What you see pictured is my new classroom. It’s not much but it’s MINE – all MINE! Yes, folks. Tomorrow I start my new career as a high school photography, yearbook and “crafts” teacher. (Sorry – no pictures of the “crafts” room yet but trust me, it’s cool. WAY cool). I’m so excited. I can’t [...]

Kind of odd this morning that I happened to be driving down Valley View when I spotted hundreds of goats on the hill next to the road. Well it *looked* like hundreds but was probably less than a hundred all munching peacefully on the dried grass. I guesstimate that there must have been at least [...]

Summer’s not complete for me unless it includes berry picking – that’s how much of a summer ritual it’s become. I was overjoyed when my friends, Paul and Marie, agreed to accompany me to the coast south of San Francisco for some olallieberry picking at Phipps Farm and Country Store. I got enough berries for [...]

There’s been no lag time between socks these days and progress on my most recent pair has been swift. A friend recently reminded me about Knitty.com and it was there that I found a sock pattern worthy of the super soft, yummy yellow Malabrigo sock I purchased at K2Tog a few months ago. BTW: K2Tog [...]

I had an enjoyable hike with friends last Sunday at the Cataract Trail in Marin County on the Mt. Tam Watershed. Pictured above is my new friend, Aminta, still smiling during the tortuously steep section near the beginning. It’s surprising how remote this area felt being so close to San Francisco. This trail is known [...]

The hills near my home are so beautiful and green right now. I love driving and biking the country roads. But why do people do this? addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heavydutydesign.com%2Falicethelma%2F2010%2F03%2Fthis-makes-me-so-mad%2F’; addthis_title = ‘This+makes+me+so+mad.’; addthis_pub = ”;

When I finally overcame my block about the edge for the log cabin blanket, it actually went very fast. I’m very pleased. Instead of working in the round, I knit each edge separately and sewed them at the corners. Easy peasy! Why did I think it would be so difficult? I threw it around Max [...]

Working two jobs with the possibility of a credential program on the horizon, leaves precious little time for knitting.  This blog post will hopefully reassure you that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Not yet anyway. I knit the “Noro” scarf above using Mochi Plus instead of Noro and it was such [...]

I’m a huge fan of natural building, urban homesteading and water conservation – among many other things – so I have been particularly interested in what four young women, all natural builders, have been exploring at Villa Sobrante. I got to know Lindsay, Massey, Sasha and Trilby through knitting nights at Artfibers (which they first [...]

Case in point: This is my new REI colleague, Antonia, happily knitting away in the break room. We quickly realized during training – she was training me – that not only were we fellow knitters but that we had actually bumped into each other at Artfibers recently, when she was on a field trip with [...]