So, I'm blogging........

I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff but I'm ready to jump!  Everybody blogs, except me.  I quite honestly can't think of why anyone would be interested in what I have to say.  I'm hoping that my designs are more interesting than I am! There certainly wasn't a conscious path towards designing.  It was just a road that slowly rolled out in front of me. My wonderful husband is a tugboat captain, so a certain independence and resourcefulness has developed in me over the last 30 years (no kidding) that we've been married.   I am the proud (very proud) mother of two delightful and enlightening Autistic children.  They are a very time consuming crew and I've homeschooled them both.  But then I didn't have kids so that I could do something else and their needs certainly demanded my full attention. My daughter is a remarkable professional artist and musician and my son is just remarkable....he hasn't quite figured out what he'd like to do with his life yet.  They are 15 (yup) years apart, so I was able to really concentrate my energies on helping their Autistic selves make their way in the typical world.  Not always winning maybe, but trying is what counts!

The designing came to be when we moved my mom in.  She was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis and could no longer care for herself at home.  My mom was the most delightful, gracious, gentle person that I have ever known or could aspire to be.  Caring for her was an honor and a gift for the whole family. Every night after all had settled....or at least wasn't yelling my name...mom and I would flop in our happy place, watch crime dramas and knit.  We knit our way through nights, illness, hospital stays, good news and bad news.  We innovated, invented and solved problems.  All with a skein of yarn and our magic knitting needles. Sometimes it seemed the needles and yarn were the only thing that held me in a sane place.  When I started designing it filled a creative void that I hadn't had time to deal with. 

My son sent me on my first design challenge when he decided that he NEEDED a stuffed rainbow trout that he'd seen at the hatchery.  A very expensive stuffed rainbow trout I might add.  So I told him that I would make him one.  Much to my surprise, I did!  He was very happy with it as he feels that he is "rainbow" and the typical world is black and white.

So anyways....through a lot of twists and turns and life events I have been fortunate enough to have published designs and call myself (tentatively) a designer.  So I guess this will be a forum where I can share my designs and my adventures with Autism.  If no one ever visits I think that's ok because I'm very surprised at how writing this down has made me feel.  Kinda happy!