life – Yards of Happiness

For the Love of Knitting

In the last week, just 7 days, I’ve gained over 2,000 new followers on Instagram. My blog views have quadrupled. The amounts of messages on Ravelry, blog comments and social media messages and comments is kind of insane. And to be completely honest, it’s overwhelming.

Untitled — Doing what we do best, matching.

I know it won’t stop, another popular pattern designer posted about me this morning and I was interviewed by Ravelry so that will appear today as well. I teach my students and consult with others/businesses about social media, how to build followings, get engagement – it’s what I teach people how to do but that isn’t what Yards of Happiness is about.

I write this blog to share something I really love, knitting. I’ve met so many great people via this blog and social media who share my joy and it has been so fulfilling and I know my life is better because of this space. But it’s just me managing all of this in addition to living my life (and knitting), so if I don’t answer every comment or email or message, know that I read them but get overwhelmed by the volume right now. Know that I hear you, I see you and I appreciate you. And hopefully I can get back to sharing my knitting next week, I’ve got lots of fun finished objects to share!

Mood

I saw a graphic yesterday that said for 72% of September we’ve had grey skies. It has been rainy and gross out the entire month.
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I’m knitting and plugging along, grading assignments and snuggling dogs. My husband is almost back from a stretch of travel and my mood this week has been a little blah. So here’s hoping for some rainbows after all the cloudy skies we’ve had, I need the pick me up!

September 26, 2018September 26, 2018 by IamDWJ Categories: Home, Jellybean, Knitting, My DogsTags: #yardsofhappiness, dogs, life, rain, rainbows 5 Comments

New Chapters

If you’ve been a long time reader of the blog you know I’ve had lots of goals outside of knitting in my life. I’ve dropped small hints here and there but never really said everything out loud because I just didn’t want to jinx it. But there’s a change coming! And no, I’m not having a baby.
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I said last year 2018 was going to be my year of change. I cut off all my hair, I’m turning 40 next month and I’ve made some personal changes in my life and this week I’m making big professional changes. Today I gave my two weeks to the job I’ve worked for the last seven and a half years. These last 7 months have been stressful and on top of that I was holding on to the secret of having a new job waiting for me in the fall. I’m taking my teaching full time and next year I plan to start my PhD program.

It’s exciting and only mildly scary to make a big career shift. But I know it’s a shift in the right direction. I’ll have more time to work on some projects and things I’ve wanted to pursue for years but never had the chance to because work was exhausting. Oh and I’ll definitely have more time to knit. But really this is about doing what I’m passionate about. I love being in the classroom, I love teaching. And for a really long time I’ve felt like being in a classroom is where I belong and my Department Chair agreed with me and helped me make this a reality. This has been a long work in progress for me to make all of this happen and now that it’s happening I couldn’t be more excited about what my future holds.

July 20, 2018 by IamDWJ Categories: Things That Bring Me JoyTags: #yardsofhappiness, life 43 Comments