I am happy to report that there isn't much to report this week. And after all the excitement of last week, that's quite a relief!

Dipper is still herding her four little fluffbutts around and there's only been a singular mongoose sighting in the past week. Which was OUTside the house, thank goodness!

I've been working on the shawl pattern a bit, but I still haven't gotten it off the blocking boards for photos yet.

Three weeks ago I strained something in my lower back and I've been struggling with trying to rest and recover from that. I keep messing it up again, accidentally. It's quite frustrating!

I started doing some light yoga again and I honestly can't tell if it's helping or hurting, but I don't want to lose too much progress, either. So there's been lot of stretching and a lot of wandering around kind of aimlessly because I can't sit still for too long or it starts to bother me more.

Which isn't doing a whole lot of good for my productivity!

But I'm slowly chipping away at the to do list.

How is yours looking so far this fall? Do you have a lot of gift making planned??

I'm planning on participating in the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long as well as the Indie Gift-A-Long on Ravelry again this year, so if you're a mad holiday knitter or crocheter, be sure you stay tuned for more on those two upcoming events!

Finalizing my 2026 calendar is also on the list and it's creeping up pretty close to the top.

It looks like I'll actually be doing two calendars this year, though, so that's kind of fun! I'm trying to finish up the last couple paintings to round out the collections for each one. The Island Abstracts theme seemed like it would be a no brainer, but apparently I did all my best seascape painting on Molokai! 😆

Here's a peek behind the scenes of my hot mess of a studio floor as I try to sort through what I have, what I like, what is meh, or what.

I'm almost there, though. My stack of no good paintings is definitely going to be bigger than the keepers this time. But hopefully they can all be painted over or repurposed. Painting is definitely easier (and quicker) to do that with than crocheting, at least!

Speaking of crocheting, I don't think I've crocheted not one single stitch this past week! Huh. I just now realized that.

Sometimes it's hard to balance the creative work with the computer work. Although I guess I've been making more time for painting recently, thanks to the Bloomtober challenge, so that's just a different sort of creative time! And it does often fuel the crochet time.

My next project is actually probably going to be a hat using the remaining yarn from the shawl. I've got 89 grams leftover, which was more than I was expecting to have, but Ethan's skeins of yarn were a little more generous than average, with all four of them weighing over 110 grams each!

So I think I'm just waiting for the brain space to clear up enough that I can tackle the math to turn the stitch pattern and striping from the shawl into a cute little beanie.

For today, though, I still have some editing left to do for the Bloomtober paintings and then I want to take a look at them all together as a set to see if it looks complete as is for a 12 month calendar or if I want to swap any out.

Death camas was suggested as a bonus toxic floral by one of my members over on Patreon, so I gave that one a go:

I have oleander, jimsonweed, and silverleaf nightshade (all plants I saw while living in the Mojave Desesrt a couple years ago) on my list of considerations of toxic florals to paint if I need to expand the collection.

If you have any suggestions of poisonous flowers that you know of that might make an interesting painting, hit reply and let me know!

I'm also starting to think about some fun color punchy type crochet patterns that I might make inspired by these paintings. Really lean into the "toxic" colors maybe. As if I need more crochet pattern ideas dancing around in my head!

There's just never enough time for all of the ideas. *sigh* So it goes.

Okay.

Enough procrastinating.

Time to get some more work done!

Chat soon.

-Connie

P.S. Since I already showed you proof of life for Dipper and her babies, here's Attitudy Judy striking a pose!