by Kat | Nov 7, 2022 | General, In This Moment
…is all about persistence.
I got a Christmas Cactus last November from Trader Joe’s… it was full of buds then, but not a single one bloomed. Instead over the course of a couple of weeks, they all fell off. I was quite heartsick over it.
But!! I did not give up! Instead I rallied around this despondent Christmas Cactus. I watered it…I made sure it had light and a lovely spot to sit. And yes, I talked to it… a lot! It is a very attentive listener! LOL
And in mid-October I began to give it the tiniest bit of fertilizer… and look at it now! Apparently, my plant was patient as well… patiently waiting for that bit of fertilizer! And it looks like it is going to be a showy November which will hopefully carry over into December as well!
The end of each phylloclade has at least one bud…quite a few have two, and some have THREE!
If ever there was a lesson for me in not giving up, this is it! Sometimes the payoff takes a LONG time… but don’t give up!
That, my friends, is my Sometimes Monday wisdom for all of you.
See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Oct 10, 2022 | General, In This Moment
Brings an adjusted To-do List…
I stumbled across this quote over the weekend and have not stopped thinking about it.
Yes, it absolutely does!
This weekend I really needed to focus on sewing but instead I did lots of procrasti-knitting, procrasti-painting, and procrasti-reading.
So here it is Monday morning and I still have sewing to do. Although I do have the sweetest completed Autumn Gnome, I’d really like to have a pair of completed tunics and a new pair of pants!
So I created a very short and sweet Stop-Doing List… it has one thing on it… stop procrastinating.
Now, I am not sure that putting something on a “stop-doing list” is somehow magic and you just stop doing it. Ha! I know that is not true at all, but I am hoping that by identifying my procrastination tactics… I will curb those moments to a more manageable amount of procrastination!
My To-Do List remains the same!
I hope your Monday is full of good things… and no procrastination!
See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Oct 3, 2022 | General, In This Moment
October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace! — Rainbow Rowell, Attachments
Welcome October!
I have a list of things that I’d like to accomplish this month:
- Autumn-y decorating to carry me through Thanksgiving
- Corduroy Tunic Sewing (I found some Wide Wale Corduroy!)
- Wash and put away my summer-y sweaters
- Start and finish Steve’s second sock!
- Clean out all the garden pots and tuck them away for spring!
I am really focused on getting those things done soon because later this month we will be heading to Presque Isle to spend some time… and I am really looking forward to that as well!
Finally… a huge thanks to Carole for inspiring me today! You are the best!
See you all back here on Wednesday with a New Sweater and a Pita Story!
by Kat | Sep 19, 2022 | General, In This Moment
Is full of random things…
This week I welcome autumn and over the last week or so I have been closely watching the subtle (or not so subtle) changes outside… Sherman and I head out before the sun rises now and this morning was especially dark with only a chorus of crickets to greet us. Rain is in the forecast for us today and it feels decidedly autumnal outside. And honestly, this fills me with such delight… I love autumn and plan on savoring every second of it!
Work has been so stressful for Steve the past couple of weeks and adding to that stress is the “revolving door” of people out with COVID… we sort of joked over dinner last night who would be out this morning. Really, it is not a joke at all… but rather the joke is what extra jobs Steve will have because of the COVID Casualties. And I am really trying to hold off on getting the updated COVID booster until October and pair it with my flu shot…sigh.
I semi-watched bits of the Queen’s funeral this morning and I heard a commentator talking about The Guns of August, which I had read a couple of years ago and the conversation around that book this morning spurred me to put it on hold to read again (apparently, lots of others were likewise inspired to read/reread it!)
My next watercolor class begins Thursday and I have just two lessons from the previous class to review. To begin with, I thought that I could use a “watercolor sketchbook” to review – thus not using actual watercolor paper – but that was not smart because there is nothing like actual watercolor paper. The techniques don’t work the same in the sketchbook as they do on watercolor paper… but lesson learned!
A dozen or so years ago, I bought several “linen big shirts” from Chico’s. I love them… but I am “down” to just two left so I am debating on taking one apart to draft a pattern from it… or look for something similar. I am not sure how I might draft the pattern without taking a shirt apart, but maybe there is a way? If any of you have any experience in this… please do share!
And with that, I am off to work on my list! Happy Monday!
by Kat | Aug 15, 2022 | General, In The Kitchen
is for emptying out my brain…
Occasionally I have so much clutter just rattling around my head, I just need to dump it all out. Clean the slate, as it were. This is one of those Mondays!
I am wondering how there can be so many mosquitoes outside right now. It has been 90-gagillion degrees out for a long-ass-time, we have had scant to no rain (and the only standing water in my yard is in the bird bath and the bee bath… both of which get clean water every day.) And still… I have what feels like 12 billion mosquito bites on my ankles, arms, legs, feet… yep, every place that is not covered… is covered with bites. My itch factor is off the charts right now…
Toe Up Socks are great….until you get to that dreaded point of binding it off at the cuff. I have several stretchy bind offs in my repertoire but none of them have been perfect for this bind off. They all are flaring out at the top… ruffling a bit too much for my liking. I have ripped out three bind offs thus far and put the sock in Time Out for a bit. While said sock has been in Time Out, I have done some research on more stretchy bind offs (there are so many!) and I might have found one that might work! I have to rip this last bind off out… but then I am going to try the suspended bind off and see if that works in the round… it worked flat…but that does not always translate to binding off in the round. Send me some good binding off thoughts, please! I need to move beyond the bind off and finish Sock One!
Painting Class Three is in the books and my home work has been turned in. Gentle Readers, let me tell you, the struggle with this lesson was real. My result was not my plan…by a long shot. And so I spent the weekend practicing some of the techniques that I wanted to be different that my execution of them. Can I just say that I have yet to find my brush “sweet spot” I have a variety of brushes and have spent some $$ on them… and I am just really struggling with all.of.them. I know that this is mostly operator error… and I am trying to be gentle with myself, but by Sunday I was just so darned frustrated.
To escape all the painting frustration, I queued up the latest bits from The Summer Pause… and realized that knitting is my fishing. And so I left the painting and eased into my knitting and lost myself in the Stream of Knitting Timelessness and got the fronts completed on my Marled Sweater and, per the pattern instructions, got said sweater got washed and blocked. Shoulder seaming is on my agenda today so I can depart for Sleeve Island! Thanks to Kay for sharing this smart shoulder bind off (I will be doing a bit of practice on a swatch before I do the shoulders!)
And lest you think it was all painting and knitting… nope! I also had huge success with Peter Reinhart’s Focaccia – this is close to the recipe I used… if you are interested in trying, let me know and I will send you the percentages, times, etc. I started the dough Thursday and baked on Friday afternoon. It is a bit fiddly on the Day of Baking… but that fiddly-ness resulted in a gorgeous focaccia. Crisp crust and such tender, open, airy crumb. It was a huge success and I will be making more focaccia in the future!
And with all that… my brain has been nicely decluttered. I am savoring the quiet of the morning… and I have my usual Monday Routine beckoning me. I hope your Monday brings you a clean slate and a week full of promise!
See you all back here on Wednesday!
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