Museum of Me, The Music Edition | July 2023

Museum of Me, The Music Edition | July 2023

Welcome to this month’s exhibit which has been a bit hastily put together… I forgot that a new exhibit was due!

This month suggested exhibit: Put together a soundtrack for a day in your life. What songs do you choose and why? 

What songs and why… well, I think the songs sort of explain themselves. But the why… well a perfect day is not every day. So the music I selected is for that perfect day.

I cannot start the day without coffee… really. And my favorite “coffee” song is Java Jive by The Manhattan Transfer!

Once that coffee is made and Sherman has been walked… I savor the quiet. Cue Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence (I know, I know… this song is about much more than silence… but it still works!)

In my perfect day, I would have uninterrupted knitting time… and who knew there was a knitting song?! Thanks Bill Eddie for The Knitting Song!

As the day winds down, that magical hour arrives… you know it… the Happiest Hour! LOL UB40’s Red Red Wine works for most days!

The perfect day is one where I don’t have to answer the dreaded question… what’s for dinner. I so appreciate a night of “to go” delivered! We don’t do this often so when it happens it is a real treat! Manhattan Transfer’s Soul Food To Go…

I know I said the perfect day… but really… most nights Bruce Springsteen’s 57 Channels (and nothin’ on) is reality.

Finally… the perfect night means one with no insomnia… Bing Crosby’s Count Your Blessings from White Christmas has some great advice.


I hope you all found this musical interlude into my day as fun as I did! See you all back here next week!

Unraveled Wednesday | 7.12.23

Unraveled Wednesday | 7.12.23

Greetings Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!

My road of making this week has been a bit rocky.

I am in a bit of a “holding pattern” on my second summer skirt (darn and blast it… I am not going to have enough yarn so I ordered more yesterday) Sigh.

So I had no choice but to finish off that bit of spinning… which I did! Hello dear Hitch on the Move! I cast on yesterday… it’s early days but so far, so very good!

And… Thea Coleman dropped an enticing pattern this week. I have added “knit a swatch” to this week’s list!

The reading is much less rocky (although I did bail on a book that was just not for me) but aside from that book the reading has been wonderful.

I am reading A Year of Marvelous Ways in the morning with my coffee and I am about halfway through. It is delightful… but I am not enjoying it thus far as I have previous Winman books!

In my ears is an advance “listener” copy of Mick Herron’s latest – The Secret Hours. I am about halfway in and loving it. The narration (Gerard Doyle) is excellent! (and the story is not bad either!)

And I just began another advance reader copy of Naomi Alderman’s latest – The Future. I enjoyed The Power and, thus far, this is better… more twisted… and after getting started (it is a bit of a slow start) I am having a hard time putting it down to go to sleep!

So… my rough week of making is being moderated by my good reading! Ha!

What about you all, is it smooth making for you this week (I hope!!)

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


Currently | July 2023

Currently | July 2023

A new quarter… a new currently list. I love these post to look back on and see what I was doing 3 months ago but I hope you find something interesting or something inspiring in them too!

Soaking In —

Rainer Maria Rilke… I am so in love with him. I have been reading (again) through two of his books – Letters to a Young Poet and Rilke’s Book of Hours. The pages are becoming more dog-eared and I have underlined so many passages in each. And yet, if I turn back to pages I had read before… I still find something new, something moving, something inspiring. Recently, two things keep jumping out at me… surrender

“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

and live

“…the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Surrender to the day and just live it fully! That is my new morning mantra. Good direction for my day and so I will joyfully continue soaking in some Rilke wisdom and see what else he has to show me!

Savoring —

The final episodes of Endeavor. It has been such a great series and I am sad to see it end, but I will be savoring each episode… and then I think I will queue up some vintage Inspector Morse to complete the circle. In the things I did not know category… I had no idea that John Thaw’s daughter had a part in the Endeavor series. She played the delightful Dorothea Frazil. I shall miss them all terribly! And if you have finished them… no clues please. Ha!

Appreciating —

While I am very much wishing that former me had spent more time thinking about what I would do with my Year of Stitching. And while I very much like each month, I have been stymied about the “final product” for them. I have toyed with a multitude of ideas on how to display them but they are each so big… I don’t have the wall-space to hang them! And so the conundrum of what to do with them continued….until I got some incredible inspiration from a much wiser maker about putting them together in a book. And that inspiration has me very excited. I have begun the process of pulling out fabrics to begin my “page” construction. I think there will be a bit more stitching as I pull each month together. I have some foolish idea that this won’t take all that long once I get everything cut… but my wiser inner voice is telling me that this won’t be a July Finish, but if I stay focused it will be the thing that gets me through the Heat of Summer!

And there you have my current situation. Of course, there are many other things going on… but these things are things I want to remember when I look back on my year. I will see you all back here Wednesday!

Unraveled Wednesday | 7.5.23

Unraveled Wednesday | 7.5.23

Greetings Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!

**Sorry about this, but I have no clue what happened to my published post, but it is MIA… if you are getting a second notification, that is why.**

July brings the beginning of the third quarter… and, more importantly, it means that I have done half a year of Temperature Stitching! To say I love it is an understatement… it brings me the greatest delight and I thing this will be stunning once completed and hanging on my wall! I love how I have moved into The Season of Yellows and Reds… and while I don’t love the 90’s (which are burgundy/purples) hopefully there won’t be any icy blues and chilly greens back until November! Ha!

Something else has been rattling around my head ever since Bonny shared it on her blog! Yes… Hitch on the Move has been consuming my thoughts and so I began to look to see what I might have in my stash to get it started! Imagine when I found a delightful skein that pairs beautifully with some Polwarth from Wee Chickadee that I was lucky to get from one of Cara’s destashes. I have been joyously spinning it up and have about a bobbin and a half full!

And speaking of spinning… I was divinely inspired with some Targhee in the Freshwater Pearls colorway (divinely… see what I did there, those sisters have some inspired fibers!) and I love how it turned out. It is a 3-ply fingering weight with excellent yardage (sorry, I have not weighed it yet to know.) I have no plans for it yet… I am just happy to squeeze it every so often… it is so squishy and soft!

I also am plodding along on my second Shakerag Skirt, sigh. This won’t be a 15 Day Knit but I am through the lace portion and am so close to being done with the optional necessary backside short rows! Then I will shortly begin the decreases and the mindless round and round. My hope is to have a second skirt to sashay around in this month though! So on I knit!

The reading has been good. I am back in Bath with Sully… and although I miss some characters (Miss Beryl for one!) the shenanigan’s are plenty! I am laughing and loving every bit of it. I am trying hard to slow down but it is a challenge! Ha!

I am also listening to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida which is for the Read With Us gang. I am about half way though and the writing is so good (the narration is also so perfect!)

I had two finishes… I enjoyed them but I did not love either of them (Happiness Falls and Under the Whispering Door) but 3-star books are not bad reads (I had originally given Happiness Falls 4-stars but after thinking about it for a few days, for me it was not more than a 3-star read.) The problem is I have read much better books last month that might be coloring my opinion. Book Hangover is a thing and Sully is just the thing to clear my head! Ha!

Whew… this was a wordy post… sorry about that! What about you all… what is “consuming you” this week?!

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


Welcome July | 2023

Welcome July | 2023

I drifted into a summer-nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicada lullaby, to drowsy-warm dreams of distant thunder. ― Terri Guillemets

Oh July… you begin the challenges of my year… you and August are my least favorite months. Your heat and humidity are not my jam. So I am going to take with me some of the joy I found in my week of #NOMO (Necessity of Missing Out) and bring more of that to you, July!

Things that will be part of July… Unraveled Wednesday… because I like the mid-week check in with all of you… but I am not committing to more posts than that… and that feels very good… a bit of a July nap or two!

  • I have some painting I want to dabble in.
  • I have that skirt to knit! I am almost done with the lace, but this second knit is going at a much slower pace that the first one!
  • I have some spinning I want to do. I am not Tour de Fleecing, but rather spinning for the pure enjoyment of it!
  • Finally, a bit of mapping out of some sewing I want to do! I have been toying for eons with ideas for my Year of Stitching samplers… and I have finally figured out what they need. Stay tuned, I hope to get them well under way this month!

It is a good list… and it leaves me lots of room for the joy of #NOMO!

So welcome to a quieter July! See you all back here on Wednesday!

Authentic…coasting | June 2023

Authentic…coasting | June 2023

A month of coasting… that was June with my word.

But I don’t think that is a bad thing. This month, I read a book that I have not stopped thinking about since I finished it. I am thinking about it when I wake, I am thinking about it as I go through my day, and I am thinking about it as the day draws to a close. The book… Jenny Odell’s How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. As I said in my review, it really is not about doing nothing… at all.

Two quotes from Jenny Odell have stayed with me since I read them. They are quotes that pack a huge punch and they are the things I have been thinking about:

Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.

and

When overstimulation has become a fact of life, I suggest that we reimagine #FOMO as #NOMO, the necessity of missing out, or if that bothers you, #NOSMO, the necessity of sometimes missing out.

For me… a person seeing an authentic path where I can be authentic to myself these quotes stopped me in my tracks. To me they are very much tied together… you cannot have one without the other.

Great reminders to me that maintenance and care are as important as seeking that “next new thing.” And for myself… that reminder moved several things off my list entirely… and that felt like a huge weight lifted from me which leads me to the Ali Edwards prompt for this month. It encouraged us to collect our thoughts around an “In Progress” list of questions. I did some thinking about where I feel like I am with being authentic thus far this year and two words just jumped off the page for me:

eye-opening and freeing

and that very much brings me back to those brilliant quotes from my new bestie, Jenny Odell. It is a very good place to be.

I would like to thank Carolyn for gathering us all together… even on the coasting days with our word!

(and in this vein of doing some maintenance and self care, I am taking a bit of a #NOMO break from blogging but I will be back soon!)

 

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