by Kat | Jan 5, 2026 | General, Welcome
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been. — Rainer Maria Rilke
I really am feeling like I need to set a few intentions for this month and year because I fear if I don’t the Great Wallowing in Aimless Days will consume me. I am really struggling to find a focus each day, I am not sleeping well… which might be contributing. But neither waking hours nor sleep seem to be good companions of late… so what’s a person to do in all this but to set some intentions with the hopes of redirecting myself a bit.
In 2025 I did not spend any time at all spinning and as I began to review the year in the last weeks of December, I thought about “what was missing” in my 2025 days… and spinning jumped right out at me. I have been thinking about spinning quite a bit since Full On Sweater Weather arrived… I have had a “sweater spin” that has been knocking about in my head, and it became a bit louder since I have been wearing this sweater. The spinning of the yarn for that sweater did not happen overnight and it certainly won’t happen at all for a new sweater if I don’t make a plan to do some spinning. So yes, spinning will be A Thing in 2026. I think the added bonus will be the very meditative quality that spinning provides will be a boon to my mental health.
I finished my 2025 Year of Stitching on NYE, but I have yet to sit down and begin my 2026 stitching project. I had intentions of getting it all prepped in December but that did not happen. I have added it to my list this week… perhaps the thrill of “checking it off” will be just the inspiration I need. As for last year’s stitching… it needs a bit of a wash and some gentle pressing before I can completely finish it. But I am excited to get it finished although my idea for how to use it has changed dramatically, I want to get it finished and tucked safely away.
Over the course of December roughly a half a dozen pairs of socks sprung holes with several more wearing very thin… so I am declaring 2026 Operation Sock Drawer Replenishment. I began a pair in late December and am moving down the leg of sock two. My plan for the year is to just keep going on socks… at least until the Sock Drawer reaches the correct volume of socks.
I had spent a good bit of last year thinking that 2026 would be the last year I focus on a “Word of the Year” and I thought it would be a good finish to circle back to the word I began this journey with – joy. I really did not understand or know what spending a year contemplating a word could mean and, as the year began and unfolded, I felt like joy and I could spend a good bit of time together… but then in August a new Emergence volume appeared and, while I ordered the new volume and companion book, I did not veer from my plans for A Year of Joy. But then as November brought life to a crashing halt… I realized that I could not stomach spending a year finding joy at all. So this year, it feels exactly right to contemplate Seasons as my word. I feel like this will be the exact journey I need to begin in this moment.
Finally, this whole blogging thing has really been a struggle for me recently because most days I do not feel very cheerful or upbeat right now. I have started a few blog posts that never went beyond the starting points. Forced cheerfulness is not an easy place to write from. The only posts I feel up to writing currently are the Unraveled Wednesday posts. Those will continue in the exact format they are currently… there will be a post every Wednesday with a link up for all those who want to participate. The community of making and reading bloggers is one I am so grateful for… I cannot promise that every Wednesday I will be cheerful and upbeat… but there will be socks, and stitching, and some spinning, and of course… reading. That being said, I don’t know if I will be posting anything at all beyond the Wednesday posts, although my thoughts are that I will share an update of how Seasons and I are getting along sometime near the end of January.
Whew, for not thinking I had anything to say… this sure got wordy and fast! If you are still here… thank you. I wish you all the Happiest of New Year’s and a healthy January.
I will see you all back here on Wednesday!
Header photo by Pixabay
by Kat | Aug 4, 2025 | General, Welcome
If one could “order up” a weekend, it would have been like the weekend we just had! Not a lick of humidity in the air so I opened the windows and let August in!
Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August. — Denise Levertov
August is the month of slow start mornings… right now the sun is not rising here until well after 6:00AM (and really closer to 6:30 AM) so the morning feels like it has a reverent, hushed quality to it – even the birds are quiet – and by the end of the month sunrise time will be edging closer to the seven o’clock hour! I love these slow start mornings so much… before the start of school diminishes the current solitude of the morning. Perhaps these slow start mornings are what Ms. Levertov is talking about with her August quote… there was plenty of sweetness to breathe in these first few August days!
This week ushers in a week of not my usual eating… I have some tests next Monday (an endoscopy is the main reason but they are doing my colonoscopy as well) No raw vegetables, no whole grains, no nuts… sigh. The nurse who went over the diet with me seemed excited for my “week of white bread and carb loading”… I wish I shared her enthusiasm…sigh.
August will find me continuing to knit for babies… I have blanket number two underway. Each stitch is filled with love for these new lives soon to be part of our family. I was delighted to see that Julia Farwell-Clay will be welcoming a grand baby this year as well and she has begun knitting her Welcome to the Flock sweater. I think I am going to join her and knit a trio of them for the coming babies… it will be the perfect sentiment to welcome them to the flock of my grandchildren!
I have reworked a few of the “daily stitching guidelines” to make the layout work for the remainder of the year… just 5 months to go. Which sounds so long… and so very short!
July stitching…
But mostly, dear August, my plan is to breathe in deeply of the sweetness of your days!
Happy Monday and Happy August! I will see you all back here tomorrow when I join Vera with a cross-stitch update!
Header photo by Pixabay
by Kat | Jun 2, 2025 | General, Welcome
What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade. — Gertrude Jekyll
This is such a perfect explanation of June… fresh, green, and yes… young. The green of June is not the green of July or August … and it is a good invitation to immerse yourself into it!
When I look back to May (there was no welcome post) and think about how May began… re-entry to a deep refrigerator/freezer clean out thanks to a days long power outage. Being thankful that we just lost so little when so many others lost so much more. And all the May rain (we got nearly six inches of rain in May in the south hills of Pittsburgh!) And cold! Friends, I have not put away my winter coat yet and yes, I am wearing it more than I’d likel! All those cold rainy days made the end of May seem endless but here we are welcoming June… finally! (and dare I even hope for a bit of warmth? I do… but I am sure that will come back to bite me… I need to remind myself of this wish for warmer days when it is 90°F and the AC is running non-stop! Ha!)
But all aside… I am focusing on June and this month, I want to spend as much time as I can immersed in the “fresh young beauty” of June!
I need to find a good rhythm with Pilates… honestly, it is not the first thing on my mind most days and suddenly it is late afternoon and I have yet to even look at my mat! My hope is that this practice will become as special as my daily stitching is…
Happily, hand stitching is certain to remain a focus… I traced June onto my whole cloth and have begun. I also have a delightful plan for my stitched scroll and I am so excited about how this will all play out! And I took the Natalie Chanin class that MDK offered last week… it included a good sized pieces of fabric (stenciled and plain) and her new stitch book. Oh. My. Gosh!
Let me say it again… OH. MY. GOSH!!!!
It was a class with all sorts of lightbulbs going off left and right! The book included with the class, The Geometry of Hand-Sewing, has disbursed the cloud of mystery around some of the more mystifying stitches. Because maths… well, geometry really… and these insanely genius grids and it suddenly all clicked for me. I have rewatched the class recording a number of times and I have been working away on my sample swatch… and when I am not working on it, I am thinking about the next stitches I will try! This might be the best Rabbit Hole of the summer!
And I added one more thing to my list late last week when Krista Tippet shared that she is beginning a summer reflection on Hope, Imagination, and Remaking the World through a series of podcasts with accompanying journal prompts. If you’d like to join me, I would welcome the company!
What about you? What do you hope June holds?
Header photo by Efrem Efre
by Kat | Apr 1, 2025 | General, Welcome
Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
– Bishop Reginald Heber
Hello dear April and welcome!
What a glorious month April is… one that ushers in the return of many things and new beginnings of others! Yes, it is a month where the outdoors beckons with days of milder weather as we transition from the “not much is growing” phase to “everything, everywhere all at once”! And I love it!
This month my “to do” list is entirely empty… as I “vaguely” talked about yesterday… I am having some health issues…specifically stomach issues and I got the phone call from the next doctor’s scheduler (yes, this is the third doctor I am seeing for this!) Yay for getting that call, but I cannot have the test until mid-August. But at least that means that we can go to Erie later this month… I figured that we would have to take a pass on that trip so maybe that is a bit of a silver lining in all this. Of course, my swallowing issue has not improved… sigh.
What I really need to focus on is catching my stitching up at a time when my brain is very unfocused. But, I sat quietly through Suzan Colón’s MedKNITation class on Friday… and while I did not learn anything new, I was reminded of many things as I sat listening to her guide us through some meditation. Her voice is the most calming, soothing voice ever… and for that hour and a half I was able to allow my mind to just focus on her voice. I am going to open the Calm app and listen to some meditations as I catch up my stitching. And once March is done, I will get April traced onto my cloth and get going on it!
The other thing that needs a tiny bit of focus is some errant weeding in my garden beds… which if I do soon, will be over and done with in short order! Then I can schedule a mulch delivery!!
So, dear April, I am hoping you do not race by like March did and that you take your time before giving way to May!
I will be back again tomorrow with some Unraveling!
Header photo by Christina & Peter
by Kat | Mar 3, 2025 | General, Welcome
How terrible a time is the beginning of March. In a month there will be daffodils and the sudden blossoming of orchards, but you wouldn’t know it now. You have to take spring on blind faith. — Beatriz Williams
March certainly roared in like a lion here in the south hills of Pittsburgh… for a time on Saturday it looked like a snow globe outside with the flurry of flakes that filled the skies and quickly covered the ground! Couple those flakes with 30+ MPH winds and bitterly cold temperatures and I was reminded that it is still winter despite the signs of spring that are “popping up” everywhere!
I spent some time Saturday afternoon, while the winds raged outdoors reclaiming some yarn from a sweater that never worked (and no, it was not the big cabled sweater… I thought I’d start “smaller” and see how the unraveling process worked.) It went surprisingly fast… sigh. All that reclaimed yarn – an incredible CVM 2-ply – is having a bit of a bath this morning. I have two stacks of things from my latest “closet clean out” that I plucked the sweater from (the “repurpose” pile”) The other is a “repair” pile that I’d like to get to this month… things like hem repairs, button reattachments, and seam reinforcements.
From a sweater to “fusilli” and now having a good long soak to work out the kinks!
Outside of unraveling sweaters, I really want to spend the month thinking about my living “spaces.” This means cleaning out a drawer or two, but also contemplating new furniture arrangements! And maybe a new rug for the living room!
Oh… and that refrigerator clean out from last month? Yeah that did not happen… so maybe I will get to it this month!
What about you? What do you hope March holds?
Header photo by Bich Tran
