A Woven Star quilt block made by That Crafty Cara (Cara Brooke) for her Star Climber Scrap Quilt.

Starry Stitches & Snowfall Wishes: A February Fresh Start

February 3, 2025March 24, 20254 Comments

Happy Monday! Happy February! I don’t know if you can wish anyone a happy Monday or a happy February, but here I am, trying to inject some semblance of cheer into the grayest part of the year! I found an image on the internet last week that I absolutely loved from Pippi Post, and I have been quoting it to myself over and over again ever since:

There’s a lot of stuff going on right now that is upsetting for people, it’s February and we haven’t seen the sun in months, and almost everyone I know is recovering from some bout of illness. We’re all tired and we’re all overwhelmed, so prioritizing joy is a good idea right now. I’ve been trying to avoid being a grump and it really is weird how you can just choose to be optimistic if you really put your mind to it.

Something that brings me joy is figuring out my week ahead, so here we are with a Crafting a Plan post! Enjoy!

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Monday: Tuscan Meatball Soup with gnocchi
Tuesday: Grilled Cheese & Lunchmeat sandwiches, Salad with creamy cider vinaigrette
Wednesday: Breakfast Soft Tacos
Thursday: Costco Lasagna, Caesar salad
Friday: Chicken-Tomatillo Soup with Chipotle Chiles
Saturday: TBD
Sunday: TBD

Clothing

I am so caught up with laundry! It is exhilarating! I actually have time to work on rotating our wardrobes at the moment, so there’s a big upheaval with the warm and cold weather clothing. I read a fantastic book about decluttering over Christmas Break and am applying the principles to my wardrobe as I work through the rotating.

Cleaning

I’m trying to do some decluttering and it’s going pretty good. The book I read is called Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff, by Dana K. White, and it’s got a completely sane approach to dealing with decluttering that does not involve dumping out an entire anything and spending hours at a time on the process à la Marie Kondo. I’ve gone through the front entrance of the house, the dining room, and I’m slowly working on the craft room. All the background thought that goes into the process makes the upkeep of the cleaned area much easier, so those areas of my house are looking really good, even weeks later. Very good book, highly recommended.

Caring

Haircuts for Michael & Nathaniel
I need to make a vet appointment for Quesnel. She’s not looking like she’s feeling very well.
I need to keep an eye on spring sports registration for Nathaniel.

Creativity

King David’s Crown is assembled and awaiting basting. I decided that I wanted to quilt it nicely, so I’ve ordered some quilting stencils and the company has taken forever to ship them to me. They should arrive on Thursday, despite having ordered them last weekend. Hmph.
I started working on my scrappy Star Climber quilt last week and I am loving it! What a great pattern for using up scraps! Love, love, love. I’m planning on this one taking all year to complete so that I don’t have to rush it. I really enjoy working with the Woven Star foundation papers* and I think I’ve picked out a great color palette for this quilt that will use up a lot of scraps from particularly overflowing scrap bins. My schedule for this quilt calls for me to complete eight blocks in February, and I’ve finished four thus far. Another two are in-progress right now and I’m hoping to have them done by the end of this week.
It’s quite possible that I could finish the Christmas Stripey socks this week. I’ve made it to the toe decreases, so there’s not a lot of work left on them.

Celebrating

Emily just celebrated her 21st birthday. I think you’re officially old when your kids start turning 21.
Next up is Rachel’s birthday. How in the world is she almost seventeen years old?!?! Nathaniel mentioned that her next birthday will allow her to vote. That was not on my radar. These kids just went and grew up on me when I wasn’t looking.
Michael and I aren’t up for a big night out on Valentine’s Day so we’re planning a family Mario Kart tournament for that evening. Depending on how into it the kids are, there could be some cute things happening. If the cute things don’t happen, whatever; we’ll still have fun and eat tasty treats.
Michael’s birthday is on the horizon, but I’m not quite into planning mode for that yet.
Same with Nathaniel.
Easter IS on my mind because I’m trying to get the Easter Program together for church. I’ve got my rough draft written up and submitted for approval, so we’ll see how much the bishopric likes it. I’d also like to do some planning in regards to Easter dinner; the kind of planning that will repeat itself every year and make my life easier.

Community

Ren and I will be performing the special musical number in church this week because I couldn’t find anyone else to do it. We are becoming very good at throwing pieces together at the last minute! So we’ll need to figure out some rehearsal time during the week.
Track down some flute music for Ren for the Easter Program.
Compose an ending/reprise for my arrangement of “As Bread is Broken” for the choir.
Pick up raffle tickets I had printed for band boosters.
Check in on the t-shirts we’re having printed for the band’s Disney trip

Top priorities this week:

Vet appointment for Quesnel
Rachel’s birthday
Valentine’s Day
Getting the quilting going on the King David’s Crown quilt

I wish you a happy first week of February! We’re getting some snow right now and I’m really hoping it translates into a legit snow day tomorrow so we can just bum around and drink cocoa all day. I’m reeeeeally hoping for that. May you get your snow wishes granted as well, if that’s your jam.

Crafting through the Cold

January 18, 20252 Comments

We’ve hit the third Friday of 2025 and it’s starting to feel like we’ve truly left the holiday season behind us and that we’re heading into a new, fresh year. I am really looking forward to this three-day weekend ahead of us, and really, really looking forward to the end of the kids’ semester at the end of next week with its FOUR-DAY weekend. Yay for extra days off of school during the darkest days of the year!

Top priorities this past week:

Progress on the King David’s Crown quilt
Finish the Piscis Project
Progress on the Stripey Christmas Socks

King David’s Crown Quilt

It’s coming along. The pattern will be released to the public in mid-March*, so you would think I have lots of time to work on this, but photos need to be submitted to Fat Quarter Shop ahead of that release date, so I’m needing to work at a faster pace to meet that deadline. The requirement is only one block to show, but I never want to do just one block so I’m doing a legit quilt at breakneck speed. My goal was to be done with 75% of my blocks this Wednesday and I was very, very far behind on that goal on Tuesday, but somehow managed to bend the space-time continuum over the next two days and I’m actually caught up on my self-imposed schedule as of last night. Woo hoo!

It’s a cool-looking block so I wanted to make a full quilt from it because it’s a little off the beaten path for me. I’m really loving the Creative Grids Starburst 30-degree ruler* that goes along with the pattern, and I have plans to re-use this specialty ruler to make all sorts of projects in the future. I’m addicted to Creative Grids specialty rulers. It’s intense.

I figure I’ll be working on this quilt for at least another four weeks, so get comfortable with looking at these fabrics. At least they’re super pretty, right? They’re a handful of prints from the Cali & Co. fabric collection by Corey Yoder.* I really wanted to make the multicolored-on-white flower dot fabric work in some capacity in this quilt, but it just wasn’t mocking up well so I went with the cherries for my background print instead because they are stinkin’ adorable. I love, love, love the periwinkle/cornflower blue of the lighter blue print I’m using and decided to incorporate that and some navy to make a subtly patriotic quilt for the summer months. I’m loving how it’s turning out.

Helpful Hint with this one: Prioritize the skinny tip of the triangle fabric pieces when you’re cutting the fabric and piecing the foundational units of the blocks. Don’t worry about the wide part of the triangle fabric pieces because you’ll be trimming those off. It’s all about the skinny tips on this one.

Piscis Project

I can’t tell you much about this because it’s a gift for someone. It is completed and it’s cute and I’ll show it to you once it is given to the recipient. It’s a small thing, so don’t get too excited about it.

Stripey Christmas Socks

A lot of knitting happened on these this week due to Rachel having two home matches this week and that’s when I’ve been knitting on them. I also knit on them a bit before Nathaniel’s band concert this week as well. I am past the heel and firmly into the foot section! And it’d be a lot more fun for you to read about if I could remember to take a picture of them while I’m working on them…hee hee.

Highlights

I found out at our Band Boosters meeting that we raised an extra $2000 more than we originally thought because the Square app stopped logging donations and purchases at a certain time during the Evening of Jazz and it wasn’t deposited into our account until the next morning. Whew! I was seriously bummed at the end of EOJ because our profit seemed really low for the amount of donations we had this time.
Lunch with friends is always a nice thing
Getting caught up on the King David’s Crown quilt! Didn’t think that would happen!
A friend’s daughter started her mission on Monday! She’s doing at-home MTC right now and it’s fun to hear the updates on that situation each day. So excited for you, Abbie!
We hosted our Potluck Club this past week. I decided this month’s dinner would have a “Winter Wonderland” theme and it went really well! If you’ve been thinking about organizing your friends to have dinner together once a month, just ask! It’s been such a good thing in our lives these past few months!

Lowlights

I am struggling with my points on the King David’s Crown blocks. I think I’ve figured it all out, but geez…

Enjoy your long weekend if you get to have it! I hope you find some time for some craftiness, warm socks, and hot beverages!

_{*Affiliate links: I receive a small commission at no cost to you should you purchase from these retailers after clicking through on the link}

Michael’s Christmas Socks 2024

January 3, 2025Leave a comment

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each of you, dear readers! December 2024 was a whirlwind of activity, mostly revolving around the constant of music in our family, so I wasn’t able to do a whole lot in the craft room throughout the month, but I DID finish up a pair of handknit socks for my sweet hubby to open on Christmas Day!

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple (As always! It’s a great sock pattern!)

Yarn: Paton’s Kroy Socks in colorway #55102 “Blue Striped Ragg”, 2 skeins with very little leftover. I also tried using a reinforcement thread in the heels and toes for the first time, and ran out of it halfway through the second toe. Note to self: He has big feet and needs two spools in the future. I used Lang Reinforcement Thread #23, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: The yarn skeins don’t stop and end in the same place, stripe-wise, so I did my best to match up the stripes, but had to split my second skein to start in the same place as the first skein, which meant I had to join in the last bit of yarn near the toe so it stripes a little weird in the second sock. Fortunately, no one will see it because it’ll be hidden by his shoes when he’s wearing them.

This is the first time I’ve pulled off making a pair of socks for Michael for Christmas two years in a row! Woot, woot! And I barely pulled it off—I finished these during the afternoon on Christmas Eve and got them wrapped and under the tree with only minutes to spare before Michael walked in the door from work.

I love the idea of a tradition of making Michael a pair of socks each Christmas. Back when I started knitting, I eagerly looked forward to the Yarn Harlot’s frantic pre-Christmas circus posts where she’d get through insane lists and spreadsheets of handknits to complete during the holidays, and I loved reading through the posts that featured her handknits in the hands of smiling recipients, Christmas tree lights twinkling in the background. I enjoy going to other people’s circuses from time to time, and her Christmas circus was such a delight to behold in all its urgency and anticipation that would then yield beautiful photos of a happy family and beautifully-knitted gifts and lovely words of love, joy and gratitude. (I miss the old days of blogging, they were really wonderful. Instagram is, really…was, great and all, but I miss the writing that we used to treat each other to back in the day.)

I envisioned the same future for myself, which has basically come true (except for the handknits part), and here we are today with us going through a Christmas circus every year that can only be managed with spreadsheets and to-do lists. It’s mostly all music-related for us Brookes, but I still endeavor to throw some handmades into the mix. These socks were created in all sorts of stolen moments in between putting together the band fundraiser, the Ward Christmas Sacrament Program, and our family’s own holiday celebrations and traditions. I like a little crazy.

Each stitch in these socks is a little bit of crazy, a little bit of peace stolen amidst chaos, a little bit of tradition. A little bit of the holiday experience over and over again. I love having these reminders throughout the year of another Christmas that has come and gone. Each Sunday, when Michael is putting on his church shoes and I see which handknit socks he’s chosen to wear that week, I’m inundated with memories from whichever Christmas and year that particular pair was created. It’s a lot of a memories, over and over again. We’ve been blessed to have so many Christmases together. I hope, twenty years from now, that I’m still making socks for him each year, and that I’m darning the older socks and reliving the glory days of Christmases past—days of our children in footed pajamas, mornings when they were teenagers in flannel pants and messy buns, to eventual days of their own children in footed pajamas and maple syrup-stickied fingers. I learned to knit when I was just starting out as a wife and mother, and I hope I’m still knitting and making memories that include handknit gifts with happy faces and twinkling lights for many, many years to come.

Click here to view this project’s Ravelry page

Feral Choir Concert Toddler

October 26, 2024October 30, 20242 Comments

Seeing how I posted my goals for the week on Wednesday, the chance that I’d make significant progress on them was small. It’s just been such a busy week, and with needing to still rest when I start feeling tired I just don’t have a lot of time for the extra things. It’s a frustrating place to find oneself, but nothing terrible will happen as a result. I would just like to be able to do all the things, is that too much to ask?! 😉

Top priorities this past week:

Processing the garden harvest
Ward Choir logistics
Band Booster everythings
Walks
Secret Christmas knitting

Caring

Rachel had her first choir concert of the year on Tuesday and it was really lovely. I love seeing how much kids can do after only a handful of weeks into the school year. Even the freshman choir sounded great!

Unfortunately, the family that sat behind us at the concert had a free-range toddler who pulled out some of my hair, and when I turned towards whatever the heck had yanked hair out of my scalp the offender wetly sneezed directly onto my eyeballs.

Zero stars. Would not recommend. It got even worse later on when the toddler tripped and smashed its face into the back of my seat and screamed their anguish into my ear. I was very glad when the concert finally ended and I got to go home.

Nathaniel had his last cross country meet today and he did SO GOOD. He placed TENTH in his race with a time of 20:00.0. He wanted a 19-minute-anything time so badly, but alas…ha ha ha. Considering that he ran his first race of the season with a time of 23:03.0, I think he can safely be pleased with his progress over the season.

Garden

I think all we managed to work on after all the work at the beginning of the week was to get the last pumpkin roasted and pureed. I did go to the store and purchase ingredients to make Green Tomato Mincemeat, but the excursion made my incisions hurt, so I decided to rest a bit before continuing with my plans. Unfortunately, I started feeling crummy that evening, and I woke up Friday morning feeling awful and ended up sleeping most of the day away. I think I was fighting off whatever the Choir Toddler sneezed into my face. I needed to do a bunch of other stuff today, so I still haven’t gotten to the mincemeat.

Community

The church Halloween party was last night and Rachel and Renaissance helped out with the face painting. Renaissance also took over getting our van ready for trunk or treating once it became obvious that I would not be attending the party due to feeling so yucky, and she did a delightful job!

Ward Choir logistics were dealt with this week and we’ll have sheet music to sing from tomorrow as long as I remember to make copies in the morning. I also ordered all of the Christmas sheet music and expect it to arrive next week, and I could cry over how much it all cost, but if I can get everyone I want to help out with the Christmas program it will be amazing. I am very excited about the possibilities.

I did not get to Band Booster stuff, but it’s high on my list of priorities for next week. The fabric for the table runners should arrive Tuesday afternoon, so I guess I’ll start sewing up table runners on Wednesday or Thursday. (Boring! But needed.)

Health

I went on zero walks this week. Between getting over the cold from last week and dealing with the Choir Toddler flash illness this week I just haven’t had the energy to do much more than some halfhearted office-y work from the couch. I’m doing my best, folks.

Healing from my surgeries is feeling good. One of my incisions is healing a little slower than it should so I have to do some extra care for that three times a day, but it looks like it’s working and the wound is finally closing up. Grocery shopping really tired me out on Wednesday, so I’m still working towards having more energy. It’ll come back.

Creativity

I worked on my not-secret knitting for a little while before Rachel’s choir concert. Emily and I went on a little yarn crawl together in July and I saw a skein of self-striping yarn in perfect Christmas colors and I had to have it. I’m making some adorable Christmas socks for myself from it and adding in solid red heels and toes because it’s perfect. I’m almost done with knitting up the heel flap of the first sock. I love that you can take the downtime of daily life (like waiting for a concert to begin) and use it to get further along on a project, rather than wasting that time looking at a phone. More crafting in public is needed! Join the cause!

I didn’t work on anything else due to the aforementioned ickiness that prevailed all week. I’m falling so far behind! Fingers crossed for a healthy new week!

Highlights

When Nathaniel came running over the crest of the hill before the finish line in his race, way before I expected to see him.
The huge smile on Rachel’s face when we handed her the bouquet of flowers after her choir concert.
How cute the van looked after Renaissance finished decorating it for the Halloween party.
Emily brought me Panda Express for lunch one day as she came home from running errands because she thought I’d like it.

Lowlights

The Feral Choir Concert Toddler :::squinty side-eye:::
Two illnesses in one week

Despite all the illnesses, I AM getting stronger and feeling better each week, so that’s good. Michael and I both are really excited for how much better I could potentially feel in my daily life once I get all healed up. Ugh, the amount of pain and lost days I’ve had to deal with for the past ten years is gobsmacking. And it could just be over now. Maybe. That’s incredibly exciting. We shall see…

I’ll leave you with a photo that Nathaniel texted me while he was out on a run this week. I may not be getting out a lot to enjoy this beautiful autumn weather, but my kids send me pretty pictures of it, for which I’m grateful. There’s always happy little glimmers to make one smile…

Cake, Silks & Pi(es)

March 17, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

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.

Much Music and Considerable Clothing Commissions

March 10, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

It was a week of excess; a week that seemed overwhelming in the beginning and then ended with a smorgasbord of new opportunities on top of an overfilled plate.

Community

All the music went well. The All-District Choir Concert was really, really good; it was the first time they’ve done that concert since 2016 and it really is a special event to see every single choir student in the district performing together in one space.

Wind Ensemble (High School Band) performed at the PLU Invitational on Friday and I went along as a chaperone. They did so good! It was a really enjoyable day hanging out with some of my favorite people.

Jazz Bands (both middle and high school) performed at a swing dance last night. I wasn’t feeling well, so I didn’t go. Michael took good videos and everyone sounded really good.

Clothing

There was a lot of laundry folding, but I’m still not caught up.

I thought a lot about spring, Easter and choir trip wardrobes.

But then Prom was announced and I remembered that it really is a big deal to me to make the girls’ dresses for the high school dances, so everything else has kind of gone out of the window. I almost get my wish of making 1950s spring formal dresses—Rachel is eyeing a vintage Vogue pattern from the 1940s, so close enough. Renaissance’s pattern choice is a gamble that I think is going to work out. I am really excited about both dresses. Since it’s Ren’s senior year, I’ll be making hers from really nice fabrics, and Rachel will have to make do with Casa Collection satin from JoAnn Fabric. I cannot wait for the patterns to arrive in the mail so I can start cranking out the muslins.

Creativity

The Baking Doodle Cowl pattern was finally released on Friday, and there were many nice comments about my particular test knit. Always feels good to receive a compliment.

My knitting queue has been a whirlwind of indecision this week! I spent a lot of time narrowing down a new project and decided to go with finally using a gorgeous skein of spring green laceweight yarn to make a pretty spring shawl. Then I decided it’d look great if I carried a strand of self-striping green mohair with it. I was so excited, and then, after knitting the set-up chart, decided it did not look great.

Which is fine because then I realized that we are in the years where my girls can start getting married, which was brought on by receiving an invitation to the wedding of one of Emily’s friends, which led to some deep discussions about weddings, heirlooms, and traditions, and now I feel like I need to get working on wedding shawls so I can have them already made because LDS engagements are really, really short and I know that I will not have enough time to make their wedding shawls when the time comes.

So I sat down to figure out what patterns I want to use for their shawls and inevitably came to the conclusion that I really just want to design an individual shawl for each girl that weaves together meaningful stitch patterns and symbolism that will carry special meaning for them. SO…I’m going to spend the next few Van Crafting Sessions™ researching and drafting shawl patterns. Which is pretty cool.

Gardening

I accomplished nothing, NOTHING in the garden this last week. Michael and I have started watching the series “Homegrown,” which is about transforming people’s backyards into sustainable gardening spaces, so I’m technically doing research. I learned about mushroom logs! I could grow something in the shady parts of the yard! Except that my family despises mushrooms!

Celebrating

There’s potentially a new project brewing. I won’t say more because I honestly do not know if it’s going to materialize. It would be amazing if it does, but also a ton of work. So I won’t be heartbroken if it doesn’t happen. I would regret the missed opportunity, though. More on that if it gets the green light.

Caring

After months of discussing the possibility, we finally have officially started playing a weekly campaign of Dungeons & Dragons on Monday nights. Michael and I are NOT D&Ders, but somehow all four of our kids love the game. We’ve been struggling to have Family Home Evenings for years, but suddenly it’s not difficult to gather everyone. Hopefully the trend continues.

I was subbing one day last week and one of the teachers actually asked me how our family’s new game night was going. Apparently my kids are really talking about it to anyone who will listen. Whatever works, right? Turns out it’s figuring out how to battle fantasy monsters in Steampunk Victorian England. Feel free to tell your friends.

Finished: Baking Doodle Cowl

March 8, 2024March 6, 20243 Comments

Details:

Pattern: Baking Doodle Cowl, by Jamie Lomax of Pacific Knit Co., the pattern is being released TODAY!

Yarn: Knit Picks’ “Wool of the Andes Sport”* in colorways Baltic Heather, Blossom Heather, Camel Heather, Chestnut, Papaya Heather, Turmeric, White & Wonderland Heather

Needles: US 4 & 5 16-inch circulars

Modifications: I knit my cowl a little taller than suggested by the pattern, simply because Ren and I couldn’t cut any of the five charts because we loved them so much. I don’t recommend doing this as it makes it hard to see the charts when you’re actually wearing the cowl. I also used duplicate stitch for the dark pink stitches on rows 18 and 19 of the stand mixer chart.

When the email showed up in my inbox letting me know that I’d been chosen to be a test knitter for this pattern, I was so thrilled! I’ve been watching Jamie create her whimsical designs for a couple of years now, and promised myself that I’d allow myself to sign up to test knit once grad school was over. When the baking-themed pattern was announced, I was so happy because it’s absolutely perfect for my dear Renaissance, who loves all things baking.

I really enjoyed creating this project because it was a combined effort with Renaissance. At first I thought I’d keep it secret, but then I was having a really hard time choosing a color palette because I didn’t want to end up picking colors she wouldn’t actually like, so I brought her into the fold and she gladly went about picking colors and charts.

A heads-up to anyone considering making one of these: There’s more than two colors per row in many of the charts. I can rip along with traditional fair isle/stranded knitting because it doesn’t have more than two colors per row, but throw that third color in and BAM, slows me down to a crawl. Something to consider if that sort of thing matters to you.

Another note: The stand mixer chart, due to the almost-intarsia color blocking, ends up really tight, so you’ll want to knit that one with extra loose floats.

Oh my goodness, this cowl makes me so happy. It’s adorable! Ren loves it too, and I’m definitely going to purchase some of Jamie’s other doodle collections to make up some of her other themed cowls in the future! (I’m especially eyeing the winter/Christmas one, and the arctic one.)

Thank you again, Jamie, for selecting me to test knit this for you, I had a great time with it!

Click here to see this project’s Ravelry page

*Affiliate link

Flare-ups Happen, It’s OK

March 1, 2024March 2, 2024Leave a comment

There’s not a lot to report for this week because I had to deal with a pain flare-up that required a visit to the emergency room early in the week and had me focused on pain management for a couple of days beyond that. The good news is that I started feeling better yesterday and even managed to tough it out and go to Renaissance and Nathaniel’s band concert, and I was even able to go into work today. Sigh. Take care of your backs, people. So many difficulties start to stem from an injury to your back.

Creativity

I always think I’m going to be able to make great strides in crafting when I’m down and out with a flare-up, but when I have to add pain meds to the mix I can’t craft at all, as crafting + pain meds never ends well. Seeing that I’m pattern testing for other people, I didn’t want to touch those projects and potentially derail them beyond repair. It’s something else when it’s only my time and materials on the line; I won’t risk others’ resources.

So I’m behind on my test knit for the Baking Doodle Cowl. It’s about 50% done. I’m planning to spend a chunk of time working on it some more over the weekend.

I haven’t touched anything else in the craft room, which is a major sad. I did receive some packages of new materials for some projects, but haven’t even opened them. Frustrating week!

Gardening

My little herb garden is now a jungle that will need some pruning over the weekend. I can’t believe how fast these plants are growing! Friendly note: Don’t be afraid to use dill. I cut the dill plant back to almost nothing last Sunday, it had replaced all that growth by Tuesday, and now on Friday it looks to be about three times larger than it was a week ago. I’ve always been so afraid to use my herb plants, but this little countertop experiment is teaching me a lot about the hardiness of these plants! The kids have been given total access to the herbs and are encouraged to decimate the plants for cooking. I’m almost to the point of wondering if we even could kill these plants through culinary usage? Could be a weird goal to set…ha ha ha.

The rhubarb is starting to unfurl legitimate leaves, so I believe I can start using it in a few weeks. I’ll make rhubarb crumbles, make some rhubarb marmalade, freeze some rhubarb for making Blubarb Jam during the summer, and I also saw a recipe on Pinterest for a vanilla rhubarb jelly that looks enticing. Which reminds me that I desperately need to clean out the pantry if I want to have any sort of room for canned goods this year. The pantry is a complete disaster. Oooh, I think I also have some sort of recipe for rhubarb-glazed pork medallions in a cookbook somewhere. I like cooking with rhubarb because it has the added bonus of deep cleaning any pot it’s cooked in. (Did you know it’s the secret ingredient in Bar Keeper’s Friend?) I started a Pinterest board for rhubarb recipes a couple of years ago if you’re looking for some rhubarb options in the coming months!

No sprouting from the sweet peas or peas that I’ve planted. I was supposed to plant another section of peas this week, so hopefully I’ll get to it over the weekend. I’m doing a big experiment with planting times and starting seeds this year, so we’re going to just keep our minds open and remain curious about how things work out with these seeds. I’d really like to establish a planting calendar that works specifically for our property, and the only way to do that is to start and experiment.

The started pansies and delphinium are doing…OK. I need to thin them out and they’re going through water really fast, which is tough to stay on top of. I had five delphinium sprouts two weeks ago, and now I only have two. I struggle to get this type of plant started. I’m going to start some more seeds over the weekend because I adore delphinium plants for their beautiful blue color and their unmatched ability to lend an “English cottage” vibe to the garden. I think I spend about $15-20 for each plant when I buy them from the nursery, so starting my own will save me a lot of money. AND they’re a perennial, so they come back every year! The last ones I had were back in Utah; I haven’t wanted to spend a chunk of cash on them here in Washington. They make me happy, so I’m reestablishing them in the garden this year.

Celebrating

I had to drop one of the parties the kids and I were thinking about doing because I really needed this last week to make progress on it, and that didn’t happen. I’ve made note of everything we were thinking of doing, and I’ll revisit it in the future. The girls still want to throw a spring tea party sometime in April or May, and that is still doable with our remaining time frame, so maybe I’ll just shift focus to that. Plans also need to be made regarding Renaissance’s graduation party, which will take place in June or July. I still have time to get going on that; I just need to remember that it’s out there so I don’t commit to anything that will conflict.

And that’s what happened this week. Some weeks don’t see a lot of forward progress, and that’s ok. The nice thing about a flare-up is that they tend to occur many weeks apart from each other, so I’m looking forward to a handful of really productive weeks!

And congratulations! We made it to March! It only gets better from here! More and more sunlight, we’ll just ignore Daylight Savings Time coming up in a bit, and more and more opportunities to be outside and enjoy the shift from cold to only slightly chilly! I hope you have a great weekend and wish you all the best as you embark upon a new, hopefully sunshine-filled month.

Baking Doodle Progress & Too Many Other Projects

February 23, 2024February 23, 2024Leave a comment

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.

I am using the “French Quarter” fabric collection from Maywood Studios, and it’s going to be a lovely blue-and-white quilt. I can’t wait for this to come together!

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!)

Baa-ble Hat

February 9, 2024Leave a comment

It’s a nice little gift to give oneself the experience of knitting up a quick little project that you’ve had your eye on for almost a decade. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed knitting this up, and I wish I’d made it sooner.

Details:

Pattern: Baa-ble Hat, by Donna Smith (Ravelry link)

Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed “Shelter” in colorways Sap, Iceberg, Snowbound, and Cast Iron

Needles: US 5 & 7 DPNs

Modifications: None, except that it doesn’t have a pom pom on it…yet? I tried my hand at pom pom-making and it did not go well. I might give it another go, but I may not. Time will tell.

Being a mother of many non-driving teenagers who are involved in many activities, lessons, and events, I have a lot of downtime where I am sittting in my van for 30-60 minutes at a time, multiple times throughout the day/week. I use to knit a lot during that time, but over the past few years I’ve been doing a lot more English paper piecing instead. However, I still love knitting and find myself mourning the lack of it in my life. Unfortunately, I generally realize I mourn it right around when the weather starts to warm up, and I don’t like to mix summer weather with wool, so my knitting productivity continued to languish.

The big change for this year was that I have adapted a different task-minding system that allows me to reliably jot down any thoughts I’d like to remind myself of in the future AND have those thoughts pop up in a way that I actually read them and can then implement them at the correct time during the year. I could not have survived grad school without it, and it also transfers to regular everyday life and crafting quite nicely. Case in point: At some point I thought to jot down the idea of using my EPP time for knitting time during the winter. And the reminder popped up to remind me around Christmas. So, now we’re knitting. Thank you, Past Cara.

I still just think it’s amazing that you can take string, wrap it around sticks just so, and then you get knitted fabric. It’s extra amazing that it’s portable and can fill the empty moments of one’s day and eventually reward you with an actual thing that you can then put to use for years. Phone scrolling, or a cute hat? I pick the latter.

A nice bonus when you’re the type of person to engage in portable crafting, is that you end up with memories attached to whatever it was you were working on. This particular hat boasts memories of Renaissance’s final go at the regional solo competition, where I worked on the ribbing for most of the day in a high school cafeteria as we awaited her and her friends’ next performances in front of the judges, waited impatiently for our Door Dash driver to deliver our pizzas, and Rachel began her own EPP project with my EPP kit when I got it out of the van to help her fill the hours. I am so thankful that our kids are involved with the music programs at their schools, and I’m also thankful for the awesome group of people that make up the music programs—the students themselves, their parents, the directors, and a school district that places high importance on musical education. I love our musical flock.

This project has been in the van and I’ve worked on it during the kids’ music lessons through January and February this year—music lessons that have us strategizing what and how Renaissance will audition for her college auditions in the coming weeks. I’ve mulled over the conversations we’ve been having before I parked—topics such as college choices, life skills, and reminiscing over the kids’ childhoods. My little flock is growing up so quickly and setting their sights on further pastures.I’ve literally knit sheep designs into this project as I contemplated what all these things mean for my flock in the next few months. How this hobby began with knitting baby hats for them, cute sweaters when they were preschoolers, shawls in elementary school, fingerless mittens in middle school…a few hats in high school, but they’ve lost a lot of interest in knitted things from Mom in the last couple of years. So imagine my surprise when, upon completion, I wet blocked this hat over a mixing bowl set atop a stool in front of the fan we have set up to circulate air through the kitchen…and every one of them squealed “Sheep!” when they saw it and most of them peeled it off of the mixing bowl and tried it on. And then declared themselves each the owner of the hat. It reminded me of the days when they were little, clamoring to try out any new thing I’d made. Some things have remained the same in the flock.