I hate March. No offense to everyone born in March, but your month is the worst. It is theoretically part of Spring, so it carries that promise, but it's still winter. It's totally still winter.

The first half of this month was tough for me. Three things happened at once: My mom left after a really wonderful visit, Lent started and we gave up sugar, and Russia invaded Ukraine. My mental health went into the crapper for a couple of weeks there. Our skidoo is still busted, so we didn't get out to the cabin, and March break with the kids was a disappointment. And, for most of the month, it was still Really Cold.

It felt like I wasn't even making stuff, because I took a break from spinning. But that's why these round-up posts are important - I did more than I thought. My brain needed a break from being super goal-oriented, sure. So I did little love-projects that filled the time. What's more, my brain was still working in the background, working out my priorities, planning for the things I really care about.

Spinning

I finished these two super fun sock yarns from Superwash BFL.

And I had enough leftovers from recent sock spins saved up that I did my first combo spin, late in the month. They will get their own post next.

My Breed and Color Studies fiber arrived.

It arrived last week, and I have given it the place of honor on my dresser. (I even cleaned my dresser off first!) I just stared at it for several days, but now I've spun a couple of samples off the batts, and I think I know where I'm going to go with it. More on that later.

Knitting

For the kids' birthdays, on impulse I bought some cheap yarn to wrap up and give them, and then I would knit them whatever they wanted out of an Usborne kids knitting book that they love (but not enough to knit themselves). Stringbean got some blue and white cotton, and the project she picked was a pair of little heart pillows. So I knit those up for her.

A friend commissioned me to make a hat for her mom similar to one I'd made for her. Coincidentally, her mom had picked the same cotton yarn as what I bought for Stringbean. Because the gauge and stitch count were different, I decided to just improvise the cables. I wanted something organic-looking. That process was lots of fun.

I made some great progress on the next stage of my Secret Project.

(Imagine a picture here. It has grey and red and purple in it.)

Cake

Another friend had a birthday in March, and her family also got hit with COVID, so we couldn't celebrate how we wanted to. But I still made her a cake - black forest, her favorite. I had never made this kind of cake before. Frosting with whipped cream was fast and fun! I will be doing this again, I think. And I did ganache properly for the first time. The drizzly drippies!

April is Super Birthday Season in our household, so I got an early start.

I made this Minion birthday cake for MiniMighty. A blizzard delayed her party to April, so I popped this in the freezer, and it was fine a week later. Banana-flavored. Yum!

Sewing

I did a tiny bit of sewing on Dooner's quilt; my goal of finishing that for her birthday is looking less and less likely. That's OK; I don't know that she's really ready for a quilt anyway. I did, however, manage to finish the huge batch of masks I started before Christmas. They're all a little loose, so I need to tie knots or something in the elastics. They're very cute though, made from my favorite fabrics from all my quilts of the last year and a half. And they're mostly for me.

No weaving, no housework to speak of. But lots of progress on a heart-project that has been growing steadily all year, which is to start a discipleship program for kids and families. It was kinda stalled for a while, but it took a big leap forward last week, which gave a final boost out of my funk.

I didn't realize it, but some of my funk was also about purpose. There was some re-prioritizing I needed to do, and realize I needed to do it until I had done it. I'm in a transitional life-stage; my kids are edging out of the phase where they constantly need me. My youngest is going to be in pre-school in the fall! But that doesn't mean I can suddenly do all the things. It means there are a few Important Things, integrated calling goals that have been marinating for a LONG time and are finally starting to go somewhere, and I want to structure other things around those. Figuring out more and more how that is going to happen is really exciting.

So, March was not fun, but it did what it needed to do. I'm feeling excited now. The light is back, it's actually kind of warm, and I'm ready to roll into Birthday Month. I hope spring is springing, whatever it looks like where you live!