The Light is Changing comments: 100

Ohhhhhh, dear. It's getting dark so early now. The light is changing. In the afternoons, the light in the kitchen is just gorgeous, all rosy and glowing and warm. But by six p.m. it's dark. And at six a.m. it's dark. And those dark hours always seem to sneak up on me somehow. Every single lamp in this house, either table lamp or overhead, is on a dimmer switch. I tweak them throughout the day, if necessary, and sometimes don't turn them off until afternoon. I'm remembering our winter routines: oatmeal in the morning (which Amelia and I both love), soups in the evening, and pick out all of your colors for anything you're making at midday. Never pick them out by lamplight. Unless you like to live on the edge.

Knitting and sewing, knitting and sewing. My sister Susie and her fluffy cat Ellie, recently relocated from Charleston, South Carolina, have moved in with us. Aunt Susie babysits for an hour or two every morning and Amelia is beside herself with joy over her new playmate. I go back to the studio and sew. I have so many ideas. It feels so good to have time to work on them. Getting time to work on them a bit gives me energy and also sort of calms me for the rest of the day. During nap time I stitch hems by hand or tack down linings while she sleeps beside me under the big quilt. (I have to remember to bring eeeeeverything out there with me before she falls asleep; woe to the hand-stitcher who forgets the spool of thread when she still has three-quarters of a hem to stitch, and a sleeping baby's head on her lap.) When she wakes, we go into the kitchen and cook for dinner. She sits in her high chair eating diced apple and watching me. We talk. She doesn't have any actual words yet but she never stops talking in her own Amelia language, which includes lots of pointing and lots of saying "Uh oh!!!" Adorable. Little lovey. I like cold weather because she's snuggly and warm.

It feels good to slow down. It's been, really, a pretty intense year, and I think I'm just realizing how intense it actually was. In my mind, I'm formulating my plan for this next year and already it feels so good. It's slower, quieter, more deliberate. It's like a stash-busting plan: Dig into what you already have and do more with it: fabric, yarn, dry goods in the new pantry, recipes, time, these spaces, quilts, my people. But without rushing. Afternoons. Make tea and chill out. It's okay to do that. I have to keep reminding myself. Slow and steady is what I like. Let this baby girl grow and change and whirl through the woods and the rooms with what seems like lightning speed, and give her big soft arms and a pile of quilts to nest in when she gets tired. The fake fireplace is glowing and fake crackling. I have plans for an Earl Grey latte. Greta cleaned the office yesterday and it is bright and shiny. There's more wool than I know what to do with. And my sister is home. Happy.

Oh, This and That comments: 77

This past week: a little o' this and a little o' that. Sewing a bit, knitting a bit, hand-sewing a bit, cooking a bit, just like I wanted. The weather has been so beautiful that everyone in Portland is just pretty much walking around in a haze of delight. This — this lovely, warm, sunny, crunchy, very colorful, very beautiful month — is just not what we usually get, for autumn. Usually, just as the leaves turn October-pretty, we get them for one day. And then the next day we'll have a huge rainstorm and everything will get knocked off the trees. And then everyone will rake all of the leaves in the pouring rain, and the city will come and collect them in the rain, and then that's winter. This picture-postcard autumn — well, everyone, all over town, is smiling. It makes such a difference.

I made Mimi a little lamb from a pattern in the book I Love Patchwork for her birthday. Her name is Heather. We all love her. It was really fun to make her. I embroidered a panel on the back of her skirt with a special message and the date. It reminded me that I had a stuffed Winnie the Pooh from about birth until I was about in high school. Maybe I even took him to college, I can't remember. I took him with me to horse camp at Culver Military Academy in Indiana. My third year there, I was probably fourteen or fifteen. I was roommates that year with both my first-year roommate and my second-year roommate. We had a triple dorm room on the third floor. My two roommates were as different as night and day. One was a teen beauty-pageant queen from a little town in Michigan. The other one was street-smart and edgy and snuck out every night to smoke pot with her secret boyfriend (who I would later meet again many years later when he was, totally coincidentally, dating a [different] friend of mine at our college). I loved bothmy roommates. They didn't like each other at all. The only thing they did enjoy doing together was taking my Winnie the Pooh and hurling him out the window into the quad. I would be screaming with laughter, and have to run all the way down three flights of stairs to get him before someone picked him up, and then I'd have to run back into the dorm so no one would see me with my bear. And then the girls would wait until I'd forget about Winnie for a minute, or one would distract me with talk of trail rides and hoof picks, and the other one would grab him and throw him back out the window. And everything would start again. They could not believe I still had a stuffed animal. We would be laughing so hard we couldn't talk, and I could barely run. They must have thrown him out the window twenty-five times. I was exhausted. There was nowhere I could hide him that they wouldn't find him. That bear was so threadbare and gross it didn't even look like a bear. It looked like a hairball. Which was part of the reason for all of the screaming as the bear got tossed around — no one but me actually wanted to touch him. But I really loved him. And it made me happy to see the girls getting along for any reason. To this day it sticks out in my mind as one of the funniest things that ever happened to me. The other thing I remember is saying to the beauty queen one time, "Don't you hate it when you go somewhere and you're totally wearing the wrong thing?" And she said, quite sincerely, "No. That never happens to me. I'm always wearing the right thing." Hah! Awesome! You go girl!

Okay, what else. Mimi's sweater coat. Thank you for the advice on lining the coat! It turned out that it wasn't bad at all! I laid the sweater out on the fabric and cut each shape (back, two fronts, two sleeves, hood) out with a generous 3/4" seam allowance. Then I sewed everything up with 1/2" seams. So there was plenty of ease and it just went in like a glove. I stitched the lining in, all the way to the edges, by hand, and then did the buttonholes in the lining just behind the knitted buttonholes by hand as well. I should have taken a photo of that. I'll do that. I'll get a picture of her wearing it, too. It's pretty darn cute, and now she has a cozy winter sweater. Happy! And proud. It was a pretty big project, actually!

What else. Sausage-kale soup! It was DELICIOUS! Better than the Olive Garden ;)! The recipe is here. My friend Sarah convinced me that I needed to make better use of my food boards on my Pinterest. I just had one food board at the time. When I went to take her advice and reorganize it, everything I had pinned to the board was either 1) a sweet, 2) a curry, or 3) a fish taco. Everything. That's pretty much all I had pinned. Sugar, curry, and fish tacos. Oh-kay. No wonder I never know what to eat for dinner. So I am determined to do better with this. I really think it will make life so much easier because I enjoy cooking but I am mostly pathetic at figuring out what to make. It's like my mind just blanks the moment I have to decide. It's really unfortunate. I've created a few more food boards now and I really do need to take the time to add more things to it because in the long run I think it will be a fun thing that will actually make life easier, too.

I did use the Pinterest boards to try to find another black bean soup recipe and then wound up making up one of my own. We baked the no-knead Dutch oven bread to go with it. And it was a very nice weekend fall dinner, if I do say so myself. With some butter and honey on that bread, aw yeah.

Black Bean Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 teaspoons Mexican seasoning
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 14-ounce cans of black beans, with their liquid
3 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon chipotle pepper sauce
1 teaspoon molasses
1/2 pound broiled shrimp (toss them with some olive oil, Mexican seasoning, and salt and pepper and put them under the broiler for a few minutes, under pink), cut into bite-sized pieces
Sour cream with a little chipotle sauce stirred in

In a large soup pot, saute the jalapeno, onion, and carrots in the oil for ten minutes or so until soft. Add spices and garlic and saute for another minute. Add the black beans in their liquid, the stock, the chipotle sauce, and the molasses. Bring to a boil then turn soup down to a simmer and let simmer for 30 minutes, more if you like your beans softer (I do). Garnish with broiled shrimp and sour cream. Not bad.

Wild and Wooly comments: 87

Hello, dear friends. How are you? It's a lovely fall morning here in Portland, Oregon. I'm drinking an apple cider. We've already been up to the store for more flour and more sugar, more apples, and some teensy little pumpkins. The packages for the day have already been picked up. My trusty helper girls are taking a very well-deserved day away from here. And Mimi and I are going to go to the party store later to pick out some balloons. It's a good October Tuesday.

* T H A N K   Y O U * to everyone who purchased an ornament kit, or supplies, or a pattern, or anything at all from us over the last week and weekend. I am truly astonished, and my heart's in my throat with gratitude at the response. Thank you. Almost every single one of order is already out the door (except for a few that had size #12 needles or fabric markers in them; we are waiting for another shipment of those that was supposed to be here yesterday, but it apparently got mistakenly sent to San Francisco instead — go figure — so it's on its way back [it originated in Portland, by the way]). But we expect that everything will be on its way out of here tomorrow or Thursday, depending on when that package arrives. It's been seriously intense here! In addition to Greta, I had Shila and Lauren (and of course Andy, and my mom) helping out, and if we could've bottled the energy flying around this place it would've probably blown the lid off the bottle. Lots of people, lots of work, lots of stress, lots of laughs, lots of everything. I love these girls. They are so special to me, and I could not do any of this without them. I owe every single person who helped me this week an enormous thank you. Being a working mama is no joke, man. Neither is being a working papa. I am exhausted! Thank goodness for take-out dinner, helpers, grandmas, mechanics who drop your car off at your house after they fix it (that was awesome), neighbors who have cans of tomatoes when you need them, groceries within walking distance, and playgrounds around the corner. Yeah!

I'm so sorry that not everyone who wanted a kit got one. That is the worst part for me, and I truly apologize that there is only so many that we can make. More of the new kits sold out in one day this year than we sold during the entire season last year, so it's just so hard to know how it will go. The PDF patterns for each ornament collection are available for immediate download if you missed out on the kits. And all of the older kits are all still available. If we wind up with any Night Before Christmas kits left over after everything has shipped I will definitely let you know.

The weather here has been classic fall, with probably one of the most beautiful weekends this past weekend that I have ever seen. It was sunny and crunchy and cool. At the end of each day, we took long walks up to get coffee, or go to the park, or get burritos, or spaghetti. I got to read some of my new Kinfolk cookbook, which came in the mail and is so, so, so pretty and makes me want to get my pantry in order (I haven't had time yet — bah!). Amelia wore a lot of things made out of yarn, I noticed. It's kind of awesome that she is now fitting into a lot of things I made so long ago, like her Springtime in Hollis sweater (which I honestly think is pretty much the perfect pattern) and her blue Mina dress (I didn't get a good picture of the skirt, but I was pretty psyched because that thing fit perfectly). Her adorable scarf and boots (not that I can keep ANYTHING on her feet, seriously) I got on sale last winter from Misha * Puff. Her Sunshine Day blanket is everpresent in our stroller three-quarters of the year. I finished that border on the Latte Baby Coat and one sleeve. My hands hurt so bad after I finished the border. I love the way it looks but agh, that was tricky to pull off for me. I used size 11 needles, too. But it is super cute and I am anxious to finish the other sleeve over the next few nights and get it lined with flannel. I've never lined a knitted thing before, I don't think. Any advice?

Yesterday afternoon I got to take the most delicious nap with Amelia on the sofa bed in the living room after we got home from the park. The window was open to the cool air and the sunlight was golden. The girls were working in the back of the house and Andy was out, so it was just us two, snuggled under the quilt together, Clover at our feet. It had been several days since we'd gotten to do that and oh, oh. Pure bliss for me. Pure bliss. When she wakes and her hair is all crazy and she is still warm and shy and sleepy and confused and [I'm right here, baby] buries her face in my neck, oh. Girl. Thank you.

This and That comments: 56

Thank you so much for all of your kind words about the new ornament collection. Thank you, thank you! I'm very excited that you like them. I will put them on sale tomorrow morning, Thursday, October 3. Just come here to the blog and I'll have all of the photos and links and information right here.

I've been tucked in the office for the past few days, really digging into this project that, up until now, Greta has spearheaded. It feels really good to be back in the office with the girls (we have backup this week, too!), listening to Pandora, soaking up the occasional sunshine coming in through the skylights, getting soaked by the almost-constant rain when we take the recycling out, getting frequent visits from Amelia as her dad or her grandma bring her in to say hello, eating breakfast at my desk, singing every word to "Wagon Wheel," Andy pulling late nights listening to old Willie Nelson concerts assembling Ice Skating Afternoon kits and texting me (upstairs in bed knitting) frequently about how much fun he was having (not kidding — hilarious), and also texting me a long list of ways we could improve the ergonomic correctness and general efficiency of our system. Ha! Kinda reminded me of the old days, when he and I did everything ourselves. I don't think things have changed that much, really. We just do different things now, and we have Amelia here, who makes everything wonderful. I had to re-photograph all of the kit photos for each collection yesterday, and spent a little bit of time with each ornament, remembering how each of them came about over the years. I really love them. They have been a pretty big part of our lives these past six years, actually.

Over the weekend, it seriously poured. Wind, rain, wind, rain. We had a great, sopping-wet time despite it at the flock and fiber festival with Amelia's birthgrandparents. Ten minutes after we got back home the power went out because of the storm, and was out most of Saturday afternoon, until early evening. It was kind of nice not to be able to work, especially because Andy was home, too. I took a long candlelit bath, and Meems came in with me at the end. The girl loves water and I love playing in the water with her. I got to sit on the sofa-bed and read Vanity Fair (the magazine, not the book) while she napped beside me. When the power came back on on Sunday, Andy went to work and Amelia and I cooked. Butternut squash macaroni and cheese (I kinda made it up), black bean soup, no-knead bread. Our friend Sarah came for lunch on Monday. I bought a reproduction of a painting by Edward Hicks called David Leedom Farm, 1849. I love it. It's over my dresser. At night I've been working on the little sweater coat I've started for Amelia. I'm planning to line it with flannel. The pantry is installed and finished and I literally haven't had any time to stock it. Big preparations are underway for Amelia's birthday party. I really just can't believe it's been a year. Sweetest love, a whole year.

***To those that have asked about the book with the lamby pattern, it is I Love Patchwork by Rashida Coleman-Hale. I'll tell you more about my lamb after I give it to Miss Mimilove.

Fall Food comments: 112

Aw, yeah: I cooked and baked and brewed. Buttermilk oatmeal bread, hearty mushroom and sausage pasta sauce, pumpkin spice pancakes, and homemade chai. All of it was very good! (The raviolis, by the way, were these, and they were AWESOME awesome awesome — I am really weird and picky about my ravioli because we do not have the same brand here that my mom used to buy when we lived in Chicago [she says it was Mama Celeste? does that brand still exist in the Midwest, or beyond?], and these are the closest I've ever tasted to those, my childhood favorite food, so I'm rather joyful now, because I just love ravioli, and you know how there are some things that you just want to taste a very certain way?).

(Speaking of, calling all Chicagoans now living in Portland: RUN to Bridge City Pizza in Woodstock [or just past Woodstock — or maybe it's still Woodstock there]. Oh. My gosh. You will completely freak out. The guy [nicest guy ever] who owns this place is an actual south-sider and he actually makes Chicago pizza the way Chicagoans think of pizza. And cuts it in sqaures. And puts it in the big white bag with the staples at the end that is transparent with cheese grease by the time you get home. You guys, this is the pizza. This is not the stuffed pizza. This is not the thick-crust pizza. This is the heavy, cheese-and-sausage, white-bag pizza. And you know what I'm talking about. Tell him the girl from River Forest [me] and the guy from Elmhurst [Andy Paulson] sent you. [And if any of you are from River Forest and you grew up eating River Pizza, you may start almost-sobbing like I did.] It really, really tastes like home. Andy actually called the pizza place back after we got home with our pizza the first time we tried it and he said, "This actually changes the whole city of Portland for us," and I was just standing in the background chewing and nodding vigorously with tears streaming down my face, unable to speak.)

I'm kidding. But he did call and say that. And I think his voice had a little quaver in it.

Mimi and I walked up to the get the chai ingredients yesterday in the rain. It's been raining for a couple of days, though it is still warmish, which is just delighting me. In the effort to get the mud room space ready for the pantry (which arrives tomorrow), I've been thinking about what's going in the pantry, and thinking about how to reorganize all of our kitchen storage space in general. I started to get a little excited about cooking again. It's really been a while. It's hard to admit this, but summer food just doesn't appeal to me that much, cooking-wise. This past year I really haven't cooked that much because of the baby, but now that she's older and much more willing to hang out with me in the kitchen for longer stretches, and now that it isn't four thousand degrees in the kitchen and we can use the oven again, and now that it's pouring rain and there really isn't anything calling us outside ('bye river, 'bye park, 'bye woods) for days at a time, I guess I finally hear the call of the Dutch oven. Of the slow-simmering sauce. Of the bread that takes hours to rise. Of the chopped onions, the butternut squash, the apple pies, of the long, lazy, candlelit mornings, of the bubbling Irish oatmeal I so love, of the spicy chili, or the black bean soup. Yeah. I like fall cooking a lot. I'm pretty excited about it again, especially because every day Amelia is trying new foods, and this girl loves to eat!!!

Anyway, that pasta sauce above was really nice, especially, I thought, because of the green pepper. A little sweet, but I like it sweet. The pumpkin pancakes, well, yum; we've made those many times and I think they are my absolute favorite pancakes. That's just a good recipe. (And I do have one of those beautiful crepe pans [mine's from the Mirador] that makes making pancakes pure pleasure.) The bread was good and dense and salty. The chai was a little too delicate and a little too rich; next time I will make it stronger by cutting the milk to only one cup (instead of four) and adding one more cup of water, and keeping everything else the same.The flavor was just what I was looking for, but I want a bit more intensity, on a cold, rainy, glistening, beautiful, cozy little old September afternoon.

Summer Wanes comments: 99

Some days dawn chilly and cloudy and cold, only to heat up; by mid-afternoon the sun blares and glares, glinting and golden at its low, desperate-seeming angle. On the river, where we lounged with neighbors and kids all Sunday afternoon, it blazed straight along the path the river took, no shade, no blue. All the blues are greens. Even water feels shallow and warm and cloudy, rocks dry and dull. There's a promise in it, somehow; our picnic is lazy. There's nowhere else to be right now. School is starting, leaves are falling. Eagles and hawks circle high above, and I close my eyes and make this memory for later, when it's raining: Tall trees rising up the side of the ravine; a tiny house high on the hill; the shade flickering, flashing; our babies babbling in the sand, and our great luck, to have our neighbors as friends.

The day before had been our annual neighborhood block party. Our other neighbor Barbara took that darling picture of Amelia, head in her plum bits. Isn't that the cutest picture??? Holding her chin. Be still, heart. After I put her to bed, I went back out and sat talking until late with the ladies. I never go out at night; that night I didn't want to go in. It got dark so early I was surprised. Above us, oak trees towered, starting to drop their acorns in the dark. Around us, our houses sat, starting to glow with evening lamps and flickering shapes of the husbands at home, watching the game, the kids. I talked and talked, saying my things. These ladies are so nice. How kind they've been to me, all these thirteen years we've lived here. How generous with themselves, and their hopes for us, and their love, now given so joyfully to Mimi. So blessed I am.

Yesterday Amelia and I walked all over the place, then down to the cafe for some gelato. She sat on my lap, pressed her cheek to my face, placed with my necklace, touched her nose and forehead to mine, watched the trucks and dogs go by outside, ate mango gelato, pointed at every light on the ceiling (there were many), and snuggled shyly on my chest whenever anyone spoke to her. At home, Greta (dear Greta) assembled Christmas ornament kits in preparation for the Big Release, a date for which we haven't yet set (but I'm really hoping we'll be ready to put them on sale by the end of September). This year — oh lawd — we're going big. Three thousand kits — five hundred of each one we've done for the past five years, and a new one for this year — are in progress. We had the felt cut by National Nonwovens. Over thirty thousand individual pieces of felt. I just broke out in hives, writing that. Piles and piles and piles of felt are taking up every possible inch of space in our offices. We had to do those quantities if we wanted them to cut the felt, and we did. Please buy our kits or I'll probably have a nervous breakdown. That's my sales pitch.

More on them later!

I very, very much like to make chicken stew with sweet-potato biscuits when in need of reliable, terribly yummy stuff.

I'm beyond ready to be finished with the yoke of my Chanterelle sweater. I have four more little sections to go and then I'll scream with glee. Taking too much of my already-sucky concentration. I'm teaching Andy how to crochet today. He wants to make an acorn rattle for Mimi for her birthday. He seems to be better at crochet than at embroidery. So it could all work out just fine.

That Color comments: 135

It's weird that a woman with no time and a baby that is crawling all over the free world pretty much every minute of the waking day would do something like hand-pleat a big piece of fabric and then smock it by hand and then block it and then baste it and then cut it and then sew it into a tiny dress that needed a ton of hand finishing (linings sewn in, a giant hem). Weird but true, people.

Meems goes to bed at 7 p.m., and I swear, the minute I turn on that monitor and click that nursery door closed my basket explodes, and out bursts the yarn, the floss, the needles, the thread, the fabric. The flying fingers. A flurry of quiet industry ensues, until . . . I pass out around ten. . . . I like it. I like to sit and think about her, about the day, about the year. It's especially nice to do it with my feet up, and my face washed, and my nightgown on, and a breeze blowing through the evening window, and a puppers or a kitters on the bed. Nothing else to do. A deep, deep sigh. Slowly the fingers find their rhythm. One of my favorite parts of the day.

I bought vintage McCalls pattern 2447, intending to use the smocking iron-on transfer that was included, only to find that forty-some-odd-years later the transfer didn't work. So, plan B: hand gathering, using this tutorial. That went fine. I made up my own smocking design and colors. Random. Don't overthink these things or you'll never get anything done. I followed the directions on the pattern for finishing the rest of the dress. It was a handful, but I was in too deep to turn back. Need a hook and eye for the back. Boom. Can't wait to see it on her. The color is just dreamy to me. I must really like this color. It's a dusty pink but warm. I must think of it as Amelia's color because I keep using it for her.

My Lilla koftan? Meh. It's okay. Came out sort of oddly proportioned. Didn't like how the placket didn't overlap. I've seen other peoples' versions of this sweater and they are much cuter. I think I would use a plied yarn and larger needles next time. Make it drapey. The Milk Glass Pink came out quite pretty, though it's still on the blocking board. Too hot lately to put these on the poor child. We had an enormous thunderstorm the other night, however, and that was just awesome. Cool and cloudy today and I am beyond delighted.

Now on my needles is Ravi Junior. Isn't that the most gorgeous pattern? I look at patterns all the time but I only just ran into this one. I'm using Quince and Co. Chickadee in the color Chanterelle. It really is such a lovely color. Or kind of a non-color. Sort of brown, sort of pink, like the underside of a mushroom, or a very old ballet skirt, or an antique book about flowers, or the wallpaper from the back bedroom in your grandmother's house in Iowa. That kind of a color. One that's just right for summer's slide into fragrant, cloudy, rose-hipped early autumn.

August comments: 118

It's been incredibly dry here. I keep hoping for a nice storm, or even one single raindrop, but everywhere I look our plants are fried, our lawn (what little we have of it) is fried, my pots are fried, my garden is fried because I never watered it, our two stupid plum trees have dropped hundreds — and I seriously mean hundreds — of small, bitter plums in both front and back yard, causing a huge (and I seriously mean huge) mess outside and in. Too high to pick and not even good for eating, they smash on the ground and explode, splattering purple. Man, I am frustrated with those things. They just make being in both of our yards pretty miserable at this time of year (without a ton of clean-up work first, and sometimes you just want to sit down . . .). That photo is the cleaned-up version, too.

I have so much angst this time of year. I don't want summer to be over, but it's too hot, now, and too dry. Everything feels desperate and yellow. There's relief in the wind-down, but regret, too: Already the mornings are dark when we rise at 5:00 a.m., and we drink coffee in bed with tiny lamps on, just like in winter. I can't handle the heat, but oh, I do love the light! I miss the light! I've started counting pool days. How many more times will we get to go before they close it? We have gone a lot. I have loved every single minute of every day with Amelia at the pool. Loved it. So did Andy, and so did she. Already I'm thinking of a plan for swimming indoors, once the outdoor pool is drained in a few weeks. Just this morning as we walked up to the grocery store, leaves fell from the trees onto to Amelia in the stroller. I bought baby cereal, two avocados, and a sweet potato, and some tapioca pudding. Comfort foods.

On Sunday, I had such a nice day. Andy watched Amelia for the entire day and I got to do whatever I wanted. So I made the little dress on the right in the morning (which is Simplicity 6713; the one on the left is Simplicity 5293, and I made that one really fast on Saturday) and then took it to a cafe downtown to work on the hem and the buttons in the afternoon. All by myself! Then, after I got bored (bored! I'd forgotten the feeling!) at the first cafe, I went to another coffee shop and sat out on the deck, and people-watched, and sewed on the button loops, and drank an iced latte. And lingered. Until dinnertime. CRAZY. I never do this. I probably need to do it more. I keep thinking about it!!! "Man, that was so awesome, when I had that latte!!! And I was just sitting there!!! Listening to other peoples' conversations! And then I had another latte! That was so great!!!" Etc., etc. Pretty funny.

Thank you for the help with the big-collared sweater suggestions in the last post! Lots of good ideas there. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do but I'll keep you posted! I have to put the buttons on the Lilla Koftan. Next up in the sewing queue is some smocking on more dusky pink from another one of the vintage patterns (whose number I don't remember, and sweet Baby Mimi is sleeping partly on me right now so I can't get up and check). I've been working on the Milk Glass Pink sweater while watching ballet documentaries (huh???) at night after she goes to bed. I hit a MAJOR roadblock when I misunderstood the directions and put the first sleeve on ten stitches beyond where it should have gone. And then proceeded to graft the underarms (why??? did I do that?) and knit about twenty rows before I figured that out. Gah. I cut it all off with a pair of scissors, ripped back until I knew where I was, and began again. Wah. I had plenty of yarn so it was fine, just frustrating. I've never cut knitting with scissors before. It was a super weird feeling. The ballet must explain all this pink lately. I don't know.

comments: 90

Oh my stars how I love her. Beyond words.

This morning our walk to the bakery was glorious: chilly, gray, and threatening rain. The perfect summer day!!! (Not kidding.)

I got some cute little binders from Target, along with some page protectors and half-size notebook paper for my vintage patterns that I ordered. I was so satisfied with this project that once I had stuffed all the patterns in (some of the edges had to be folded, but most of them fit) I didn't feel the need to do anything else for the rest of the day. Which was kind of awesome in about forty thousand different ways.

Our dryer broke, but then it got fixed. I'm glad I took that picture of pretty laundry on the line, because the next round was boxer shorts, sweatpants, and black socks. Not quite as pretty.

Remember this picture of Martha? Guess what she was working on there, thirty years ago: The quilt that would become Amelia's baby quilt! I had no idea. She finished it just for Mimi and and gave it to her in person when she was here last month. Adorable and amazing. So special and dear. I absolutely love it and so does Mimi. Xoxo

Does anybody know if there's a pattern on Ravelry for a baby/toddler sweater with a big round collar like this that is in English (that one's in French)? Maybe with even more fullness in the collar, like a true bias ruffle? I wasn't sure how to search for that. I put in "collared sweater," I think, but I just got a lot of things with shawl collars and then ran out of time to keep looking. Just thought I'd ask, in case you knew. I'm kind of into the short-sleeved sweaters now. Cute over long sleeved vintage peasant dresses, and whatnot.

Food, Flowers, and Friends comments: 89

Oh, we are lucky ones. Our friends Martha and Mila were here for an entire week of glorious summer days. We cooked, we ate, we laughed, we knit, we played with our baby girls, and watched them play together. We played in the pool, walked up to get waffles, went to the farmer's market, got yarn so I could teach Martha to knit (she's a natural, and making this), had a picnic in the park where we saw a wedding and watched the adorable bride and groom ride off on their bikes, drove out to the river and spent an afternoon playing in the water and sand. What a great visit. We've been friends for twenty-five years. We've only gotten to see each other twice in the past sixteen. What an incredible privilege to have them here with us. It's been my dream to have them here with us. Aw, just so happy.

We cooked good things! We made this pasta pesto salad, this spinach quiche, these pancakes, this delicious vegan chocolate cake (seriously amazing) to take to the river, and my staple dinner this summer, quinoa shrimp bowls. Originally I was inspired to make these bowls by this recipe, but I do mine a little bit differently now. I cook a cup of quinoa in 2 cups of vegetable broth. I top it with black beans from this recipe (but I also use these Cuban black beans in a pinch), this grilled corn salad (though I don't grill the corn, but just use it fresh at this time of year), broiled shrimp (just toss them, raw and peeled/deveined, with olive oil, salt, and pepper and place in a shallow pan; place under broiler for a few minutes, turning once, until pink), avocado, and sour cream. I make a bit of lemon vinaigrette from the original recipe, but it really doesn't need much. Tasty and just delicious.

After an exhilarating month of almost non-stop visitors, it's time for me to settle in for the next few weeks and get some work done (boo). Behind the scenes here we are assembling ornament kits (as some of you sequin-spotting eagle eyes have guessed!). I do have a new kit for this year! I'll tell you more about it as we get further along. Things are coming together. Thank goodness for Greta!!!!!!!!!!