A friend of mine used to teach writing to high schoolers. One of the prompts she liked to assign was describe yourself entering a room. So here’s me:

She has chosen the efficiency of a single trip, risky though it is to balance the daily pack load for three people plus several dozen eggs for the neighbors and the baby propped on her hip. She cants her long body against his soft weight and fumbles for the key trapped in the pocket beneath his plump calf. “This is not working out, Mama!” her small daughter announces, struggling with the locked knob. Then the key is in the slot. She braces against the screen door to hold it open while the child deliberately navigates the single step into the kitchen. She executes the pivot up and in, careful not to scrape the baby’s dimpled knee, careful not to dash the eggs against the doorjamb, careful not to tread on the quicksilver dog eeling out into the yard to snuff the freshening wind after a long day of confinement. The baby is snatching at the sunglasses perched askew on her nose. She notes the transfer of sweet potato from his shirt to hers. She sidles through the kitchen — crunch goes a wayward cereal O near the high chair — to deposit their baggage atop the cumulus on the window seat. They are home.

As this vignette reveals, my world is none too orderly nowadays. Against the clutter and the clamor of daily life, I’ve chosen a clean spare slate for my new virtual digs. I want it to be a calming, pleasant place to come after the babes are abed. I hope you’ll poke around and help me give it life through your feedback, though. I expect to be tinkering a lot in the months to come. All the free patterns from Blue Garter are up on the FREE PATTERNS page above the banner, and more tidily arranged than they were on the old blog so you don’t have to scroll through looking for a particular design. There are more free patterns in the hopper, I promise. Over in the sidebar is a big step for me: my first self-published pattern properly test knit and up for sale under the Whistling Girl Knits label. This represents an effort to bring a little more impulsion to my designing, to put it in the terms I’d use if I were riding a horse. Impulsion is forward energy, driven and directed, not scattershot variable kiting about. I have sketches and swatches and notes for more children’s garments — the realm I live in for the time being, but also good practice for working up to adult things that require more tailoring — and I’m trying to commit myself to bring them fully into being.

As part of this identity shift, I’m now whistlinggirl on Ravelry. And you can reach me by emailing sarah AT whistlinggirlknits DOT com. Let’s raise a glass to a new beginning! Thanks for visiting!