Hello, dear friends! I'm so sorry I've been absent here for so long! Summer has been so wonderfully busy and full of joy. We have been doing lots of things and also lots of nothing, and it has been just perfect. Pool days, fair days, lazy days, work days. Many afternoons at our favorite Thai restaurants playing Uno and eating pad Thai. Many afternoons riding bikes up the road and getting hotdogs, playing videos games, going to movies, getting boba tea. Days at the pool, nights jumping on our neighbor's trampoline. Campouts with air mattresses on the living room floor, playing video games, having Zoom chats with Uncle Mike, watching more movies. I have been working a lot in my office, developing a new collection of cross-stitch kits for beginners and children along with a few other things. I have not been cooking or working on my cookbook, at all, but I am truly hoping to get back to it as soon as the weather cools down and school starts (it's just too hot to cook like I was, and I've been spending all my time on these new kits and patterns). We haven't been doing anything particularly special, but somehow it's all felt special. I can't believe school starts in a week. For the first time ever, I am not ready for it. None of us seem to be. Summer rules. This summer, the summer of perfect weather here, although my heart is absolutely breaking for Maui, and Yellowknife (I am a big fan of the show Ice Lake Rebels), and other places in Oregon and Washington that are suffering with wildfires. The sky is smoky here today for the first time all summer, and we have a fluorescent red sun setting in a hazy sky. Many of you are looking or have looked at that same kind of sun this summer, I know.
What have you all been up to? Andy is making a quilt for Amelia (after he finishes the one he is making for himself, which will probably be next week when his batting gets here — the man made an entire quilt top in about three days!). I started a new knitting project for Amelia because I found out that our ballet school, which is moving this fall to a new building, will now (hopefully, if the rumor proves true) allow us into the building to wait for our kids, and I will need something to keep my hands busy while waiting again. It has been years since I've been able to wait and watch while she dances, and I am thrilled (especially since she'll now be dancing three days a week, wow). I making her a Novice Sweater by PetiteKnit in Feeling Good yarn in Mineral Pink. I'm doing a women's XS because we are there now. We are there. Has anyone been knitting anything new? Do you have any good TV to recommend? I've watched everything, literally everything that has seemed even remotely appealing to me and I have nothing left to watch, so please send your favorites. Nights are darker earlier. Fall is suddenly approaching. Amelia's needs new clothes and she got bangs cut yesterday at the salon. She starts fifth grade on August 29. Dearest darlingest girl.
I hope everyone is well! I have so many new projects to show you and plans to tell you about. Once school starts I will have my regular working time back and I will show you everything I have been doing. I made about a dozen digital quilt blocks (this one is a Missouri Star block) in InDesign yesterday and I absolutely love making these blocks. This is the only kind of "quilting" I have done, myself! It's rather satisfying, I must say!
