Category: Celebrations

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2 Calendar & Creativity

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House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

Hello, old friends and new readers! We’ve made it through the first week of the House & Holiday Plan 2026! Congratulations! How’d you do?

Week #1 was all about Planning & Paperwork, and we focused on getting our office areas tidied up and setting up a Christmas Activity Center. We also filled out the Holiday Values worksheet, established our holiday budget, and began our Master Gift List.

Debrief: Week #1

I’m still in the process of getting my dining room table full set up for HHP, but I’ve left my HHP binder on it all week and, as a result, used any downtime I had to work on various HHP tasks.

My rolling Christmas cart is downstairs AND I’m in the process of cutting some vinyl wording for it to make it cuter.

I was talking last week about potentially setting up a sewing machine in my Christmas Activity Center so that I could have easy access to working on some projects, but the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to do it. I’m trying really hard to not start new projects until I clear a specific handful from my crafting queue, so I don’t think it’s the year to undertake some impressive Christmas makes at the last minute. [insert super sad face here] However, I do have a knitting project I thought I’d make for Christmas this year, and that’s easy enough to leave on the table, so I might go that route. OH…I think I’ll also get out my Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler and its frame and use some downtime to get it framed. (I TOLD YOU I wouldn’t get back to framing it until the holiday rolled around again!)

Filling out the Holiday Values Worksheet was revealing: As I thought back over last year’s Christmas season, I realized we actually didn’t do much because we were dealing with my husband’s stepfather’s passing, and subsequent out-of-state funeral. We missed concerts, events, just about everything. The only thing we did was attend one of Renaissance’s friends’ birthday celebration on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was super low-key because we desperately just needed a break.

And then I remembered that Christmas 2024 was a rough one, too, because the last half of 2024 was rather brutal for the Brooke Family.

I think we’re due for a really amazing holiday season this year, what do you think? I’m going all-in, y’all. We’ve earned it.

Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

Alright, Week #2 concerns itself with our schedules and our creative spaces. We’ll get our calendars under control and get our crafting and gifting areas ready for their holiday work.

Week #2 Cleaning Checklist: Craft Room

  • Declutter and clean creative spaces: I’ll be heading into my craft room, which is bulging at the seams yet again. How does that happen?!?!
    • If you’re looking for a kick-in-the-pants method for decluttering, I highly recommend reading Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff, by Dana K. White. I’m not an affiliate or anything; I use it and it’s the best decluttering book I’ve come across thus far.
    • A good rule to start with, that I picked up somewhere long ago, is: The floor is not a shelf. When in doubt, clear out a room enough to not have anything on the floor that shouldn’t live on the floor.
  • Assess stored crafts materials: Do you need to purchase any basics? Do it now and save yourself the “I thought I had that” headache later.

Week #2 Holiday Prep Checklist

  • Get your calendar filled in: Now that school is in session for most families, it’s a great time to physically write in every game, concert and event the family needs to show up for. Get everyone’s birthdays written down, too!
    • I now use a calendar that starts in August and then goes through December of the next year. I tried a new brand this year and am not loving it; I wish I’d stayed true to my favorite Orange Circle version. If I hadn’t already filled my unloved calendar in, I’d totally start all over with this beautiful Fruit & Flora one.
  • Plan holiday travel.
  • Schedule necessary household and family upkeep appointments.
    • Furnace checks
    • Carpet cleaning
    • Family photo session, if needed
    • Chimney cleaning
    • Any family medical appointments that need to be done
  • Hold a family scheduling session: I call it our Autumn & Christmas Bucket List Planning Session, and I give a heads-up to everyone in the family a couple of days beforehand to start thinking about the activities they’d like to participate in that will be fun and bring them joy through the end of the year. Then we meet, write every idea down and figure out what’s actually possible to do, given time and budget constraints. Click here for the Autumn PDF, and click here for the Christmas PDF.
    • When they were younger, I’d then write down all the autumn bucket list ideas on a big piece of poster board and use painter’s tape to affix it to a wall that was easily visible from the dinner table so we could talk about the upcoming events and cross them off as they happened.
      • Bonus: By having it up as a poster, it kept our plans at the forefront of my ADHD brain so I wouldn’t forget about making them happen. I’d also make a Christmas bucket list poster to put up during December, and we’d have another planning session in the week after Christmas to make up our Winter Bucket List poster.
      • I might bring this idea back this year because young children management tactics work well with teenagers and young adults, too. We’ve not been very into activities in recent years and I’d like to change that for the better. Use the tools that work!
House & Holiday Plan Autumn Activity Brainstorming worksheet
House & Holiday Plan 2026 Christmas and New Year's Activity Brainstorming Worksheet
  • Start gathering your holiday ideas: The original HHP plan called this “tear files,” where you’d tear out articles, recipes, and other ideas from magazines because that’s what us “mature” folks did back in the days before Pinterest. If you’re still a magazine person, then by all means, curate an expanding file folder to hold your ideas. If you’re a Pinterest user like myself, set up a new board for 2026 Holiday Ideas and start pinning! I go through all of my holiday decor boards, activity idea boards, recipe boards, etc., and re-pin the ideas that I’d like to do this year to the new board. That way I still have the pins on the original boards, but then I have a focused list of actual possibilities for this particular year all in one place.
  • Start a shopping list: Paper or digital, it’s up to you.
    • Our family uses the Google Keep app and I’ve invited them to the grocery shopping list so we can all add to the same list when things run out and then I have it in my pocket when I’m out.
    • Hint for the Gift Tracking app I mentioned last week: If you add a link to each gift’s description, then it will populate it into a shopping list that you can check off. I don’t know why it needs a link for it to get onto the list, but that’s the trick. I just insert thatcraftycara.com as the link when I don’t need to purchase the item online. 😉 UPDATE 9/12: Opened my Gift List app this morning and it had an update that fixed the bug that kept gifts without links from populating into the Shop tab. Huh. (Yay! Thanks, Gift List app developer(s)!)
  • Review gift lists: Is your Master Gift List from last week complete?
    • This is the week I like to reach out to extended family and get sizes, favorite colors, and gift ideas for everyone.
  • Inventory unfinished crafts projects: It’s time to face the music, Fellow Crafters! When I did this last year, I found I had forty-seven UFOs (UnFinished Objects)!
    • Good piece of advice from Cynthia Townley Ewer, the creator of the HHP: “Remember the Crafter’s Rule of Four: If you have more than four unfinished crafts projects, or if any single project is more than four years old, don’t schedule any new crafts! Finish the old ones this year–you’ve already got a head start on the process and the price is right! Rout out projects you’ve begun, and take advantage of the time already invested in them for happy crafting.”
      • Obviously, I don’t abide by this creed…but, as a crafter drowning in UFOs, I do admit its wisdom and wish I did. #goals
  • Begin a “Gifts to Make” list: Because now is the time to start! Click here for the PDF.
    • I try to finish making gifts by American Thanksgiving (November 26, this year), preferably the weekend right before. That way I’m not under a cloud of stress during December when our family has all the music rehearsals and concerts, gift wrapping, social events, and requisite movie and cocoa family time.
    • Life Hack: Actually schedule time for working on your handmade gifts. (This is, after all, a crafting blog!) Like, create a recurring event in your calendar and if something comes up that’s trying to be scheduled during that time, say, “I’m not available at that time.” It’s that easy. No one needs to know what you’re doing at that time (and don’t tell, because they’ll try to talk you out of it, believe me!) and if you simply say you’re unavailable, then the people you’re making plans with will move on to the next available time.
      • Only twice in the last twenty years has my protected crafting time actually made it impossible for me to meet up for something important. When it becomes obvious that it’s my schedule that’s causing the problem (when I’ve said, “I’m not available at that time,” for the third time), I stop for a second (Say it out loud: “Give me a second to think here.”), think about whether meeting up for the thing trying to be scheduled is something I actually need or want to do (am I willing to give up crafting/music practice time willingly, or am I being guilted into this?), and then, if I do truly want to be a part of it, I’ll cancel one of the three scheduled crafting sessions/conflicts suggested to make room for the proposed event at-hand.
        • If it turns out that I don’t actually want to be involved in the event, I’ll say, “It looks like my schedule is too busy right now to commit to another thing. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be involved with this after all. I’d forgotten about some commitments I’ve made, but looking at my calendar now has made it obvious that my schedule is too full to add anything else.”
        • Repeat after me: It is better to disappoint others in a small way now (by declining to participate when you know you don’t have time for it) rather than disappointing them in a big way later (by overcommitting and doing a terrible job at, or worse, flaking out at the minute for, the thing you said you’d do because you didn’t have the time or energy to do as it should be done). The event organizer will have time to find another person for the task if you decline upfront. It’s not a big deal. If they can’t find another person, well, that’s their problem, not yours. Also, maybe the event doesn’t actually need to happen? Or maybe it’s a great idea…for next year?
House & Holiday Plan 2026 Gifts to Make worksheet

I had a lot to say about that, ha ha. But crafting is self-care for me, it’s one of the most therapeutic ways to help keep my mind quiet and calm. I respect it as a important tool in my mental health arsenal. I also have to respect my music practice time if I’m going to deliver on any performance I commit to. It’s just that simple. Don’t let people bully you out of your scheduled creative times, or else stop committing to creative projects. Beautiful projects and performances take the necessary time to prepare them well.

And that’s it for Week #2’s tasks! Let me know in the comments how Week #1 went for you, and whatever’s on your mind for Week #2! I’d love to hear about all of it.

London Fog Custard Tarts with caramel, earl grey whipped cream and a sprinkle of lavender buds on top.

Rainy Days & London Fog (Tarts)

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Here we are at the Labor Day weekend, firmly entrenched in September. School has begun and the weather was cool and rainy for most of the last week, with that lovely wet pavement smell that makes you reach for a hoodie. Well, hello there, autumn, it’s nice to see you peeking around the corner. If I remember correctly, we’ll cycle through at least one more round of warm weather before the Pacific Northwest truly heads into its Hoa Hoa Hoa aesthetic.

There was some progress on various projects this week, but I think the girls and I caught a mild virus for 3-4 days that made us feel lethargic and headache-y. It’s one thing when I’m the only one feeling sluggish, and it’s a completely different thing when, one by one, all three of us experience the exact same symptoms in a cascading course of events. I used my sluggish days to work on the House & Holiday Plan because I could just sit in a chair and putter around my office desk and actually achieve something productive in spite of the raging headache I had.

Rachel’s Graduation Quilt

I did work on this for one 45-minute work session this week. My knee was twinging just a little bit afterwards. I’m going to experiment with this a little bit more in the next couple of weeks and see if it’s healing or needs some extra help. I once had “unexplained” hip pain that seemed to have come out of nowhere and I was getting really worried about it until a friend pointed out, four days later, that I’d slammed the side door of the van shut on myself at one of my kids’ sports practices, could that have been where it started? So I’m wondering if I did something to my knee and have just forgotten about it. Because it is getting better, as long as I respect it.

In-progress pic of foundation pieced quilt blocks.

But yeah, the pencil crayon tips of the quilt blocks are trimmed now. Yay.

Husband Christmas Socks

I finished knitting the heel flap! Time to turn the heel and then get into the wonky business of knitting the gusset. AND THEN it’s a much easier knit because the pattern is only knit on the top half of the foot and it’s just normal stockinette on the sole. Goes faster once we reach that stage.

Back-to-School

The Boy is back in the school building. It seems to be going fine. I already had to run a forgotten thing down to the school when it was forgotten at home, but I’ve decided to mentally give two free passes for that sort of thing per semester, so it’s acceptable.

Back-to-Home

Renaissance’s summer break BEGAN this past week, so she has no classes for almost the entire month of September. She asked me to help her plan a personal curriculum to work on during her break so she can practice some of the things she’d like to be better at. This week’s theme was flavor combinations and she has been baking up a storm all week making (tea-free) London Fog Custard Tarts, Lemon-Peach Almond Cupcakes, and Coconut Lime Tres Leches cake. I think the London Fog Tarts are one of my most favorite things that she’s ever made, OH MY GOODNESS they were so tasty.

London Fog Custard Tarts with caramel, earl grey whipped cream and a sprinkle of lavender buds on top.

House & Holiday Plan

Um, this thing has taken on a life of its own!

I didn’t expect such an enthusiastic response to my post about it, but online friends and IRL friends are clambering onto the wagon and it just brings me so much joy to be able to talk about this fun little obsession with so many people.

It’s weird; I can see the traffic that’s coming in on that post, but there’s not a lot of tangible signs that it’s popular, but then while I was at church today multiple women stopped me to gush about how much they love the idea of getting going with holiday cleaning and planning right now, and then they told me what they were up to in their homes for the past week.

I am very inspired by all the work these ladies are getting done in their own homes! And talking about Christmas prep in the halls between classes?! Yes, please! Always more of that!

Loving the Rain

We had some amazing days of rain this last week and it was lovely. You forget how awesome a drizzly day is until one finally shows up after weeks and weeks of sunshine. As luck would have it, that was also the day Renaissance was figuring out her London Fog flavor proportions, so the girls and I really leaned into the whole cozy-tea-while-watching-the-rain aesthetic and it was perfection.

Rain tapping on the windows, something delicious coming out of the oven, warm mugs in our hands while we laughed over something Rachel was enthusiastically over-explaining…it was a very good September afternoon.

A knitting mug full of London Fog tea with frothed milk on top, next to a bottle of Torani Lavender syrup

As much as I loved that rain, I do kindly request that it holds off until November, though. There’s a lot of fun outdoor stuff that I’d like to do in September and October, and it’s way more enjoyable when the sun is shining.

Please, Mother Nature, give us pleasant autumn weather. Just keep the rain tucked away for a little while longer…

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #1 “Planning & Paperwork”

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Years and years ago, a fantastic woman named Cynthia Townley Ewer created a website called OrganizedChristmas.com and listed a handful of different house and holiday prep plans on it. I discovered her website in 2004 as I was heading into my first Christmas as a stay-at-home mom. I was OBSESSED with her website and followed it every year until she shut it down. Wisely, I printed off all the pages she had created and offered for free on her site, so I still have my Houseworks Holiday Planner binder to reference each year.

I discovered a new website carrying on her work a few years ago: Magical Holiday Home. I’m terrible about posting there, but I do check in from time to time and enjoy reading through the posts that others leave about their efforts to follow the House & Holiday Plan each year.

The House & Holiday Plan is an eighteen week long preparation plan that focuses on a different area of the house each week for deep cleaning and various aspects of holiday planning so that you arrive at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year’s relatively sane and calmly prepared. It starts (generally) on the Sunday before the Labor Day weekend, which was yesterday, so here we are! It’s HHP time!

I have never followed the plan all the way through to the end. Never, in over twenty years. But that doesn’t stop me from starting up with it every single year! I enjoy whatever work I’m able to get done with its help and I love me any excuse to start working on holiday things as early as possible.

In the interest of trying to motivate me to achieve that impossible dream of following this plan through to the absolute end, I’m going to blog about it. Public accountability works well for me.

Week #1 is Planning & Paperwork Week.

The cleaning focus is the home office, and the holiday prep focus is setting up for this year’s HHP.

Week #1 Cleaning Checklist: Office

  • Declutter and clean the home office and any paper handling areas.
  • Set up (or refresh) your household filing system.

Week #1 Holiday Prep Checklist:

  • Set up your Christmas binder.
    • My husband used ChatGPT to create the little banner at the top of this post, and now there’s a new planner cover to match:
  • Complete the Holiday Values Worksheet to figure out what you’d like to focus on during this year’s holiday season. (Click here for the PDF)
    Note: Cynthia Townley Ewer wrote this and I completely copied it for myself.
  • Create a Christmas planning activity center.
    • I’m planning to use my dining room table this year. We don’t use the dining room a whole lot, so I figure I might as well use the empty space for this festive fun! I do worry because it’s one of the first rooms you see when you walk into my house, but anyone who would bother visiting me already knows I’m a Christmas junkie, so it’ll be fine.
    • I have a rolling cart specifically earmarked for Christmas stuff, so it’s been moved into the dining room to live up to its intended purposes.
    • I’m thinking of setting up a second sewing machine and/or crafting area on the dining room table so that I can pop in and work on things for a few minutes at a time when I’m making dinner. There’s often minutes of waiting involved when cooking and I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of scrolling on my phone during that time. It’d be WAY BETTER if I got two minutes of stitching here and twelve minutes of stitching in there. I can’t hear the oven timer at all from the craft room and I often forget to set an actual timer on my phone to take to the craft room, so another crafty location near the kitchen would be awesome. And it’s just fun!
      • With that in mind, what project(s) do I want to earmark for the dining room table? Can’t be cutting heavy because I do not want to set up a cutting station in the dining room.
  • Establish a holiday budget.
  • Begin a Master Gift List.

Even though the HHP plans begins on a Sunday, I like to run mine from Monday through Sunday so I can use the weekend to finish up the week’s tasks. It’s my hope to check in each Monday with my HHP progress! Feel free to join in if it sounds like a good idea to you! I’d love to have more Christmas-obsessed buddies in my circle!

A summer flowering planter with an American flag

Summer is Packing Its Suitcase

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Well, as far as I’m concerned, summer is pretty much over. I keep my patriotic summery decorations up through September 11th, and then it’ll be full-on autumn here in Brooketopia.

Smitten English Paper Piecing Quilt

I gave my knee another week of rest, just to be safe, and spent my creative time working on the Smitten Quilt. I am thisclose to being done with attaching all the rows into one cohesive quilt top! So exciting!

A Smitten English paper-pieced quilt in-progress.

Then I’ll need to attach the side triangles and two borders and the top will be complete. I am hoping to hand-quilt this one, so I talked to Renaissance and Rachel about the idea of me setting it up in the TV Room so that anyone could put some stitches in when they pleased and the two of them were intrigued. Fingers crossed, it would speed up the process and I love the idea of all of us quilting it together.

Rachel came downstairs one day while I had the two halves of the Smitten quilt laid out on the TV Room’s floor and immediately yelled out, “PLAGIARISM!” and ran out of the room. I yelled that it wasn’t plagiarism because I started sewing my Smitten quilt years before she started sewing hers, to which she replied, “I’m the one committing plagiarism!” as she dashed up the stairs to the craft room. Turns out she really liked one of my blocks and decided to shamelessly copy it in her own Smitten quilt. Ha ha.

I don’t know if I’ll keep pushing forward with this in the upcoming week, but it would be smart if I did!

Husband Christmas Socks

I put in some solid effort on them this week and I’m so close to starting the heel! I think I have like two rows left to knit before I start the heel. Woo hoo!

Back-to-School

It’s upon us and I’m about to get pretty busy with band shenanigans. We held an ice cream social during this last week and it was attended pretty well. It’s the first time we’ve done something like ahead of the school year, so I’m hoping it was enough of a success to warrant repeating it in future years.

House & Holidays Plan

It’s here! It’s here! Today is the start of the 2026 House & Holidays Plan! I can finally let all my Christmas joy explode out into the world and rain down like confetti throughout the house! I’m toying with the idea of creating a separate series of posts for this this year because I really like the idea of hunkering and going all in on this. I’ve dabbled with the HHP since 2004, never really ever finishing it completely, and I appreciate the ways it prepares and organizes my holiday season. Every year I go big in the first few weeks and then lose interest, so we’ll see how long I can keep it up this year.

Week #1 is “Planning and Paperwork,” which has me cleaning up the office areas and establishing my Christmas Activity Center. I’m hoping to start working on that once I publish this post.

Farewell, Summer

So we’re buttoning up summer and getting ready to immerse ourselves into autumn. Aren’t seasons just the best?!?! I love that the landscape just changes for funsies throughout the year. Enjoy this last week of real summer, seeing that next weekend is Labor Day and everything will become orange and pumpkin spice the morning after.

No complaints here, but I’m trying to be responsible until then and remain present in the moment and the moment is summer. Wish me luck!

Late Summer Puttering

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It’s that blissful time of year when we spend quiet time at home tending to whatever happens to strike my fancy. Mornings are spent in the yard, talking to my little hummingbird friend when he hovers two feet away from my face while I’m drinking my morning tisane, and the sultry afternoons are spent in the craft room in air conditioned splendor. The squawking baby birds have flown from their nest tucked in the eaves of my neighbor’s porch, and I am low-key struggling to find new ways to get my family to eat ripe tomatoes and zucchini. I love late summer.

Rachel’s Graduation Signature Quilt

I was able to spend more time on this in the last week and the backing is almost completely done! As predicted, I ran out of the outer border fabric. I went to my local quilt shop to buy more, but they didn’t have any, so I put in an order at Fat Quarter Shop and it should be here next Saturday.

I shifted to working on the quilt front, which will be made from Riley Blake Confetti Cotton Solids that match the Crayola fabric I’m using on the back. I’m almost done cutting that fabric; hopefully I can piece the top this coming week? (Let’s be realistic, it’ll probably take three weeks…I don’t know why, but that’s just how things go in real life.)

Renaissance and I have been spending a lot of time together this summer, which has been awesome; we’ve even started watching movies and shows in the evenings in the craft room. That has been a big reason for the sudden action on Rachel’s quilt. I love this time with my girl. She works on her little projects, I work on mine, and we laugh at whatever we’re watching together. Most of the time we talk very little; it’s just nice to have another heartbeat in the room with me. I know I’ll cherish this extra time with her when I look back on this chapter.

Husband Christmas Socks

I did a lot of work on these this past week. These are the most complicated socks I’ve ever made (which isn’t saying much) and I am very proud of them. I think Michael will be very pleased with them on Christmas morning. I’m about 15% done with second sock?

Gardening

I woke up yesterday morning with an inkling to spend time in the garden and try to tame the craziness that it’s become after two years of being allowed to lie fallow. I figure, I may not get much out of it this year, but I can clean it up and it get prepped for an easier start next spring? That should work, right? Ha ha.

I came across a cute little bird’s nest tucked beneath the rhubarb stalks:

I have a cherry tomato plant that is sluggishly growing some tomatoes, and my container blackberry and raspberry plants actually produced a couple bowlfuls of berries in the past weeks. Not terrible for the zero amount of effort I put into them throughout the season.

According to my previous years’ notes, I could still sow some spinach, beets, turnips, and radishes for a little fall harvest. I’ve missed the date to sow carrots by a week or so, but I’m tempted to give them a go anyways. Wouldn’t it be lovely to get a little bit of produce out of this neglected garden before winter arrives?

I’m thinking about moving my blackberries or raspberries into the area of my garden where I usually grow beans. I think it’d benefit our family far more to grow berries than beans because we straight up like berries better and can’t get enough of them, while nobody around here is particularly passionate about beans. It seems like picking sugar over substance, though, so I’m having a somewhat Victorian moral dilemma over it all. I guess beans can grow the containers I currently have the raspberries in, so a swap wouldn’t be the end of the world…hmmm. It might not be the ethical quandary I’m turning it into in my head.

Autumn Approaches

I’m refusing to give space to autumn just yet. We’ve been so busy this summer that I haven’t felt like we’ve really gotten our share of the season! Hopefully we can find some meaningful ways to stretch out fully into these last days of summer break and be fully re-energized before school starts up again.

Methinks some homemade ice cream needs to happen, yes?

When Wildfires Cancel Your Plans, You Quilt

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Things are finally calming down around here; I feel like I can actually check in this week, which is AWESOME. I love me some good ol’ dog days of summer when we can just putter around the house!

Rachel’s Graduation Signature Quilt

I managed a few hours in the craft room this week, mostly due to the bad air quality provided by the wildfires in our region—many outdoor activities were cancelled on account of the smoke, so I spent my unexpectedly freed-up time working on Rachel’s graduation quilt.

Jelly Bars Quilt in progress for a graduation gift.

I am happy to report that the signature blocks are complete and assembled together. I next need to attach two borders. However, the original plan for this quilt was that the signature blocks would be the front of the quilt and then I’d use a simple backing. But now I’m going to use the signature blocks as the backing of the quilt, so the outermost border will need the extra four inches on each side for the quilt backing, and because of that extra four inches, I do not have enough of the fabric I’m planning to use for that border. I’ll need to hunt some down, oh dearie me! I think I actually saw a bolt of the fabric in one of my local quilt shops a couple months back, so I guess another visit in order, and soon.

Once those borders are in place, or while I am waiting to secure more of the outer border fabric, I will start working on the new front of the quilt. I do have the fabric for that. I also ended up with too many signature blocks, so some will be worked into the design of the front of the quilt, too.

Husband Christmas Socks

More time went into knitting these this week as well, yay!

I made the mistake of using some waiting-in-the-car time to work on them with the windows down, and eek, I had a raging headache from the smoky air within ten minutes.

I’m so glad from the temporary reprieve from the smoke, but it looks like the air quality will go back to yucky in the next week. I’m all for finding silver linings in challenges, so I am thankful when I get some free time due to cancelled activities, but it feels wrong to be getting so much personal good out of so much widespread destruction. I would happily give up the extra time to sew if it meant we got a miracle storm of rain to squelch out all these horrible fires.

We’re finishing up studying the story of Esther in the Old Testament this last week…maybe it’s overdue to look to the examples in that story and apply them to the current wildfire situation ourselves?

#craftygoals: August 2026

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July was busy, too; mostly with driving people places and trying to adjust to the different activities that summer brings. Good weather makes it difficult to stay indoors as well.

Debrief: July’s #craftygoals:

In-progress graduation signature quilt
  1. Rachel’s Graduation Signature Quilt: There has been progress. All signature blocks have at least two of their four borders.
  2. Husband Christmas Socks: Finished the first one! (It looks SO GOOD!) I’m only on the ribbing of the second one.

August #craftygoals:

Rachel’s Graduation Signature Quilt: I know myself. If I move off of this project before it’s done, it will languish. So I am not going to make goals for any other project, besides the Husband Christmas Socks, until this quilt is completely finished. Summer is a hard time to find crafty time, so I’m just hoping to get some work done on this; it was silly to think I’d finish it last month, but here we are.

Husband Christmas Socks: I’m just going to keep trying to find thirty minutes a day to work on them.

If I manage to finish Rachel’s graduation quilt, I’ve promised myself I can jump back into working on the Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites 3 sew along. But not before.

Kind of a boring update, but there it is. Enjoy these last days of summer! Being in Washington State means we don’t start school until later than most, so we’ve still got a good month of summer vacation to enjoy, and I do mean to enjoy it as much as possible, preferably outdoors because the winters here are gray and wet and very indoor activity-oriented and I feel like I’m going to lose my mind by the time February rolls around. You have to balance that part of the year out with by using the summer months to engage in a frenzied amount of watching the sunrise while walking through the woods and eating dinner in the backyard until it gets too chilly to stay outside anymore. Doesn’t leave a lot of time for the craft room. How I manage to forget that every year is baffling. 😉

A red, white, and blue sawtooth star quilt block with farm animal fabric squares

Crafty Goals: July 2026

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Welcome to Full-on Summer, otherwise known as July! Whew! You guys, the Brookes were very, very busy in the month of June; I’m so glad I didn’t make any actual crafty goals for the month because there simply wasn’t any time available for crafting.

Debrief: June 2026 #craftygoals:

Music and artist ribbon graduation leis in maroon, gold, and white.

Graduation: Rachel is officially graduated from high school! I love graduations so much; the only celebrations I love more are weddings and babies. These life milestones are so special, and I try hard to make sure that they feel extra special for the individuals involved. I made a cute artsy ribbon lei for her and music note lei for one of her friends in the band because I think she’s awesome, and we threw a big ol’ graduation party as well. So much work! But everything went well and the party was well attended, so I’m satisfied.

Rainbow paint chips board with bags of chips attached

Summer Plans: Well…sadly, my husband’s mother passed away the day before Rachel’s graduation ceremony. June 2026 was all about graduation plans and funeral plans. Once graduation was done and dusted, I pivoted immediately into funeral trip preparation. I was also invited to sing at the funeral, so I spent the weeks leading up to it feverishly transcribing (finally) a song I’ve been working on for years and working with Renaissance to write a flute part so she could be a part of it, too. I’m happy to report that it went well. With all of that going on, it’s easy to understand why summer planning has not happened yet.  

Family dressed in black at an LDS funeral.

July 2026 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Graduation Quilts: All the signature blocks have been collected, so it’s time to start piecing! It’d be really great to get Rachel’s quilt completely done this month, but it will probably take longer than that, much to the dismay of the many people in our circles who have become (in their own words) obsessively invested in the final outcome of her quilt. Hey, if peer pressure helps you move forward with positive, productive things, then put that peer pressure in the driver’s seat and let it motivate you to push towards the finish line! (Looking at this in a realistic light, I think there’s a good chance I can pull off getting both of the flimsies complete in July.)

I am not sure when I’m going to get to Renaissance’s graduation quilt, though. With the realization that I want to put the signatures on the back of the quilt, I now need to create an entirely new quilt for the front of the quilt. As luck would have it, I just purchased a pattern not too long ago to make for her “someday,” but it’s a bit involved. I might work on a “palate cleanser” project once I finish Rachel’s grad quilt and before I get going on Ren’s again. I want to finish Ren’s grad quilt before the end of this year, though, that is a definite goal.

Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: I knew June would be busy and I’d fall behind on this, so I’m not panicking, but it is a goal to get caught back up with my blocks in the upcoming month. It’s just NINE blocks, no big deal…ha ha ha. I guess I’ll shoot for three per week. Oh, man…

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

  • Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: The binding is done and Emily even slept under it when she was here for Rachel’s graduation. The label is not done yet, and I got it into my head to make a complicated label, so I’m working on piecing the label during my self-imposed mandatory 15 minutes of “Finishing Time” at the start of every work session in the craft room. It’s possible to get this done this month and do a legit photoshoot and all, but I can also see this label taking longer than that. Hopefully it all gets finished this month.
  • Riley Blake Designs’ Block Challenge Quilt: There’s so much on my plate this month, so I’m going to shoot for getting six of the chevron blocks done.
  • Baby Quilt: A friend is pregnant! There’s a baby on the way! Yay for babies!!! I’m trying to decide on the direction I want to go with this—I have a flimsy already made, the “Best Friends Farm Wonky Stars” quilt from during my Blank Quilting ambassador days, that would work beautifully, but I feel guilty re-purposing something I already made? That guilt is silly, right? If I decide to go with the partially-made quilt, I’d like to have it basted by the end of the month. If I decide to make a new quilt from scratch, I will need to decide on my pattern and acquire the fabric by the end of the month. As I write my options down and look out upon the expanse of projects waiting for my schedule to open up so I can work on them, I’m leaning heavily towards using the already-existing flimsy.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: Get as much work done as possible on Smitten. It’s HOT in the craft room in the summer, so hand-piecing is perfect for this weather. I should set a daily stitching time goal for this. Fifteen to thirty minutes a day or something. We’re in the slog of it; I just need to sit my butt in the chair and stitch and it’ll be over faster.

Knitting: I usually work on the Husband Christmas Socks in secret, but I am much further behind on them this year than I normally am, so I’m going to talk about them because publicly shaming myself works for me. I try to have the Husband Christmas Socks done by the Fourth of July so they don’t hang over me, but here we are, almost at the Fourth of July, and I’m only about two-thirds done with the FIRST sock. Eek! The situation isn’t dire, obviously, but some heat needs to be applied. I’ve been working on them for fifteen minutes a day for some months now, but I guess I need to bump it up to thirty minutes until they’re done. It’d be great to finish them up by the end of the month, but a practical goal would be finish the first sock and get to the heel of the second sock? That’s actually a little ambitious, but possibly doable. I have some other socks I’d like to knit up as gifts this year, so being behind on this is annoying to my Christmas junkie senses.

Embroidery: None for this month. But it is July and hand stitching is lovely in the summer, so hopefully I get through my projects so I can visit some embroidery projects. There’s nothing like sipping lemonade and embroidering in the garden while the bees buzz in the lavender plants.

Summary of July’s Crafty Goals:

  • Rachel’s Graduation Quilt: Finish both the signature back flimsy AND the pencil crayon top flimsy.
  • FQS Sewcialites 3: Sew up blocks #15-23. (3 per week.)
  • Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: Finish the label, photoshoot, blog post.
  • Riley Blake Designs’ Block Challenge Quilt: Sew up six chevron blocks.
  • Wonky Stars Baby Quilt: Baste. (Do I need to secure a backing and batting?)
  • Smitten EPP Quilt: 30 minutes of stitching a day.
  • Husband Christmas Socks: 30 minutes of stitching a day.
  • Embroidery: Indulge in some summer garden stitching on Sunday afternoons and soak in the aesthetic.

Proud family of a White River High School graduate, class of 2026

Rachel’s High School Graduation

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Another graduate in the Brooke household! Rachel graduated last night in the rain!

White River High School graduate, class of 2026
Proud family of a White River High School graduate, class of 2026
White River High School graduates toss graduation caps

It’s been such a great week with all the graduation buildup and festivities. Emily flew back home to be a part of her baby sister’s big day and it’s so great having all my Brookelets under the same roof for a little while! (NOT a fan of this whole “flying the nest” business of parenting!)

In true Washington State fashion, it rained on and off throughout the graduation ceremony, so we were pretty damp and chilled by the time it came to taking pictures afterwards and we struggled to find our brightest joy on film, ha ha.

And now we’re taking some easy days to get over all the craziness before Rachel’s grad party. Whew!

I’ll leave you with the picture that makes me laugh the most, which just sums us all up so perfectly most of the time:

Family graduation photo preparations

All the blocks in the Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge 2026 sew along, sewn by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara in blue, pink and green.

craftygoals: June 2026

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We made it to the summer! We’re in the midst of end-of-school chaos and fun, so I’m just going to leave a quick update!

Cara and Renaissance Brooke serving cake at the end of year band concert
Ren and I serving cake at the end-of-year band concert.

Debrief: May #craftygoals:

Graduation: We are working on it! It’s finally here! Made some leis, sent out most of the invitations, and Rachel and I have run quite a few errands to prepare for her graduation party. We even did her “Senior Skip Day” together because she wasn’t interested in doing the stuff her peers had planned to do, and wanted to go quilt shop-hopping with me instead! Such a fun day!

Cara and Rachel Brooke going quilt shop hopping on Rachel's high school Senior Skip Day.
Senior Skip Day: Quilt Shop Hopping!

Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge Sew Along: I finished all sixteen blocks! It still needs its setting blocks and final construction and finishing, which I had hoped to do in May, but alas, that did not happen.

All the blocks in the Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge 2026 sew along, sewn by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara in blue, pink and green.

Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites 3 Sew Along: Kept up with the blocks until this last Friday because I caught the cold that’s going around these parts and I’m recuperating from that. Did not work ahead on June’s blocks as I hoped I would.

Blocks 1-14 in the Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites 3 Sew Along, sewn in green, pink, red, orange and yellow fabrics.

Graduation Quilts: Received the last block I was waiting on for Ren’s quilt and bought some fabric for the new top I’m going to make for it. Received the fabric for Rachel’s quilt top but haven’t started on it. Sent out lots of blocks to be signed for Rachel’s quilt and received most of them back.

Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: I am SO CLOSE to being done with the binding; there’s only about two feet left to hand-stitch.

Sew Many Stars BOM Christmas Quilt: Nope.

Smitten EPP Quilt: I put in some decent time on this on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. Rachel has started her own Smitten quilt, and she is surging forward with it, which lights a fire under my keister to finish up mine because mine’s been in progress for almost six years now. Can’t let her beat me!

In-progress shot of a scrappy "Smitten" English paper pieced quilt in a rainbow of colors.

[H1] June #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Graduation: This is it! We’re there! The next two weeks are going to be such a whirlwind of activity! All focus is on graduation, so I doubt I’ll work on anything outside of that.

Summer Plans: I always flail a little bit when we head into summer break, but there’s a lot going on this summer with Nathaniel, so there’s a lot of logistical details to execute for him throughout the season.

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

I am actually not going to make any goals for June. I’m going to be so busy with graduation and the inevitable clean-up and reset afterwards that I don’t want the extra pressure on my shoulders. IF I find some downtime to work on creative stuff, then great; but I’m not going to publicly declare any intentions.

Heads-Up on Possible Radio Silence:

This is going to be a very busy summer, so the blog and social media channels might go silent. If that’s the case, just know that I fully intend to be back in the swing of things by October, as always. Hopefully I can remember to check in at least once a month, but you know how it gets with sunshine activities and gardening!

In case I don’t pop through until autumn, I wish you the happiest of summers!