, and they will be able to safely leave their house. There might even be a brief summer. But, for all those cold days, I thought that this soon-to-be-born baby should have a most adorable and warm hat, and therefore this one was perfection.

I hope you all had a good Halloween weekend. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we had some pretty awesome costumes this year. You may think that I'm the creative one and therefore came up with the idea or executed it, but actually I had very little to do with it. For some reason Halloween doesn't really inspire me. Graham came up with the idea of going as Pac-man a few weeks ago, and started talking about costume construction, and how he needed to go shopping at the fiberglass store and had downloaded some programs to help him design the costume. That totally terrified me, as he wanted me to go as Mrs Pac-man; his reassurance that the costume would be comfortable and practical was far from convincing me. I declared that I would go as the maze, and then nothing happened for a while, or more specifically until 7pm on October 30th. At that time, it became clear that procrastinating was no longer an option, and Graham started drawing the maze on my black long sleeve shirt, and I started taping blue electric tape over it. I added white dots and a ghost, because... well it was a must, and Graham ended up leaving for our friend's place for further construction of his costume. Turns out our friends fully embraced our theme, and made the most amazing Pac-man fruit costumes, with felt, totally looking like they were made of large pixels. I thought they were awesome, until they blew my mind by dropping the fruits, showing the number of points collected. Best group costumes ever. Except maybe for Graham's challenging time going through doorways and climbing flights of stairs.

A few months ago, I found out that I have a criminal alter ego. My first thought was that someone had stolen my identity, and I panicked a little (lot). Then I found out that we share almost the same name, the same birthday, and that there is a warrant out for her arrest. Crazy stuff. I like to imagine what kind of life she's had, what happened... curiosity is kind of killing me, but then my imagination is also running wild, which may actually just be more fun. That's when I'm not standing in line, frustrated, waiting to come home, having to answer all sorts of questions to prove that I'm me and not her... turns out, it's a major pain. It happened again earlier this week, and so hours later, as we finally made it home, I started stressing about the next time we'll be on our way back, the delays, the possible missed connections... no fun.

Photo credit Heather Hands 

I've fully embraced the fall, which has always been my favourite season. Although the leaves don't quite take on the same dramatic colours here as back home, I love the bright yellows and occasional oranges, the crisp and fresh air, the cozy feeling of the duvet that's now back on the bed, and my fuzzy slippers. I'm baking and drinking chai tea, knitting like crazy, wearing scarfs and not shaving my legs as often. I'm filling up my Netflix queue with new TV shows and movies, preparing to hibernate for a few months. It all pleases me deeply. I particularly love the beginning of fall, the promise of life slowing down after a hectic summer, the colder mornings and nights. Above all this, I have a special appreciation for the beautiful and warm afternoons, when you'd believe summer is still here, if it weren't for the pumpkins and Halloween decorations showing up everywhere.

Like most people, I love going to the beach. Days of bright blue sky, warm and soft sand, the sound and smell of the ocean. Despite my paranoia of getting sunburned, I love the feeling of the sun on my skin. The days where finally, for a few hours, I'm not cold. But truth be told, I equally love the foggy, misty, mysterious grey west coast beach days. The trees growing on an angle due to the repeated assault of the strong winds and storms. The light, especially early in the morning, with 50 different shades of grey. I really do mean the colour. Or absence thereof, if you stick to the definition. I will take the beaches, pebbles or sand, all year long, sun or clouds. I am so thankful to live in the beautiful PNW. Of all the beaches I've been to, one particularly stands out: Kalalogh beach on the Olympic Peninsula.