by Kat | Jun 7, 2019 | General, In This Moment
Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June. – Al Bernstein
June days are simply magical. The light gently wakes me, inviting me to greet the new day. The birds fill the air with their melodies and the low buzzing of the bees join to make the loveliest of harmonies. The lavender is full of velvety purple wands that dance in the breeze. The morning in the garden is my favorite time of the day. And, this morning I was greeted by the first Stella d’Oro daylily – a bittersweet sight because it means the deer will soon be here to snack on the blooms. But that first bloom was a glorious to see!
Triumphing!
Yesterday afternoon I finished the last sleeve of my Marsa Alam and this morning it is enjoying a Spa Treatment and will soon be laying out to dry. Pearl buttons will be sewn on this weekend (thank you all for your input!) Pre-blocking this is perhaps the best fitting sweater I have ever knit! The sleeve/shoulder fit is incredible – and can I just gush about Holst Coast yarn a minute? It might be my favorite yarn ever! The stitches are beautifully even, the ribbing looks nice, the hand of the sweater is incredibly inviting, and it is next-to-skin-soft. And, lets talk about value – I purchased a 500 g/3800 yd cone for about $24. Shipping from Denmark is not bad, and it only added about $10 to the cost of the yarn – and you get the most wonderful updates from Holst and PostNord. (Also, PostNord got the yarn to the USA in less than 24 hours, but it took the USPS more than a week to deliver it to my door…) My Marsa Alam used 324g of yarn – so yes, I have more than enough left-over yarn to use to make a Screen Door, which I cast on last night and flew through 8 repeats of the easy to memorize pattern! Knitting wins are such a good feeling!
Getting Ready!
I have a stack of fabrics that have been patiently waiting for me to begin cutting and assembling them into this quilt. Why that quilt? Genevieve is turning 4 next month and my plan is to make that for her birthday! With my new sewing set up, I think that I can manage to do the machine quilting myself. And while I love the overall stippling effect on the linked quilt, I think that will be a bit beyond my very-beginner abilities. However, I think that concentric circles might be lovely… sort of like the stitching I did for this piece:
Inspired by…
Something I saw on Pinterest last night, which made me go to see the original post on IG. Oh.my.gosh. I have the tamrack pattern – I picked it up in Grainline’s pattern sale earlier this year but had not been inspired to make one, thinking it would be a good fall project. And then I saw the magic that cjoy2 did with her tamrack (also her artwork…) WOW!! It is not bulky, I love the length, and it is incredibly creative – yet simple! She hand-stitched around the butterflies in the most wonderful way! And, her binding around the edges… it is brilliant!
Flattened!
I absolutely LOVE the MBR’s Rose Pants. They are wonderfully easy to make and to wear. I want to make a pair from a light denim – but denim and pleats or gathers seemed, well – bulky in an area I don’t need any extra bulk! So I had been wondering how hard it would be to remove the pleats/gathers from the front… well, wonder no more thanks to this post, which led me to this post. I have enough fabric to make a muslin trial run pair of shorts with a flattened front! Wish me luck!
And, that is all I have to share with you all for this first Friday in June! I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will see you back here on Monday!
by Kat | May 24, 2019 | General, In This Moment
The weather forecast seems to be attempting to put the kibosh on a glorious welcome to summer:
But I am not going to let the weather stop me from having a good weekend!
In the plus column – I did indeed get my Charity Shawl completed and blocked! Which means I can ease back into my regularly scheduled knitting – which includes my Marsa Alam and a pair of toe-up socks! I have never knit a pair of socks toe-up so this is an entirely new experience for me. I am not sure how I feel about the process compared to my usual sock knitting method, but I will have a better idea once I have gotten to the heel. I am also a bit concerned about the cast off, but hopefully my typical stretchy bind-off will not fail me!
Thinking about:
Sewing! I finished my Rose muslin yesterday. I had made some alterations to the pattern – I shortened the length and I knew I would need to shorten the rise but I was unsure exactly how much to shorten it. And even though I did not quite shorten it enough, it is still a wearable muslin! I used some fabric I got at IKEA a couple of years ago. My original plan was to sew a cushion for the window seat at the top of our stairs, but that never happened and so I thought it would work well for a muslin and it did! The pattern directions are well written and very clear. I tried the pleat option and it was surprisingly easy! I think the gathered front looks nice as well so I will get some fabric this weekend to make another pair. I think these would work with fun prints, linen, and even a lightweight denim! AND!! They are super comfortable and I predict these will be the Pants of the Summer!
Gearing up for:
The start of Summer Book Bingo! That’s right – any book finishes beginning tomorrow can count for a square! I am ON the “Made into a TV series” square with the first book of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series – A Great Deliverance. I have high hopes for this book as the reviews on Goodreads are stellar! I started it Wednesday night and should easily have it finished this weekend! It is not to late for you to join in as well! Book Bingo makes summer so much more fun!
Inspired by:
PatternScout! I love this idea of remaking things and giving them a new life. Also, I really love her pattern suggestions – especially the Burda Knot Front Blouse! And, I truly love her “Monologue” especially this: “This hobby has given me so much confidence…creatively and about my body.” YES, so much yes!!
Fun, fun, fun:
I am going to harvest some rhubarb today and have plans to make a batch of Rhubarb-Thyme Syrup. This will come in handy as an addition to some beginning-of-summer-inspired cocktails this weekend – I am thinking about something new with gin. Stay tuned – I will share the recipe next week!
That’s all I have for this week – have an amazing Memorial Day Weekend and I will see you all back here next week!
by Kat | Apr 1, 2019 | General, In This Moment
The weekend was full of all kinds of selfish pursuits! There was sewing and reading (and not one stitch of knitting! What??? Really, not one single stitch!)
Perhaps the best thing was this lovely little dress for Genevieve!
But, today these words are filling my mind, the absolute truth of them echoing in my head!
“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And, you’re two months back in the middle of March.”
– Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1926
So, silently I welcome April – hoping to not encourage the clouds and wind to blow us back into March!
by Kat | Mar 22, 2019 | General, In This Moment
This has been a very mixed bag week, but it is finally Friday, so I am setting the week aside and making room for the weekend!
Tracking my brackets!
This might be my best start of any bracket I have done in years! And, believe me there have been years that my bracket was blown on Day One, but this year I only missed two picks on the first day! And, there were some crazy good games yesterday!! You would think with all this basketball, I’d have some knitting to show for it… think again, lol.
Good plans, bad timing??
So, my plans for knitting yesterday somehow went by the wayside. There was a trip to Costco and then during dinner a conversation started about possibly moving the bedroom furniture around… which then morphed into moving the bedroom furniture around after dinner. Yes, we have completely and totally lost our minds. We managed to get things moved enough to go to bed – but it was not pretty. You know what I am doing today… more bedroom furniture moving!!
Inspired to Sew…
A few Bunny Bags to fill with treats for the kids and Genevieve! These were courtesy of the Bernina We All Sew Newsletter yesterday – and so timely. I would love to join Kym with her latest knitting obsession, but I think the sewing of bunnies might be easier (and quicker) than knitting an army of bunnies!
I also stumbled upon a new-to-me magazine yesterday which has FREE PATTERNS available on their website!
Fotograph Friday!
And, finally – I am joining kmkat again this week with a photograph from one year ago! Yes – we had a doozy of a snow storm and damned if we don’t have snow and gale-freaking-force winds in the forecast today. Spring!! I am looking at you! I am a wee bit concerned about my lilacs!!
That’s all I have for this week! Have a great weekend everyone!
by Kat | Mar 8, 2019 | General, In This Moment
Happy Friday all – and yes, Happy indeed. It was a full week and Steve has an off site meeting this morning and then he is off for the remainder of the day – so a day off, without having to take a day off! That is a nice bonus! My plans for the day include heading off to the outlet for some new Nike’s® for walking.
Thinking about:
The glaring inequities of our justice system. Really. If ever you needed a clearer cut example, we had one last night. Judge Ellis (i.e. old white guy) gave poor Manafort (i.e. old white criminal), who “has lived an otherwise blameless life,” 47 months in prison. Yes, just 47 months with credit for time served, which means he will be out before Cohen will be! I am not sure how “otherwise blameless” Mr. Manafort was, because he admitted guilt to all the crimes he was charged with. But you know… he is a white male. If he had been a black male, his sentence would have been longer. AND… if he had been a POC who had an ounce of marijuana in their possession, he would have gotten the maximum sentencing allowed. The woman who mistakenly voted when she shouldn’t have got more time than Manafort. And, yes – she was a person of color.
Yes, this has made me more than a little angry. I am holding out hope that Manafort’s sentencing in DC next week will be much different – and run concurrently with his 47-month sentence.
Good riddance to:
The blending in process of coloring my hair to growing it out naturally! Yes – yesterday was my last day of foils! The grey’s they are increasing – and I have some really interesting streaks of grey. If I knew how hard it would be to get rid of the red from all those years of coloring, I might have done things differently. But I have finally achieved what I have been working towards for the last couple of years. I am so happy. Steve, on the other hand, is taking longer to come around to this au natural haired version of me. However, he sure didn’t like the amount of $$ having that hair cost – so I am confident he will eventually warm to the idea. And, if not – I have just given him something new to complain about, lol.
Inspired by:
My sewing this week! Yes – I have a nice stack of blocks and have rediscovered that the process of cutting out all the pieces and then seaming them together a wonderful activity! I am enjoying it so much that I began to look at the project, particularly the size of the project – and where would I put this quilt?! So… I did some math and some more cutting and got a little more fabric and the result will be a new summer quilt for our bed! And, yes – I think it is entirely appropriate to sleep under snowflakes in the summer.
All this work has taken me down a memory lane I have not walked on in a very long time. A million years ago, I was part of a very active quilting group. Okay, maybe not quite that long – but we are talking pre-children time here, so almost! Anyways, there were 10 of us and we met weekly. We made one quilt together a year – entirely by hand. Hand seaming, hand applique, hand quilting – which was really the best part. The 10 of us sitting around the quilting frame talking, laughing, planning, and sharing. Those were the best times ever and I learned so much! I am thinking about how best to incorporate that back into my life.
Fun, fun, fun!
It’s FriYAY and that means Happy Hour™ and tonight we are doing something different! Happy Hour Movie, FTW! I am not sure what we will watch, but I am really looking forward to it!
That is all I have for this week! Have a great Friday and an even better weekend! See you all back here next week!
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