Works in Progress comments: 158

What a busy week we've had. Lots of coming and going and people in the house and then us going out and then coming back. Activity. In my mind I'm making a fox and a kitters and a smock dress and leg warmers and duffle coats for tiny animals. Well, not just in my mind — in real life, too. But more often in my mind, and only occasionally in real life. Testing out designs to see if they work is kind of crazy! There's no way to do it but to do it, and there are a lot of fails. The coat prototype took all day. I think I made five kitterses before I had one I liked. That's a lot of blanket stitch. But blanket stitch is weirdly satisfying. I really don't know what it is about blanket stitch. It's such a great stitch.

So, new projects! I will tell you about them as I get myself organized. I have a new sketchbook, so that's a start.

Today it's gorgeous out. All sunny and bright and breezy, with some leaves still falling and fluttering, shadows flickering. Yesterday Amelia and I had a very long walk. We sat in the coffee shop for an hour and people-watched. She fell asleep. I just sat. It was really fun. I can't remember the last time I've sat in a coffee shop alone without working, or without writing, or without talking to someone, or without eating (I had a hot chocolate), or without reading the paper, or without texting. Just sitting. Sunday morning. Lots of people out. The weather was perfect. You can tell that everyone is out, trying to soak it up before it starts raining again. We took the short way home, through the shops and restaurants, and it was so nice to be out with everyone.

Any favorite crock-pot dinner recipes out there? This is iffy territory for me. Crock potting it has been hit or miss. This always seems like such a good idea but it never sticks. Is there a reason for that, or do I just not have the right recipes? I've got one standby I think I'll make tonight, but if you've got any links to any real HITS, let me know?

I send my sincere gratitude out to all veterans and those in the military and their families today. Thank you for eveything you sacrifice to keep our country, our homes, and our families safe. Thank you.

comments: 90

I bought a new sewing machine a couple of days ago! It's a Pfaff Ambition 1.0. I was sold on it almost entirely because of the way it makes buttonholes. You put the actual button you are going to use in the back of the buttonhole foot and pick which type of buttonhole you want to make, line up the bottom of the buttonhole, and press a button. Automatic stitching commences. Done. The buttonhole is done. WHAAAAAAAT! You may have known that sewing machines do this, but I did not!!!

My old machine was ten years old. It was . . . okay, not great. This new machine is only my third sewing machine in over twenty-five years of sewing. My first one that I took to college and had until I got the second one ten years ago basically did a straight stitch and a zig-zag stitch, period. My second one did a bit more (it is also a Pfaff, but pretty near the bottom of the line — can't remember the model number because it's in the shop now). When the guy at the shop looked at it he actually congratulated me on being able to sew on it — it apparently has so many problems he was pretty amazed I was getting straight seams at all. So that's being fixed and I will keep it, as a backup machine. I'm ridiculously excited about the new one. It purrs. It really does. I thought that was just an expression of speech but it turns out its for real. I think this is the first thing I've owned that is not a cat that actually purrs. Excited.

I made Amelia a little brown dress from a couple of vintage patterns (mostly Simplicity 9532). (I would've used just one but it didn't have all the pieces, so I had to mix and match.) The fabric was old — it's been in my stash forever, and I think it was from the '80s. The shape of this dress is one of my very favorites. If you start looking at sewing patterns you will start to notice that even within the same basic dress shapes, there is a lot of variation in the shapes of the pattern pieces. I had two patterns for dresses that looked pretty much exactly the same in the cover illustrations. Turns out, the skirt front and skirt back on one was about 50% wider than the other, which obviously results in a much more gathered, much fuller skirt. I've been looking at the pieces a lot and trying to come up with my favorite set of basic pieces for a wardrobe for Amelia. If you have a bunch of patterns it's pretty fun to actually mix and match sleeve shapes and skirt widths and yoke shapes and make new combinations. Well, I think it's fun at least!

I wrote to the lovely Lindsay a month or two ago and asked her if she wouldn't mind if I copied the adorable matryoshka costume she made for her adorable daughter, which I'd seen on Pinterest. She very kindly said yes and I was thrilled. It was so much fun to make. I drew the design with a fabric marker and then painted it with fabric paints — my first time using them. Then I lined that painted panel with more white cotton and stitched the whole thing like a pig patch to the front. I took Amelia up to visit Daddy at work for Halloween and she had a blast. She was very serious in her costume, which cracked me up. We had a very long, very fun day and she conked out by 6:00 p.m., so no trick-or-treating this year (and Aunt Susie stayed downstairs to answer the doorbell for the neighborhood. Her favorite costumes were the "Sleeping Cowboy" (ha!) and the "Gothic Prom Girl." It was definitely my favorite Halloween so far!

(Oh, and her knitted booties [which are some of the only things I can get to stay on her feet!] are from Misha and Puff. I just love them.)

Fall continues to roll through the city. The rains have started this week — rain in the forecast every single day now. For the first time, I feel a little sad about that: It will change my daily morning walks with Amelia a bit. I have rain gear, yeah, but walking around in the gray old rain definitely won't be as nice walking around through the golden sunlight, under a canopy of red trees, through the crunchy dry leaves, over the snapping acorns, smelling the delicious scents of woodsmoke and frying onions and crab apples. It'll be walking through mud and very cold water falling on your head. Aw, well. That's what chai and cinnamon buns were made for. At least I'll feel like I've earned them now.

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.

Night Before Christmas Ornament Kits (SOLD OUT): Older Kits Now on Sale! comments: 65

On the night of December 24, Santa will be getting ready to visit one little house tucked under some great big oak trees in a sparkly little city in the great Pacific Northwest. . . .

Introducing my new 2013 ornament-making kit: NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

It has a Nestled Child, all snug in her bed with her kitters . . .

There is a mouse we call Notevena, and she is definitely stirring . . .

And there's that everpresent little dream I dream each year: How I would love (for my baby girl) to wake up to the new-fallen snow!

Each Night Before Christmas Felt Holiday Ornament Craft Kit contains materials to make one of each of the three ornaments, including:

16 pieces of wool blend felt in assorted colors
Coordinating DMC cotton embroidery floss
1/4 yd imported French gingham ribbon (for hanger)
1/4 yd imported French cotton lace (for hangers)
1/2 yd imported French cotton ribbon (for curtains)
Beads and sequins
Stitching instructions
Pattern templates
Illustrated embroidery tutorial

You will need to have your own:

Babysitter
Wool batting or Polyester Fiber-fill
Sharp embroidery needle
Dressmaker's chalk pencil or fabric marker
Dressmaker's wax-free chalk tracing paper
Glue
Tiny needles for sewing on beads
Sharp fabric scissors and paper scissors
Motivation
Snacks
Fireplace
Kitty-puppy foot warmers
Television to watch streaming Netflix documentaries
Someone to cook dinner and bring it to you because these will take you a while

:)

We have also put together limited editions of previous years' kits, including 2012's kit, WINTER CABIN:

There is a Lighted Window, to welcome all passersby . . .

There is a Western Bluebird, to provide the winter song . . .

And there is a Whistling Tea Kettle, to make the Earl Grey . . .

And 2011's kit, SWEET HOME:

It includes a Blue Door, with a wreath to welcome you home . . .

A Glowing Candle, to light the night . . .

And a Wild Bunny to keep you company . . .

We also have 2010's kit, SNOW DAY:

It includes a Red Wool Coat, to keep you warm and dry . . .

A traditional Norwegian Selbu mitten, to keep your hands toasty . . .

And a Polar Bear, far from the Arctic Circle, peeking out from behind the trees.

2009's ornament-making kit, WALK IN THE WOODS, is also available:

It includes the Cozy Cottage, with the wood fires burning:

The Snowy Tree, sparkling with ice crystals:

And my favorite, the Little Deer, who watches shyly from the trees:

And last but not least, the first, 2008's kit, ICE SKATING AFTERNOON, as well!

There's the Hot Cocoa Cup, to warm you up:

The Ice Skate, with pom-pon for good measure:

And lastly, the Gingerbread Girl, the sweetest of all:

Please click on the links for each of the kits above to take to you the web shop pages, which list what's included in each and what you will need to have. Each ornament kit costs $30 each, plus shipping.

About the skill level needed to complete these: In previous years I said that, while I don't think of these kits necessarily as a children's or a beginner's project, if you have some experience working some basic stitches, these ornaments take more time and patience than skill. I will include directions on transferring the designs to the felt, and basic diagrams for completing the types of classic embroidery stitches you will need to know — backstitch, lazy-daisy stitch, satin stitch, French knot, and blanket stitch — but once you are comfortable working those stitches, if you just take your time and settle in, you will be fine. Someone asked which the easiest kit is, and I have to agree with Lori (I think it was my dear Lori) who said the Walk in the Woods kit is the easiest. Snow Day is the hardest, I think.

If you are interested in ordering any of these kits, the very best advice I can give you is do not wait to place your order. We will ship them out as fast as we can. In previous years, these kits have sold out every year long before Christmas. This year we are doing a slightly larger quantity than we usually do for the new kit, but a lot larger quantities of the older kits. Even so, once these are sold out, it is very unlikely that we will be re-issuing these kits again. This is it!

All six patterns are also now available as downloadable PDFs HERE. A list of the specific felt colors and piece sizes and floss colors you need can be found HERE. You will need that list, so don't forgot to click on it (and a link to it is available on each of the product pages, as well). If you are purchasing a kit, you do NOT need to purchase a pattern. Printed patterns come in each of the kits.

I also have new supplies like glue (though we can't ship that internationally; see below), sewing needles and tiny needles for adding beads, wax-free chalk tracing paper, and water-erase fabric markers that will help you make these ornaments. You can find them all HERE (and the specific items you need for each kit are suggested in the sidebar for each kit, too). I have a limited supply of these items, so if you are interested in them please order soon before they sell out!

We do ship internationally. Please read my information about that HERE. The only thing we cannot ship internationally is the fabric glue, because it is prohibited. If you are overseas and you do accidentally put it in your cart, we will refund that part of the order and ship the rest of your things.

Because we are shipping so quickly, PLEASE make sure that your shipping address is correct when you place your order. In some cases, we are shipping orders the exact same day the order is placed, so it's important that you check your address on your end properly before submitting your order, because once it's out there, it's out there! If you do need to change your address, or anything about your order, or add things to your order, etc., please email me immediately. I will not be able to change your original order for you (because the system won't let me), but what I will do is cancel the original order and have you place a new order with everything you need in it. Because of the volume of orders that come in very quickly and the number of people that are helping me with this project, this is the only way that works for us to minimize mistakes on our end. I do not accept phone orders, or checks in the mail.

Okay. I will stop talking now. Thank you again, I truly and sincerely thank you, for your interest and enthusiasm for these kits for all of these years. Your generosity and your excitement mean so much to me, and it is a privilege to be able to make these kits and patterns for you. I love this job and I truly thank you for kind words and your purchases, every single one. Thank you. Xoxoxo

***UPDATE: To anyone who was trying to order the digital PDF of the Night Before Christmas pattern and was getting charged shipping, I made a mistake on the web site and had something check-marked that I shouldn't have — you should NOT be charged any shipping on digital patterns. This is fixed now and I apologize for the frustration (and thank you to those of you who let me know!). Sorry about that!

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.

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.