I confess, I laughed at the comments about “making jam in this heat” from Monday’s post. So, true confession time…. I do not go to a Raspberry Farm and pick buckets of berries. I head to my back yard and pick berries from 6-ish plants. I am lucky if I get a cup of berries a day. This translates to “uber small batch jam making” and I am going to let you all in on a HUGE secret…I use the easiest raspberry jam recipe on earth. No standing at the stove cooking berries, no pectin (yes, really… no pectin at all), and no water bath steaming up the house. And, before 8 AM, I my day of “jam making” is done. The jam has been transferred to jars and waiting to head to the freezer. It will keep beautifully for a year (maybe longer, but it honestly does not last that long around here!)

Other making this week included a seersucker, pocketless Uniform Tunic and an Esme Tunic! (Today’s sewing will include another uniform top!) One might think that remaking the same few things over and over and over again gets boring but, in reality, it is quite the opposite! I find that I must think less about the “how” and can think more about the subtle changes! This time the Esme pockets have merged into the side seam completely and I love this little change! It gives the pocket and the garment a little more structure if you are going to use the pockets! Also, the Grainline Studio sleeve hack worked well on this Esme Tunic! In the Uniform Tunic as I began to work with the very lightweight seersucker fabric, I realized that pockets would not work at all and would add weight to the top and change the drape of the fabric. So… no pockets. If I had never made either of these patterns before I don’t think I would have felt okay with making these changes! I will try and get pictures to share on Friday.

My Romi-is-a-freaking-genius sweater has departed the “puzzle stage” and has suddenly morphed into a sweater! It still does not look like much, but I hope to have something to show you on Friday as well!

AND!! I started the heel on my Non-Eucludian socks! Waahoo!

Now, how about some reading awesomeness?!?

My Cover All is Complete!

I finished strong with War and Peace and Purple Hibiscus!

I loved War and Peace. It was so good. The thing that struck me most profoundly was the dichotomy between the lives of those serving in the war and those not serving in the war. Life and Death versus Life of Frivolity – on steroids! Also, I had no clue that Freemasonry was a thing in Russia. There was not one moment in all the 60+ hours of listening that I was bored or wanted to listen to something else – it was truly a pleasure to be immersed in this book! If you want to up your classic game this fall, I highly recommend this one!

Purple Hibiscus filled the “book I own” square and as such I read it slowly. It is a beautiful written story – I dearly loved Kambili. It is a story of growing up, family, and freedom. I highly recommend!

I also listened to Ruth Reichl read Save Me the Plums… so so good. Ruth is a brilliant memoir writer and I devoured this book about her time at Gourmet magazine. I highly recommend listening to Ruth tell you her story!

Finally, I also devoured The Nickel Boys and loved it! Colson Whitehead is a brilliant writer and this story gripped me from the first sentence to the last. Colson again shows me how little I know… truly how pitifully little I know. If you have not read this book – you should! And, to make that easier – if you leave me a comment today saying that you’d like to read The Nickel Boys – I will “pay it forward” as Juliann sent me her copy so I could read sooner than the library waitlist. I will pick a name next Monday and get the book off in the mail to you!

And, there you have my unraveling, but I want to know… what are you excited about today?

As always, if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below and thank you!


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