Life is absolutely crazy right now with the upcoming band fundraiser, the church Christmas program, and plain old Christmas. I sat down at the end of November and planned out my crafty schedule for December, but have been only been able to put a pittance of effort into my projects because all the Christmas music is getting in the way! Maybe I need to call December a wash every year because Christmas music will always be a huge part of my Decembers?
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I did get some time to work on the Sew Many Stars Quilt last week, which ultimately led to disappointment when I realized that the batting I had for it wasn’t large enough. So I’m waiting on a bigger batting to arrive in the mail, and it’s supposedly going to get here tomorrow. Fingers are crossed that there can be a couple of hours I can squeeze out of the remainder of this week to do a little bit of work.
Not enough batting border for quilting!
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My original schedule had me possibly finishing this quilt by Christmas Eve, but with no label, which I’d get to in the week after Christmas, but I do not know what to expect from this project at all anymore since losing out on the last week’s sewing time. We shall see…
This week was full of fun activities—the end of year film festival for Rachel, Nathaniel’s final middle school band concert, and the senior honors night for Renaissance. It’s so much fun to see the culmination of everyone’s hard work at the end of the year, and, in Ren’s case, at the end of her K-12 school career.
Top priorities this week:
Graduation & recital clothing
Graduation quilt progress
Party decorations & ordering progress
Planting last of plants in garden
June’s hymns
Celebrate
Graduation party preparations are going well. My credit card fraud department gave me a call this week to make sure my card hadn’t been stolen because I’m ordering large quantities of things from businesses that I don’t normally do business with, so that was a funny little moment. We will have shelter from the weather and ways to keep the food warm. Excellent party prepping.
I made a lot of progress on the signature quilt as well; all pieces have their top and bottom borders. I’ve had a number of requests to mail blocks to people who will be unable to attend the party, and I need to get those out in the mail. I ordered more of the white fabric because I think I’m going to have to either make a bigger quilt or incorporate some signatures blocks into the backing, which is an awesome “problem” to have. It’s so nice that people want to share their good memories and well wishes with Renaissance. She’s such a kind soul.
We went to a graduation party for Renaissance’s friend Riley on Saturday. We’re really there! Graduation things are happening! It was such a nice event; there were all sorts of band families there and lots of great people who are involved with the school in some fashion. Riley’s mother, Chrissy, has been involved with everything forever and wow, does that ever create a fantastic village for your kid when you do that. Good food, good friends, and the best picture wall I’ve ever seen done. It was lovely.
Gardening
I haven’t planted my remaining plants in the garden yet because budgetary constraints dictated that I wait until next week to purchase the planting containers and extra potting soil. It’ll be fine. Nathaniel is so pleased that we’re going to have raspberries and Rachel is really looking forward to her strawberries. It makes me so happy to stoke their interests in gardening; it’s such a great hobby and skill to develop for their adult years.
It’s rained a lot this week, so the plants are well-watered and I haven’t been out to check on anything too much. From my kitchen window it doesn’t look like the slugs have been getting to anything, so I’m optimistic that we got the majority of them killed whilst weeding over Memorial Day weekend. Fingers crossed!
Community
I haven’t touched anything church music this week, which is OK because I always post a month’s hymns through the next month’s Fast Sunday, so we’re fine. I’ll get June’s hymns finalized and posted during church on Sunday.
Highlights
Nathaniel’s concert was so great. I am just so impressed with our music programs in our school district. Proud to be a part of it all. Nathaniel had a big part in one of the songs they played where it looked like his arms weren’t even connected to his body because he was drumming so fast. So proud of him.
Renaissance participated in the elementary school walk through this week where the seniors go to their old elementary schools in their caps and gowns and parade about and talk to their old teachers, which I think is the cutest idea ever. Since she didn’t attend elementary school here she decided to go to the elementary school where she volunteered and read to children last year, so some of the teachers knew her anyway. It was even topped off with the PE parachute being brought out for the seniors to play with one last time. Because honestly, gym parachute was peak elementary school enjoyment. What a fun week for her.
At the Honors Award Ceremony Renaissance was awarded cords for a high GPA and having 50+ hours of community service, and she received her stole for National Honor Society. A wonderful surprise that evening was the announcement that she’d been awarded two $1,000 scholarships from our community’s scholarship foundation! Those scholarships will cover her expenses for her first quarter of pastry school! We are so grateful for our community’s contribution to her post-high school education, and proud of her for doing all the work to earn those awards.
Renaissance will be playing her flute during Baccalaureate next week, and so she was flipping through our church’s hymn book and all the flute books for church and asking me if specific hymns were LDS-oriented only or if they were well-known in other denominations, and it was nice way to spend an hour together. I was pressing quilt blocks and making my guesses and she was confirming with some internet research, and we learned a lot about different songs, some that I would have guessed were only known to the LDS church and then we’d find out that it’s been around since the 1600s and we’d laugh at our silliness. I’ve missed doing church music stuff with my kids—I’m proud of their work in the school bands and choirs, but church music was where they started and I’ve always enjoyed doing that with them. We figured out which hymns would be recognizable to people of other Christian faiths as well and she created her program from those choices.
Lowlights
I have a smattering of ant bites on my left wrist and hand from a Memorial Day gardening mishap and they have swelled up angry and red and they’ve itched and ached all week long. I look like I have some sort of communicable disease.
Rachel asked that her final film project NOT be shown at the film festival. She was heartbroken over how all it shook out. She loves making films, but this was a group project gone sour. Thankfully, her teacher respected her wishes and didn’t show the film.
The five-year-old dishwasher developed a hole in one of its hoses and leaked all over the kitchen and ruined the wood floor we had installed just a few years ago from when the fridge developed a leak and ruined the wood floors. This is bad for three reasons: 1) The floor is warped and absolutely ruined, 2) We’re hesitant to make another claim on our homeowner’s insurance and risk our rates going through the roof, and 3) Our family must handwash the dishes until the replacement dishwasher shows up next week, and a family of six creates a lot of dirty dishes. It’s been a moderate source of stress. One of my work arounds has been to have whoever is on dish duty to start working while I prepare dinner. I like the results so much that I may keep this arrangement going in the future. *silver linings*
Another week done and dusted! Oh, next week will see me on the verge of tears pretty much every day…I’m so proud of my girl, but so sad that her little childhood is ending. I have absolutely loved being a mama to these sweet people. I’m excited to see where adulthood will take them, but do I ever miss pigtails and brown paper bag puppets. There will be new cool things! I just don’t know what they are yet, and that’s ok.
I’m a huge believer in the power of a debriefing at the end of a project, event or era. I think it’s monstrously constructive and therapeutic to take a minute to pause and reflect over the past [whatever] and feel all the feelings and think through the highlights, lowlights, and ways to improve in the future. I love reading the wisdom of those who’ve been through it before me and I love celebrating the wins.
I also love the idea of heirlooms and traditions, and I’m hoping to solidly get some things established in that category with Renaissance’s graduation party. I’ve been researching so many different ideas for her graduation party and one thing that popped up was having a signature quilt that people could sign for the graduate. I had been thinking about a book of wisdom or index cards with words of wisdom or something like that, but the problem with those is that they get tucked away in a box and rarely seen ever again, and a signature quilt could be a tangible reminder of all the great things people have to say about you and what they hope for you, left out for memory jogging and having the potential to really become a part of your early adult years and memories. And, really, HELLO—quilt.
I texted Ren and told her to choose a jelly roll from Fat Quarter Shop* and was not surprised at all when she decided to go with the Here Kitty, Kitty fabric collection by Stacey Iest Hsu*. Renaissance and Quesnel have been joined at the armpit since Quesnel joined our family almost fourteen years ago, so cat fabric makes complete sense. I’m pleased that she picked out something by Stacey Iest Hsu as well, as my kids’ childhoods have had many of her fabric collections and dolls hanging around in the background. It’s a perfectly fitting choice for an end-of-childhood memory project for my girl.
My plan is to sew up the individual blocks and have a quilt block-signing table at her graduation party. I’ve also extended the invitation to loved ones who will not be able to travel to her party to contribute a block to the quilt, whether I send them a Jolly Bar-sized (5×10-inches) piece of fabric or they cut fabric themselves. It’s been a good reception thus far!
These next few weeks are going to be an absolute flurry of graduation activities and party preparation, but I’ll try to show updates on this quilt when I get the chance!
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I had fun picking out the fabric for this quilt because there were A LOT of great collections that have come out in the past little while. So many that I actually got a little overwhelmed with my options and decided to poll my Facebook friends on what collection they would choose:
I was really surprised that the winner of the poll was #5: “Antoinette,” by French General for Moda, followed by a tie for second, with only one vote less, of #3 “Honey & Lavender,” by Deb Strain for Moda, and #6 “Lemon Bouquet,” by Timeless Treasures Fabrics.
I had already been leaning towards #1 “French Quarter,” by Maywood Studios because I’ve been slowly morphing my home’s decor towards a blue and white palette, but it really surprised me how few votes the collection got in comparison to the other collections. I love two color quilts and I assumed everyone else did as well. The only other collection to get less votes was #2 with all the reds. Two color quilts are not a favorite amongst the people I know.
So I decided to just mock them all up in the quilt pattern so that people could understand why I was going to go with French Quarter despite it not winning the poll—namely, because the contrast was going to be excellent. I thanked everyone for voting and promised them that I’d show them what each collection looked like once the quilt pattern was released, and so here we are. I present to you, dear friends, what the Layer Cake Latte quilt could have looked like in the different collection options:
#1: French Quarter, from Maywood Studios
#2: Heirloom Red, by My Mind’s Eye from Riley Blake Designs
#3: “Honey & Lavender,” by Deb Strain for Moda Fabrics
#4: “Honeybloom,” by 3 Sisters for Moda Fabrics I mocked this up with two different background colors because I really liked the blue in the collection.
#5: “Antoinette,” by French General for Moda Fabrics
#6: “Lemon Bouquet,” Timeless Treasures Fabrics I mocked it up with two background colors because I saw the Kona Color of the Year, Mint Julep, and thought it might work well.
I like my quilts to have a fair amount of contrast between the background fabrics and the showcased fabrics, so French Quarter was my ultimate choice, but I did think long and hard about going with Honey & Lavender because I really liked the look of that one as well. I don’t decorate with a lot of purple in my house, so I went with the blue.
But there you go, friends, the visuals that helped me choose my colors. Seeing them mocked up, which fabric collection would you have gone with?
This is another pattern in Fat Quarter Shop’s “Shortcut Quilt” series, which starts with some sort of precut and creates a quilt from there. I especially like these kinds of patterns because I really working with precuts.
The pattern uses two layer cakes–one of prints, one solid—and I ran into the problem of my whites not matching up well. French Quarter’s white is more of an ivory/muslin/natural white, and stock was low of those whites in solid layer cakes when I was ordering my fabric, so I just went with a regular pure white and told myself it would be an experiment to find out if it really does matter as much as I think it does to match your whites perfectly. Result of experiment: Totally fine. I don’t mind the “mismatch” at all, and actually like that it makes it easier to see the difference between the two colors.
If you love half-square triangles, this pattern is full of them. If you can tap into a meditative flow state whilst trimming HSTs, prepare for some blissful sewing.
Halfway through this banger of a month! This week technically has quite a few things going on, but as I look at the calendar I don’t feel overwhelmed by any of them.
Rachel needs help with rehearsing for her choir concert this week. She’s singing the mezzo line in a very difficult song and it’s hard to sing the middle part on anything, let alone this whopper. Time has been scheduled to work with her.
I feel like I need to find some time to spend with Nathaniel. But Cross Country starts up next week and I’ll be spending a lot of time at his meets for the next many weeks, so maybe I can just allow it to happen then?
A lot of office stuff needs to happen. We’ve just been really busy and it’s been hard to find the time to do that.
Creativity
At Home:
Fat Quarter Shop upcoming quilt: It’s called the “Layer Cake Latte” quilt, and it’s coming along. All the blocks are completed and I am in the midst of joining them. All that’s left is adding the skinny border around it and then the top will be done. I had hoped to get it completely quilted before the due date, but that’s not going to happen because I FORGOT ABOUT THE PROM DRESSES and need to sew like the wind on those.
Prom Dresses: Yeah, they’re all I can think about at the moment. Ren’s fabric is here and it’s gorgeous. The pattern for her dress was only available as a PDF (boo!) and it’s printed but not yet taped together. Not looking forward to the taping. Once the Layer Cake Latte quilt is assembled I’ll hop right on over to sewing up Ren’s muslin. Rachel has picked out a dress pattern that I crazy, crazy love and cannot wait to tell you about because it’s so cool—it almost shouldn’t even exist—but I have to focus on Ren’s dress first because she’s a senior and that’s how that works.
Van Crafting Sessions™: I’ll keep chipping away at designing wedding shawls for my girls. A lot of the kids’ music lessons are cancelled this week, so I might not have a whole lot of van crafting time.
Gardening
Set up trellises for peas, reattach trellis netting on France for eventual sweet pea climbers
Something with the Delphiniums
Sow pansies, violas
Put plant markers in by sown seeds
Start marigold seeds
Celebrating
Easter’s on the horizon, but I don’t think we’re doing anything in particular for it.
Nathaniel’s birthday is next month, so I’ll start slowly getting organized for that. Time to pull up the “gift ideas” note to myself that I add to throughout the year and start watching for sales.
Community
Choir concert
Need to do things for Ward Music
Help Ren with her intention to volunteer for the craft show
Band is doing their monthly performance at the local assisted living home
Top priorities this week:
Finish the Latte Layer Cake quilt, photograph it, and write up the various posts
I feel like it was a really productive week, which is always nice. My little routine of writing these goals vs. outcomes weekly posts is helping me stay on-track with what I want to accomplish each week. I’m really glad I’ve reinstituted these. Not only are they keeping me focused, but I really enjoy writing them and re-reading them, like a journal. I rarely re-read my handwritten journals, so I don’t learn as much from my writing in those. Blog posts can actually be searched by keyword, for cryin’ out loud. Wonderful.
Top priorities this last week:
Michael’s birthday
Garden
WREF Scholarship application
Prom dresses
Resurrecting music practice time
Celebrating
Michael’s birthday went well, there was an adorable “Among Us wedding cake” made by Renaissance, and each of the kids remembered to get him a gift this year. We did not have steak and potatoes for dinner, as I predicted; he requested fajitas.
The potentially brewing project died a sure death this past week. I’m bummed because it would have been a cool thing to do, but I’m also relieved because it was going to take a lot of time and effort to pull off. Many lessons were learned from this experience that I can apply in the future when such a situation inevitably pops up again.
Gardening
Trellises are in my house, as are some other gardening items.
All seeds needed through the month of April have been secured.
Rhubarb is still small.
I did sow the cabbages, some alyssum, but nothing else.
My sweet peas are just barely starting to sprout! You really have to look for them, but tiny little tendrils are pushing out of the soil!
Community
Renaissance did indeed submit her application for the WREF scholarship! Oh gosh, the arrhythmias…she submitted it yesterday at 2:15pm or so, and the pop-up that came up to confirm submission stated that it was due by 4pm that day. We had planned to work on it that evening, but something came up and we moved the time to earlier, THANK GOODNESS.
Band Parent meeting went well and many things have been scheduled for this last push of the school year. I still have a few office-y things to do for that.
Creativity
At Home:
Fat Quarter Shop upcoming quilt: Sneak peek video was posted on Friday on Instagram and I’m aware that my videography skills/software need an upgrade. I had planned to finish piecing the top on Saturday and even cleared my whole schedule for it, but some of my children decided to mutiny against their Saturday chores and much time was lost on this quilt because it went towards dialoguing and disciplining. I’m still confused as to why that day went so sideways. As it stands, I’m about 2/3 of the way done with assembling the blocks.
Prom Dresses: The fabric for Ren’s dress has arrived and I am so in love with it. It’s GORGEOUS. The contrast fabric isn’t as flowy as I would have liked, but we’ll just have to make do because it was the only kind of silk they had that came in the color we wanted. FYI, Shantung silk is not flowy. Tell your friends.
Van Crafting Sessions™: Designing wedding shawls: Newsflash: I’ve not done this before and I’m not good at it. Yet. (#growthmindset) Time was spent wrapping my head around how to actually do this.
Resurrecting music practice sessions: Did not happen because I’ve had them scheduled for the evenings, but now that it’s light outside again we’re actually outside during that time as a family. I’ll need to figure out a different time of day for this.
It was a really, really busy week with a concert on Thursday, which was also Pi Day, so Emily made three pies and because we had three pies chilling at our house I invited Ren’s band friends over after the concert and we all ate pie until 11:15pm. Ha ha. I’m generally an introvert who really appreciates a solid sleep schedule and bedtime, but sometimes you just gotta spend some time with friends. It was a good choice, despite how tired it made me the next day.
Happy Friday, everyone! So many people joked throughout this week about how long it seemed, even after it was a shorter week with the holiday on Monday! Our week was busy with lots of school and band things—I may have practically lived at my kids’ schools most evenings this week!
Baking Doodle Cowl Test Knit: I’ve made a dedicated effort to put in some serious time on the Baking Doodle Cowl test knit because I was pretty far behind at the beginning of the week due to losing most of my regularly-scheduled knitting time (ie. Sitting in the van during kids’ music lessons and rehearsals) to my kids being sick the past couple weeks and not leaving the house. I’m now about 25% done with it, which is great, except for the part where I was supposed to be 50% done with it by yesterday. There will be much knitting over the weekend.
New FQS Pattern: I put in an amazing day of work on Monday and I can now boast that all my half-square triangles are sewn and trimmed! I have another big sewing day scheduled for this upcoming Monday, which I’m hoping boasts some reality-bending wormhole capabilities that will allow me to progress on this at a phenomenal rate, hitherto unknown to mankind.
Super Secret Project: I have another project on my plate that didn’t materialize until just this week, even though it’s genius and I’m really annoyed that it didn’t occur to me until one random day during a random conversation with a few of my children. I don’t even want to commit to it because I know I don’t have the time AT ALL—but it’s too perfect an opportunity to pass up, so I’m launching myself into the future, laughing hysterically and hoping I can pull this off.
Spring Tea Party: The girls want to throw one, so we’re talking about it in loose terms at this point.
Garden: The seedlings are coming along. I had five Delphinium sprouts at the beginning of the week, but now I think I only have two. I’ve rarely been successful in nurturing Delphiniums to maturity, so it’s not surprising. Annoying and frustrating, but not surprising.
My little countertop herb garden is out of control and the plants are cramming into the light source every other day, despite my dedicated efforts to pruning them back almost every day. There has been a lot of dill in a lot of recipes lately. Michael’s not the biggest fan of dill, but thankfully, it’s not terribly strong when it’s fresh. Perhaps he’ll acquire a taste for it with the insane amount he’s eating now. Also, this experience is helping me to lose my fear of over-harvesting herbs. I cut these plants back to practical baldness and you cannot tell in two days’ time. It’s good to gain firsthand experience with that because I’ve always been scared to use the herbs in my garden in truly meaningful ways because I’m afraid I’ll kill them with each reaping. I’m learning that that is absolutely not true!
Renaissance College Plans: We’ve received notification from two of the schools she applied to that she’s been accepted! She goes in this weekend to audition for a music scholarship, so fingers crossed that it goes well! She’s torn between continuing her study of music or going to a technical college in pursuit of a degree in Culinary Arts/Pastry Baking. We’re pushing her to just prepare for both, see which one will be most financially viable, and then make a decision from there. (And seriously, I wish I had known about the pastry baking option when I was young! What a cool career idea!)
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It is mind boggling to me that I managed to abstain from most creative endeavors for eighteen months! Of course, one way that I dealt with the inevitable withdrawal pangs was to promise myself that I’d be allowed to work on crafty things to my heart’s content once I was done with school, which has resulted in a HUGE “Want to Make” list. Unfortunately, now that we’re to the point of being able to grapple with all the beautiful projects I earmarked, I’m overwhelmed by all of my choices! What a fantastic problem to have! Hee hee. I work through decisions better with writing and visuals, so here’s what’s on my mind:
Quilts:
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: (ASAP) I am finally quilting this! It’s horrible quilting because 1) I’m very out of practice, and 2) I wasn’t that great a quilter to begin with, but it’s in-progress! I’ve realized that the quilting step is the huge bottleneck for my quilts; there was a time when I could just send them out to a long-arm quilter and wash my hands of the task, but prices and shipping have gotten so expensive in recent years that I can’t justify the cost anymore. I invested in another sewing machine with a much larger throat space so I can quilt my own quilts, but they’re definitely not as pretty as the long-arm pantos that I love. Sigh. Done is better than perfect here. And hey, maybe I’ll actually develop my quilting skills to a level that pleases me. The Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt will not reflect that sort of level, but I’m telling myself it’s ok because it’s a scrap quilt that will get the snot kicked out of it anyway, so wonky quilting won’t be a tragedy.
Far Far Away Quilt: (ASAP) I started this one back in 2022 and even worked on it a little during a school break. It’s sewn into its rows and is awaiting the rest of the top assembly, which will then require me to pull out all the foundation papers, which is causing me some task paralysis because papers removal just plain isn’t fun! But, oh…it’s a pretty quilt! Cara! Just slog through the unpleasant part and get this finished so you can have this awesome quilt! Geez!
Chatsworth Block of the Month: (January-December) This is a sew along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop this year and I really want to participate because I’ve been collecting some fabrics for a couple of years now that will work really, really well for it! The first installment of blocks were due by the end of last month, but I haven’t started yet.
Piece & Quilt Sampler Sew Along: (March 2024-February 2025) Another sew along with the Fat Quarter Shop. I bought the pattern book a while back because it looked awesome, and then I saw there was a sew along this year and I got really excited about it. I’ve even stash-dived and decided on some great fabric to use. The question is whether or not I have time for it? You can look at the general info and fabric requirements here if you’re also interested. It’s going to be a pretty quilt!
Birthday quilt for Nathaniel: (April) He at least has his own Christmas quilt, but alas, still no everyday quilt, and he rarely resists the opportunity to bring it up in conversation that I’ve deeply neglected him in failing to provide this necessity of life. He’s given up on the Rocket Age quilt, and has been asking for a pig quilt for a couple of years.
Reading Nook Quilt: (May) For the most part, I avoided even looking at fabric while I was working on my master’s degree; but, during a particularly stressful couple of weeks of student teaching, I indulged in a lot of online window shopping as I grappled with the challenges I was facing. As luck would have it, Ruby Star Society’s “Reading Nook” collection was released that week and I was completely smitten with its adorableness and ordered a fat quarter bundle of it with the promise that I could make myself a reading quilt once student teaching was completed. I’ve mocked up a pattern for it, it’s super simple and satisfying, but I’ve lacked time to start working on it. I’d really like to finish this as a birthday gift to myself this year.
Fig Tree Strawberry Garden Block of the Month: (May 2024-April 2025) Another FQS sew along; I absolutely love it and hope I can make it happen! I’ve placed a reservation order for the book and I’ve definitely got enough stashed Fig Tree fabrics to work with, so it wouldn’t even require purchasing fabrics.
Renaissance Graduation/College Quilt: (June/August) ‘Cuz I gotta. No idea what I’m going to make or what fabric/color palette I’ll use. I figure that will get worked out once we get her through the college application/acceptance process.
Penguin Christmas quilt for Renaissance: (November) Because she’s a senior in high school this year and she still doesn’t have her own Christmas quilt! She’s been making do with the Hipster Christmas Tree quilt, but I’d really like to get her very own, made-specifically-for-her quilt done before Thanksgiving this year. I have no idea where she’s heading after high school; she’s vacillating between studying music out of state or staying close to home and earning a technical certificate in pastry arts, so the quilt could be a “welcome home for the holidays” thing or it might not be. It is nerve-wracking to watch your barely-adult children make these huge decisions.
Gingerbread Christmas quilt for Rachel: (November) Rachel also doesn’t have her very own made-for-her Christmas quilt. She’s been making do with the Double-Nine Patch quilt I made for Fat Quarter Shop back in 2018, but has been wishing and wishing for a gingerbread quilt for years and years. Due in large part to the euphoria of having submitted my last ever final paper right before Black Friday, I bought an embarrassing amount of fabric at various quilt shops’ Black Friday sales, and the majority of it was various precuts and yardages of the Holiday Cheer collection by My Mind’s Eye, solely for the purpose of finally sewing up a “just for Rachel” Christmas quilt.
English Paper Piecing quilts: I have four in-progress and it would be nice to finish up some of them. There’s the Star Spangled Diamonds quilt from forever ago that needs borders, the Smitten quilt that needs a few more filler pieces to assemble the top, a Christmas-themed jewel quilt I started this last Christmas because I wanted a Christmas project to work on in the car, and the Roses Hexagon quilt that I’ve slowly been working on for years whenever I need a break from current projects.
Knitting:
I don’t think I have any definitive knitting projects in mind, which makes me sad. It’s just not that cold here in Washington, when compared to winter weather in Utah, so the need just isn’t that high anymore. However, I just like the *feel* of knitting needles in my hands, so I’d like to do more knitting…I just don’t know what to work on. I wonder if I equate knitting with babies and children for the most part, and because there’s really no little people in our families anymore, there’s not a lot of pressure to knit right now?
However, I do have a lot of stash. Some things I’m inspired to make when I think about my stash are:
Lace shawls: I have a lot of laceweight yarn in really beautiful colors. Unfortunately, I don’t really lead a life that uses lace shawls, so creating them to then just let them sit is silly. I could try to become a shawl-wearing person, though…or just enjoy the creative process and not worry so much about the end product.
Socks: I also have a lot of fingering-weight yarn that would make good socks. I think I just need to grant myself permission in this vein. Socks are awesome mindless knitting that are oh-so-portable. I should pause my EPP in the car and concentrate on knitting instead until the weather warms up.
School mascot hat/beret: I was exploring yarn shops in the area and bought some yarn in my kids’ high school colors because I had a vision of a cool beret knit in fair isle technique of the school mascot. Should probably move along on this idea.
Brooklyn Tweed Shelter project: I’ve been collecting random colorways for years, and decided, on a whim, to cast on a Baa-ble Hat last week. I’m enjoying knitting it up!
Clothing
I have so much apparel fabric and I literally have no plans to use any of it. It’d be nice to get back into clothing sewing, but my focus may just be on quilts this year. I don’t know even know where I’d start with clothes. There is a lovely feeling of satisfaction when you sew your own clothes, though…I miss it.
Embroidery
Weird things happen when you put things on your Amazon wish list—sometimes your husband will actually buy you the things! Michael generously gifted me an embroidery machine for this Christmas, and it’s on my radar to learn how to use the thing…at some point. I didn’t think I’d ever receive it as a gift, so I have no plans in effect. I put it on my wishlist while I was really leaning into tablescaping for the holidays and I think I’d enjoy creating specially embroidered table linens. And monogrammed bridal handkerchiefs. And I’ve always wanted embroidered pillowcases with matching embroidered flat sheets, and, and, and…hee hee hee. It might take A WHILE to circle around to this, though; I really do have a lot of quilty plans to plough through first!
So that’s what I’ve got on my mind for 2024. I guess I should print out this list and hang it up somewhere to remind me that I’ve got some serious sewing to get to this year! I really got out of the habit of daily creativity during grad school, but I missed it dearly and am going to make an earnest effort to reintegrate creativity back into my daily life. Wish me luck! And I wish YOU luck with your project goals for 2024!
My first true venture back into a crafty lifestyle after working on my Masters degree is finished! It’s interesting how much of quilt-making was still just there in my bones, and how some of it was like, “I know I’ve done this before, why can I not remember how to do this part?” Completely random, but then I’d figure it out after a couple seconds and be off and away. Remember, kids…repetition builds learning!
This baby quilt is for a dear friend back in Utah who just had her fourth baby after a bit of break after her third…eleven years, actually. But this friend of mine ADORES having babies and she was THRILLED at the news, so it was such a happy pregnancy to watch unfold. Everyone is happy for her and her husband!
This family names all their kids after American Presidents, so I figured I’d go with a patriotic fabric collection. As luck would have it (or not…?) Baby Hayes was born on the 4th of July, so it will be perfect for him.
Fabric: “Stateside” by Sweetwater for Moda. I used one charm pack cut into fourths, and the background fabric is the Vanilla Stars print. I used the Sky Bandana print for the binding.
That Crafty Cara 