Hobb-nobbing with great knitters

I am so grateful that my friend Amanda decided to move to Lowell. I have worked in this area for 5 years, and never knew what an amazing artist's community is here. It is wonderful.

Before I even had an inkling that Aaron and I would be buying this house, Amanda and I had scheduled a 'craft' evening. We signed up for a beading class with Lush Beads, and then it was also the day that our pattern drafting class at Mind, Body, Threads began. Who knew I would be rushing to these classes after the house inspection (which yes, I will get to later, for those of you following the home buying soap opera)?!

The beading class was a blast. We learned about putting on fasteners, and making earrings. We did a little bit of practicing, and then picked out our own beads. We both made a necklace and a pair of earrings... and they turned out great! You will be seeing some beaded stitch markers in the near future, for sure.

And - I'm SO excited about the pattern drafting class! We took our measurements, and are learning to make a skirt pattern that will fit us perfectly. Although I'm not a skirt gal, this is the first step to pattern design, and then we move on to pants.

After the class was over, Lizzy Upitis came up (since she is the other owner of the store) and she showed Amanda and I some of her beautiful fairisle sweaters. They are amazing. She was telling us what her thought process was in the design process, and also showed us some lace work she had done! It's so interesting to talk a knitting 'master' and hear that they go through the same things in working on projects that us mere mortals deal with!

Non-knitting news:
The house inspection went well. There are definitely some issues that we found during the inspection. When we get the official report from the inspector, we will go back to the owners with our requests. Fortunately, I feel that we aren't really requesting anything unreasonable... and after talking with the sellers agent, she states that they are reasonable people. So - I'll keep you updated! But things are moving forward!