Layer Cake Crêpe Quilt, a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, made with "A Very Sweet Christmas" fabric collection designed by Bunny Hill Designs.

The Projects of 2025

December 31, 2025December 30, 2025Leave a comment

‘Tis the season for a wrap-up post! Let’s take a lookie-loo at what I was up to in 2025, shall we?

King David’s Crown Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop

First up in 2025 was a new pattern for Fat Quarter Shop’s “Classic and Vintage” series of patterns: King David’s Crown. I sewed it up in Corey Yoder’s “Cali & Co.” after falling in love with her choices for background fabrics in the collection. Which is odd, but whatever, the heart wants what the heart wants. I love this quilt so much! It’s so pretty!

King David’s Crown quilt pattern in Cali & Co. fabric, made by That Crafty Cara (Cara Brooke) for Fat Quarter Shop

Fish Friendship Bracelet for Rachel

I’m not sure I ever posted about this, but it happened. Rachel was helping me declutter my craft room and she came across my tattered collection of friendship bracelet instructions from my middle school days. As she flipped through them she saw the fish pattern and commented that it’d be cool to have, so I made one for her for her birthday. Not a big deal, project-wise, but it was fun to dust off that very, very old skillset.

Fish Friendship Bracelet made with orange and blue embroidery floss

Star Climber Scrap Quilt

This is still a project-in-progress, but I’m loving it. Star Climber is another free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, created especially for scrap-busting.

Stripey Christmas Socks

Started in 2024, but not finished in time for last year’s Christmas, so I got them done in February. I loved wearing these fabulous Christmas socks this Christmas season! I’m on the hunt for all the different Christmas colorways of this West Yorkshire Spinners’ Signature 4-ply yarn so I can own the entire holiday rainbow!

Handknit Christmas socks made with red, green, and white self-striping yarn.

Layer Cake Crêpe Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop

You never saw this, and neither did the rest of the quilting world because I shut down my blog in from May through September of this year, with the full intention of never coming back. I had a stalker in the last part of 2024 and was granted a restraining order that forbade him from making any contact with me for an entire year. However, in the spring I started seeing some activity in my analytics that suggested he might be checking up on me via the blog and it spooked me, so I made the decision to stop feeding the monster and walk away.

But it turns out that I really love blogging and sharing my creative endeavors on social media, and I resented that I had been forced out of the things I loved by that dude. After some serious therapeutic work, I made the decision to come back online in September because I don’t think it’s fair that I be expected to abandon what I love because of someone else’s poor behavior. It’s definitely a personal, multi-faceted choice, and I do worry that it might be a foolish one, but I don’t want to spend my life hiding my talents under a bush just because someone got weird about it all. How do you continue going on if, every time you get good at something, someone behaves dumb about it and you’re expected to quit your hobby because of their choices? It’s crazy. Nope, no thanks.

So, here it is for the first time ever, my Layer Cake Crêpe quilt:

I used the “A Very Sweet Christmas” collection by Bunny Hill Designs, along with Moda Bella Solids in Baby Pink (#9900-30). It’s a super fast pattern to put together because the blocks are HUGE. It’s available for free over on Fat Quarter Shop’s website. Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for our ten years (!) of working together on projects like this. I’ve really enjoyed it all.

Hemming Rachel’s Prom Dress

I know that hemming isn’t an interesting “project,” but I have to include it on my list of projects because SO MUCH OF MY CRAFTING TIME is taken up with hemming formal dresses for Rachel, and I forget that I did the hemming and then wonder what was up with my time management skills because I don’t seem to get any projects done these days. Except I do; it’s just that it’s tailoring and hemming ballgowns for my daughter.

Teenaged girl in her Cinderella-blue strapless prom dress in 2025.

Marching Band Uniform Repair

I just want an excuse to share this picture with you because I absolutely love it:

Band Mom mends a pair of drum major pants in the back of a truck en route to a parade

One of the drum majors’ pants split right before a parade, so they were tossed to me in the back of the band trailer truck bed and I sewed as fast as I could as we travelled down the back streets of whatever town we were in to get to our starting location for the parade. Ha ha ha, another mom snapped this photo and I was very quick to ask them to share it with me because I knew I’d love it. (Pants were completed just in-time!)

Patriotic Graduation Lei

I made a bunch of music-themed graduation leis in 2024 for my daughter and her band friends, and one of the parents reached out to me this year and asked if I could make one for her graduating daughter, but with American Flag ribbon. I was pleased with how it turned out.

Graduation RIbbon Lei made with maroon, gold, and American Flag-print ribbons

Smitten Quilt

All the individual blocks are pieced! I think I started this during 2020 Lockdown, so it’s been a slow and steady work. I started attaching the blocks into rows this summer, but it will probably take a long while before this quilt is actually done. I tend to only work on it in the summer.

"Smitten" English paper-pieced half hexagon quilt blocks, made with bright quilting fabric scraps

Fourth of July Pennant Banner

I’m realizing, between the patriotic graduation lei, my husband’s Christmas socks, and now this little banner, that I’ve done a lot of Americana-themed stuff this year. I threw this together one day in June because I was decorating for the upcoming holiday and wanted my mantel to be a little cuter, so it happened.

Fourth of July patriotic American fabric bunting made with red, white, and blue fabric scraps and red and white striped ribbon

Reading Nook Cottage Quilt

I briefly mentioned this as a possible crafty goal in 2024. I ordered the fabric while I was completing my Master’s degree back in…2023(?), promising myself that I’d make something nice for myself with it once I graduated. Well, I was busy when I graduated and then everything went crazy, so I didn’t get to actually working on it until the summer of 2025. It’s a pattern of my own design, but nothing special; anyone could reverse-engineer it pretty fast. It’s still a work-in-progress; I decided to set it aside so I could resume working on Ren’s Penguin quilt.

Cottage Quilt in progress, made with "Reading Nook" fabric collection in teal, orange, and purple fabrics

Penguin Parade Quilt

This is the quilt that never ends. I really thought 2025 was going to be the year, but alas, it was not. Fingers crossed for 2026!

Penguin Party quilt made with pastel plaid flannels

Hemming Rachel’s Homecoming Dress

Such a pretty dress, but I was sick while I hemmed it and when she went off to the dance, so I don’t really have any photos of it.

Hemming Rachel’s Daffodil Princess Selection Dress

Oh my gosh, I am sick of hemming formal dresses. I would so much rather make the entire dress than hem a store-bought one. Hemming the dress is the worst part, and Rachel does not enjoy the process of being fitted for a handmade dress, so I no longer get to experience the exciting parts of dressmaking, just the worst parts. Boo. (She did look so pretty in this dress at the Daffodil Princess Selection Ceremony, though! Still proud of her!)

Rachel Brooke, wearing a light pink formal gown, and her family at the Daffodil Princess selection ceremony

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler

I really enjoyed working on this. It is FINISHED, but awaiting framing. The frame has even been purchased, but between the Thanksgiving bout of COVID, the Montana funeral chaos and all the schedule upsets that accompanied the Epic Washington State Flooding in December, I haven’t yet gotten to framing it.

Peppermint Blossoms EPP

I think I’m going to scale down this project. I’m tired of it. It’s cute-ish, but I’m just not seeing a vision for it anymore.

Red, Green, and White Peppermint Blossoms English Paper Piecing Quilt units

Hubby’s Christmas Gift Socks: American Flag Socks

They turned out pretty amazing. He loves them! Such a fun yarn colorway, and I’m really enjoying throwing contrasting heels and toes onto self-striping yarn socks. If only I could remember to also do the cuff/ribbing in the contrasting color as well! It makes my heart happy to see another set of socks in his growing pile of gifted Christmas socks.

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger.

Knitted Christmas Ornaments

I started both the Wee Woolly Sheep and an Arne & Carlos Christmas Ball, but neither are complete due to the craziness of December. Hopefully I’ll pick them up again and finish them by Christmas 2026.

Wee Woolly Sheep knitted Ornament in-progress, made with gray and white yarn.

Arne & Carlos knit Christmas Ball in-progress, made with blue and white yarn.

Looking Ahead to 2026

I am really hoping to do more creating in 2026. 2025 was a tough year that was spent in a quasi-paralysis as I recovered from the complications of my 2024 surgery, the trauma of the stalker, and adjusting to some big life changes. I have high hopes for 2026 because, really, things should definitely trend upwards after all the weird upsets we’ve experienced recently. The law of averages works that way, right?

So, hopefully, part of the reason that 2026 will be better than 2025 is that I’ll do more creating in the craft room. Fingers crossed!

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger and royal blue contrasting heel made with Cascade Yarns Heritage yarn.

American Flag Socks: Michael’s Christmas Socks 2025

December 28, 2025December 26, 20251 Comment

It’s the first Sunday after Christmas, which means Michael’s wearing his brand new pair of socks to church for the first time. I made him a really great pair this year! He was completely surprised by them and has dubbed them his most favorite handknit socks EVER.

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple

Yarn: Journey Sock Yarn in colorway “Grand Old Flag” from The Painted Tiger, and Cascade Yarns Heritage in colorway #5636 “Sapphire” from Simply Socks Yarn Company. There’s a fair amount of each leftover, but I haven’t weighed anything to give you specific numbers. I also used two spools of Lang Reinforcement Thread #290, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: None beyond the contrasting heel and toe.

We were discussing his growing collection of handknit socks last year after he opened his 2024 pair, and he mentioned that it would be really cool to have some striped USA socks, but it would probably be really difficult to start and stop with the red and white yarns and how that was too much to ask of me. I tucked that little quip away in my note-keeping app and when it came time to decide what to make him for this year’s socks, I decided to take a quick look on the internet to see if some self-striping Americana yarn already existed out there. I happened upon The Painted Tiger’s version and bought it as fast as I could. So exciting!

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger with contrasting heels knit with Cascade Yarns Heritage sock yarn in royal blue.

You know you’ve done a good job when you’ve been knitting for over twenty years and your husband opens his present, after squeezing it and saying, “This feels like socks,” and exclaims, “WHOA! Did you make these?!?!” He was so pleased with the colorway! I’m really happy with his enjoyment of how they look already!

I don’t know if I can top these ever. I’m not too worried about it at the moment; it’s just been great to listen to him fawn over this pair. Merry Christmas, my love.

Note: These socks were originally given the code name of “Cherry Twilight Socks” as I worked on them earlier in the year so I didn’t give away their very distinctive design feature. All posts tagged as “Cherry Twilight Socks” have been updated with the “American Flag Socks” tag.

Sleeves and bottom ribbing of a handknit yoked colorwork sweater, made with gray, aqua, and white yarn.

Finding Color in a Bleak Week: A Love Letter to a Local Yarn Shop

December 22, 2025December 24, 20251 Comment

As previously mentioned, our family has spent the last few weeks dealing with the passing of Michael’s stepfather, Carl. This required two separate trips back and forth to eastern Montana amidst both rainstorms and flooding in Washington and snowstorms and ice-covered roads in Montana.

As one would expect, I looked at these upcoming fourteen-hour long drives and immediately began planning a creative project or two to work on. I find knitting to be my best “in a moving vehicle” project, so on the first trip out I packed both my Wee Woolly Sheep Ornament in-progress, and the materials to start making some Fair Isle Christmas ball ornaments. It turned out that I was too keyed up and stressed to be able to work on those projects, so no real progress was made.

Wee Woolly Sheep is a fiddly pattern, the Fair Isle Christmas balls are too chart-heavy…neither is good for truck knitting.

We had to make another trip back for the actual funeral, so I decided to pack something easy to work on: The Better Days Sweater, which I started at some point during the COVID shutdowns. It’s at the point where I just have to work the body of the sweater in plain stockinette stitch, so I figured I could handle that in the truck.

Well, I could have if I had had the correct size of needles. #strikeone

And if I hadn’t cast on only enough stitches to fit a child’s torso. #striketwo

Derailed further by the fact that the sleeves are long enough for an adult, but with a number of stitches cast on for a kindergartener. #strikethree

“No worries,” I told myself, “I’ll just find a local yarn shop in Billings and buy some new needles and then take care of business.”

The closest yarn shop to our hotel in Billings was Yarn Bar, so we set out for it amongst the ice and snow. Rachel accompanied me into the shop and we both stopped in our tracks upon entering because it was so beautiful. Shelf upon shelf of rainbow hues and tweedy goodness, all brightly lit and displayed with obvious care. A rack of knitted baby sweater samples to stroke, cute hats on mannequins. Fun and happy colors everywhere you looked.

After all the stress of travelling, all the care and worry about the funeral preparations, all the anxiety over the weather…I walked into a yarny wonderland and felt all my troubles lift for just a little bit. It was a sorely needed balm of color and joy that warmed my heart and stoked the embers of inspiration that have been lying too ashen and neglected for too long. I could have sat in that shop all day.

I was responsible and only bought the needles I had planned to buy, but I really wanted to take a lot of their tweedy yarns home, and I spied another Christmas colorway of the West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply that I made my Stripey Christmas Socks with earlier this year. I might have to go and order that after the holidays in preparation for next Christmas.

It was such a warm and inviting space to visit, I absolutely loved it and wish I lived closer so I could frequent it often. It had a lot of the same feel as the now-closed Churchmouse Yarns Bainbridge Island location and the old Black Sheep Wool Company in Salt Lake City before it was transferred to new ownership. I love that homey, traditional ambiance of those types of yarn stores. It’s the traditional wools, tweeds, and good old-fashioned colorwork patterns that really do it for me, knitting-wise. There’s just not a lot of stores that go in that direction anymore.

I was so glad to have had the experience of stopping by Yarn Bar and feeding my soul with all that color and those yummy yarn vibes. I wish I’d taken pictures of the shop, but Michael was circling the block while I completed my quick errand, so I had to hurry away. Oh, it made me so sad to leave that beautiful place, but I kept that feeling of happiness-in-color in my heart as we traversed the blue and icy Montana landscape for the rest of the weekend and on the long journey home. I have new ideas in my head for some really pretty projects that I can hopefully get going on after the holidays.

How good it is to be creative souls that, in the midst of bleak weeks and stressful moments, can just pop into a shop for a moment to be soothed by the materials and tools that we work with to create our art. Such a blessing.

Which is more than I can say for my attempts to resurrect my Better Days Sweater. Truck-ice-skating down the freeway hampered my desire to knit, so I gave up on the idea for the trip home. Now that I’m firmly situated on a stable surface, I’ll be picking it back up soon.

Snowy winter view of the Rockvale Cemetery in Montana

“I Don’t Like Playing this Game!”

December 19, 2025December 24, 20253 Comments

We received news that my husband’s stepfather, Carl, passed away in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. He’d been put on hospice care in the late summer, so it wasn’t surprising news per se, but still sad. I was battling COVID at the time, and the decision was made that Michael and I would drive out to Montana to keep his mother company until other siblings could arrive. We pushed our departure date back over and over in order to give me more time to recover from the dreaded virus, and when I was finally feeling well enough to travel, we headed out.

Once in Montana, Michael jumped into working remotely, which left me to hang out with his mother. She asked if I would help write the obituary for her husband, to which I said yes, and once that task was completed we turned our attentions to planning out the actual funeral. It was rather enjoyable, weirdly enough. I did a quick search for an LDS funeral program outline, chose this one to work with, and then we just filled in the blanks. I got to listen to my mother-in-law recount stories of her beloved, and explain the relationships and funny back stories of the people that she was asking to participate in Carl’s funeral. We wrangled Michael away from work to go out for lunch and run errands in the ice, and it was a really comforting experience to do all that together.

We had left the kids at home because Renaissance is a fully-functioning adult with a job and we figured that Rachel and Nathaniel could be trusted to get dressed and get on the bus to school all by themselves. So, of course, many things that could go wrong tried to go wrong. Renaissance’s car alternator died on her first drive into work, but she phoned a friend to come pick her up from the side of the road where she waited for the tow truck to arrive. Two days later, after she drove my car to work, she came out at lunch to find it had a flat tire. Co-workers helped her change it and she took care of getting everything repaired that night after work. Nathaniel fell asleep on the bus on his way home from school the next afternoon and missed his stop, so he ended up at one of the elementary schools. As luck would have it, I have a friend who works there and a few texts later he had a ride home once the elementary school got out for the day. Rachel did pretty well; but you could tell in her voice that it was a stressful experience for her. When Michael and I returned home a week later, we were met by tired kids who took a couple of days to look like they were comfortable in their own skins again. It was an interesting experience.

The funeral was scheduled to take place the next weekend, so we loaded everyone up in the truck and headed back out to Montana again amongst all the chaos that was the start of that crazy Pineapple Express that flooded Washington State. We had to detour off the main highway at one point due to a mudslide, and we later found out that the road workers we saw putting pilons on another highway we drove were closing the highway right behind us. We barely got through. Upon getting closer to Billings, we encountered a pretty good snowstorm that had us slipping and sliding a few times. We arrived at the hotel frazzled and exhausted. It’s a fourteen-hour drive in good weather and we still made good time, but it felt incredibly perilous throughout the journey.

The Brooke Family in their truck on the drive to Montana for a funeral in winter

All of Michael’s siblings came to Montana for the funeral, so it was nice to connect with them again for the first time in over a decade. They’re scattered around the country with families of their own, so it’s hard to meet up. I think Michael has seen them a few times over the years, but with my back being so bad I don’t do a lot of travelling, so I think it’d been fifteen years since I’d seen most of them last. It’s weird how life has moved on for all of us; we’re all parents of teenagers and adults now. Last time we were together all those kids were mostly toddlers. Life marches on.

Western Cowboy Funeral Flower spray with cowboy hat and rope/lariat at a Montana funeral

The funeral itself went really well; we had beautiful flowers and a lovely program arranged. The urn was really lovely, too. It would feel weird to post a picture of it, but if you’re in the market for a custom engraved wooden urn, I recommend Wooden Box Company.

As sad as funerals are, I really do enjoy them for the stories of how the departed tried their best and what memories the survivors are going to cherish as they move into the future. I always walk away from a funeral inspired to be a better version of myself. I also walked away from this funeral with painfully cold toes because I totally spaced the reality of what a graveyard in Montana would be like in December. Michael’s uncle from Alaska walked ahead of me and packed down the snow so it wouldn’t spill into my dress shoes. (It’s the little things.)

Rachel Brooke at a winter funeral in Montana

We hit the road the next morning, skating our way across I-90 through Montana. At one point we were sliding at a good speed down the freeway, diagonally, and Nathaniel yelled out, “I don’t like playing this game!” That is now our family’s new thing to yell out when things aren’t going our way.

We left the snow and ice in Montana to return to the rain and floods in Washington. Goodness gracious, what a wild handful of weeks. As luck would have it, the two days of school that the kids missed to travel to the funeral were cancelled on account of the flooding, so they had no homework to make up upon their return. And then school was cancelled another day this week due to a huge tree coming down across the main road to the high school, and it’s been a smattering of two-hour late starts on other days. Absolute chaos.

We’re lucky though; we’re not down in the valleys so our home is at no risk for flooding. Michael’s commute has been two to three times longer than usual this week due to flooding and closed roads, so he’s absolutely exhausted. I’m really looking forward to the quiet of Christmas Break so that all of us can relax at home and recover from all of this. It’s been four weeks of non-stop upheaval and stress. Whew!

And now I’m fitting all of our Christmas activities and festivities into one week. Wish me luck!

#craftygoals: December 2025

December 4, 2025December 4, 20251 Comment

Debrief: November 2025 #craftygoals:

Daffodil Princess Dress: The dress was altered and hemmed in time. Rachel looked so beautiful! Nathaniel was her escort and I was so proud of the two of them working together. Rachel wasn’t selected as Daffodil Princess, but she says she learned a lot about public speaking and the like, and she really enjoyed “princess lessons,” so the net sum of the experience is positive overall.
Penguin Party Quilt: I attached the bottoms sashing to two rows before deciding that I really do need to take some growth/width out of the penguin block rows to get them to fit the sashing strips better. Life has been an absolute carnival with Daffodil Princess prep, the school district K-12 musical, battling COVID for the second time this year, and Thanksgiving, so I’ve not got back to working on this since then.
Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: No progress
Woolly Wee Sheep Ornament(s): I started one! It’s a finicky pattern, but I’d say I’m about 2/3 done with it.
Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: Haven’t done anything with it since finishing the stitching. I have the frame for it in possession and just need to do all the things you do to frame an embroidery piece.

December 2025 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: I blasted through finishing up the stitching for this so I could display it this year, so I better get it framed!

Wee Woolly Sheep Ornament(s): They’re meant to go on the tree so I need to finish them.

Fair Isle Christmas Balls: I was on a bit of a kick with planning the Wee Woolly Sheep Ornaments and decided to go all in on knitted ornaments, so I bought the books and yarn to make some Fair Isle ornaments, too. Hopefully I can get at least one done!

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

Penguin Party Quilt: Fixing the width of the rows and hopefully finishing this top!
Say-It Sew Along: Lori Holt has designed the cutest seasonal banners to go along with the release of her newest fabric collection, “TYPE/ography,” and I want to sew along! She released the instructions for the “Merry Christmas” and “Let It Snow” banners at the end of November and I’d really like to make them.
Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: I’d be lucky to get to work on this in December, but I’ll put it on the list anyway.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: No plans for anything this month.

Knitting: The above-mentioned Christmas ornaments.

Embroidery: No plans for anything this month.

There’s so much going on in our lives in December, so I’m not optimistic about how much progress I can make on crafty things, but it’s better to have a plan just in case, rather than finding myself with some free time and no idea what to make when I finally disturb the cobwebs in the craft room!

Happy December to you all, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and hopefully I’ll be able to report back with some beautiful progress on some feel-good projects that elicit those wonderful Christmas-y heartwarmings that we’re all in search of in the darkest month of the year! Drink your cocoa and play your happy music!

That Crafty Cara's Crafty Goals for the month

#craftygoals: November 2025

November 14, 2025Leave a comment

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that we’re halfway through the month, but it’s better to do the thing late than to not do the thing at all. And I really do love to read through my #craftygoals posts years later, so here we go.

Debrief: October 2025 #craftygoals:

Penguin Party Quilt: Coming along well. Really thought I’d have the top done by now, but life keeps interrupting. Life be like that.
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: Ha ha ha. I think I’m getting too old to have multiple projects in-progress anymore. I don’t think I even literally touched this quilt once.
Peppermint Blossoms EPP quilt: Some progress made, but I need to be honest with myself and admit that I’m just not feeling this anymore, so I should probably set it aside or figure out a way to make something from what I’ve already got prepared, like a pillow or table runner or something like that.
Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: This was not done at the end of October, but it’s done now!

November 2025 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Daffodil Princess Dress: Rachel is running for Daffodil Princess this year, and the selection ceremony is coming up. As such, she needs a dress for it, which we have secured and, SHOCKING, it needs hemming. All I do is hem formal dresses for this kid! Ugh. It’s a very pretty dress, though, so at least I’m working on pretty things. It’d be torture if they were ugly dresses. And this dress doesn’t have five skirts like that one prom dress at one point. That was pretty torturous, that one. So, hemming…STAT.

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

Penguin Party Quilt: So close. Really, really hoping the top is done and I’ve got this bad boy in the mail to the quilter by the end of the month.
Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: Prewash the fabric, maybe get some of the cutting done? I don’t know if I’m going to make it to working on this quilt in November.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: I don’t know what I want to do here. I might take a break and focus on knitting instead.

Knitting: I want to knit some Christmas tree ornaments. I cast on a Churchmouse Woolly Wee Sheep today, so I think I’ll focus on making those for the next couple of weeks.

Embroidery: Get the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler framed.

There’s not a lot of November left, and Christmas prep is surging forward, so we’ll see how much we get done on these goals! Wish me luck!

Nathaniel Brooke of White River High School smiles with his parents after completing a cross country meet in 2025

The Beautiful Side of the Storm: Learning to Slow Down and Stitch Through the Chaos

November 9, 2025November 9, 20254 Comments

Following that wild storm that knocked out the power for a bit, these past couple of weeks have continued in the same vein. More storms, more (tiny) power outages, more craziness of getting kids to their activities, more, more, more, more. As the rain pelted me whenever I stepped outside, as the rain drums on the minivan’s roof, as the rain turns every cross-country course into mud soup, as the rain and wind tease my hair into a Halloween-worthy work of art befitting the season. Wind, rain, driving, rushing, tensing at every time the lights flicker. More, more, more, more. The urge to get ready for a fight-or-flight situation has been my constant companion as we steel ourselves against the weather and flurry of events.

And it’s completely the wrong waiting phase for these kinds of moments. Being on edge doesn’t protect against the storms. Hyper-vigilance doesn’t make my kids finish their races faster or score higher games. Stress doesn’t equal success.

Something I figured out when the kids were younger, that still applies today, is this: Slow is fast, and fast is slow. Which I’ve expanded in recent years to: Peaceful is winning, stressful is losing. Which sounds harsh but hear me out: I have always known that I can achieve anything. Doesn’t matter what it is or how impossible it may seem, I can figure it out. When I was considering getting my master’s degree a few years ago, I wasn’t worried about succeeding because I knew I could do it. Full stop. Make a plan and work the plan. It’s not rocket science.

However, as I’ve been getting older, I’ve started to realize that living in a constantly fearful state of hyperarousal isn’t enjoyable. I used to be proud of being super busy and getting lots of stuff done, but the other side of that productivity was that things were almost always stressful in my personal life. Cooking dinner at the end of the day while being overstimulated from doing too much is torturous. Orchestrating a carpool schedule that only has five-minute leniency windows seems impressive until you’re actually living it in real life and get stuck behind a tractor on the highway. Go, go, go, more, more, more, not enough, not enough, not enough.

Which almost always leads to a shortened temper. Snapping at the kids. Rolling my eyes towards the heavens at yet another inconvenience. Numbing out on the couch after dinner because my brain cannot handle computing another thought after feeling like I’ve been doing all the thinking for five people’s welfare, and logistics for various organizations, all day long. Too much, too much, too much. The choices that led to that sort of stress are choices to lose at the experience of life. No one wants those outcomes. Why am I making the choices that regularly result in these stressful moments?

Enter: The Beautiful Side of the Autumn Storm Season.

Enter: Being forced to cancel plans, sit in the darkness, exist without the hum of the millions of appliances in your house (for a little while…), and to exercise patience. That moment when you know there is nothing you can do to change the outcome of the inconvenience in front of you, and you surrender to the moment.

And it’s really nice.

And you wonder why you don’t approach life like this all the time.

The invitation to pause. To wait. To trust the process. The invitation to believe that it’s all going to work out fine in the end and knowing that it’s true because you’ve done this a few times before already.

So, I’ve decided to carry that feeling in my heart a little more consciously, and it has really helped calm that always anxious feeling that is synonymous with what it feels like to be inside my head most days. Maybe it’s a season for patience. You’re doing enough. Sink into what’s already going on and don’t worry about adding more.

With that in mind, I’ve spent some quality time with my holiday hand embroidery project, the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler, and I’m pleased to report that the stitching is complete! I’m now waiting for the frame to be delivered to my house so I can frame it up. The fate of the timing of this project’s total completion is happily surrendered into the hands of the delivery people who will bring it to my door someday. No amount of worrying and fretting will make that go any faster. Get cozy with this “almost done but not quite yet” feeling, it’s going to be our best friend for the next while.

Penguin Party Christmas quilt in progress, made with plaid flannels in a cool-toned color palette with aqua snowflake background

I’ve also spent time working on my daughter’s Christmas quilt, the Penguin Party quilt, and it’s also getting near completion. The blocks are all completely done and the vertical sashing between them has been attached. I’ve cut all the horizontal sashing and have attached one of them to one row. I have run into more issues with the flannel stretching and it is very frustrating. I think I may have to accept that there will be some gathers in the vertical sashing pieces to get them to fit on the horizontal sashing pieces. Or let the gathers happen on the penguin tummies to give the illusion of fuller bellies? I don’t know, but it’s definitely an issue.

A thought just occurred to me that I could unpick a vertical sashing or two and just turn the penguin parades into less of a grid by eliminating the excess through removal of vertical sashing pieces. I don’t want to do that, but I think it’ll be way better than gathering/pleats in the top. We’ll just call it a design feature. That might be my solution going forward unless some of you have some other ideas. I’m all ears. There is no extra fabric to cut longer horizontal sashing, or I’d just do that.

Regardless of which way I go forward, in the end it will be fine. No need for anxiety.

I talked with Renaissance about whether I should quilt it or if I should send it out and we’ve decided to send it out for quilting. Which means it won’t be finished for this year’s Christmas, but when you zoom out for some perspective, then it isn’t a big concern. By sending it out it will end up with prettier quilting, and I can start working on Rachel’s Christmas quilt this year, too, which will be appreciated. These quilts won’t be done in time for this year, but they’ll be done for the rest of the Christmases. No need for anxiety. It’s enough.

I’m not running a race or trying to win at some game. I’m enjoying my hobby and using my free time to create beautiful things for my children. The timing is fine.

Speaking of timing, I also went to my first quilt guild meeting since the beginning of the pandemic. I was entrenched in grad school craziness when they started meeting again, and then I was busy with the kids being teenagers, so I haven’t had space for that until now. Some of the women even remembered me, so that was nice. It felt good to be in a room with like-minded folks, and I’m looking forward to future meetings. I’m trying to remember patience and actively resist the urge to sign up or volunteer to help with anything until I’ve been going for a few months, or even a year. It’s not a race and there’s no game to win. It all waited for me to be ready to return, and it will keep being available regardless of my role/non-role.

So, I’m just going to hunker down and keep stitching. The quilts will get finished and the embroidery will be framed, and we’ll enjoy them for decades afterwards. It’s all enough. The pace is enough. No need for anxiety. Sit down with that cup of cocoa and listen to the rain and enjoy it. It’s a beautiful season of life if you allow it to be. Storms pass, seeds germinate, beauty blooms…all in their own time.

Let’s decide to enjoy this stormy part for its storms and learn from the lessons that those storms offer. Less is more. Pursue the peaceful options when you can.

Linking Up with:

Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy’s Quilts

Smitten English-paper-pieced quilt illuminated by the glow of a fire during a power outage during a windstorm in Washington State

Windstorm Aftermath

October 27, 2025October 27, 20252 Comments

I mentioned, in Friday’s post, that we were experiencing some rain and that I was hoping for more rain that wouldn’t knock out the power so I could have more time to sew on the Penguin Party quilt.

I got half of my wish.

Saturday was a really big sports day for the kids with Nathaniel running in the League Cross Country meet and Rachel participating in the Unified Bowling Tournament. We left the house at 6:30 am and didn’t get back until after 3:00pm, all while battling pouring rain and gusts of wind that had us literally leaning forward over our toes to stay upright. I tried to talk our family out of going to the church Halloween party that night on account of the weather, but everyone thought I was being overly anxious and pooh-poohed my concerns.

The Brookelets in their costumes for the 2025 church Halloween party: Two witches and a pink party boy — *Nathaniel asked Rachel to help him come up with a costume fifteen minutes before we left, so she outfitted him with odds-and-ends from her camp counselor costume trunk!*

Our power went out around 5:00pm. The power was still on at the church, and teaser photos on social media showed the promise of a banger of a party, so the fam insisted we head out to enjoy it. The road into town was a warzone of leaves and downed tree limbs that elicited quite a few gasps from us as we drove by, and the drive home treated us to a traffic backup on the highway as the police diverted us around an accident that was in the midst of towing a car out of the ditch. The rain continued on, the wind gusts picked up and our entire area lost power around 10:00pm.

Black light photo of teenage boy from church Halloween party

Power still wasn’t on in the morning, so Michael went into Super Generator Man mode and had us set up by 5:30am with all the extension cords our hearts could desire. Each year he invests in another piece of “Power Outage Kit” to make our lives a little easier during power outages and this year’s investment was a very nice, very long extension cord that he snaked through my second floor craft room window so that I could still sew and iron to my heart’s content AND supplies power to the internet router. True love, right there. All the bases covered with one simple extension cord!

Extension cord running into a craft room during a power outage in order to power sewing machines and irons

Unfortunately, I didn’t do any sewing because I was simply too tired from all the running around the day before, the stress of the power outage, and the lack of sleep from how loud the rain and wind were throughout the night. So, yes, I got half of my wish and I really could have gotten my full wish had I not been exhausted. I guess, in the future, I also need to hope for the energy to sew…silly me!

We Brookes decided to power through the last bit of our goal to watch all the Harry Potter movies before Halloween, and so we did that once we found out that the church didn’t have power and services were cancelled. It was a very chill day. I got out my Christmas Alphabet embroidery sampler at one point, but the mental load of trying to work on it was also too much so I just put it away and rested.

Power came on around 4:30pm for us, while our friends were without power until late this morning. I’ve been running around attempting to catch chores and the like back up to pre-storm conditions and restocking our groceries. So, no sewing over the weekend AT ALL. Oh well.

Looking ahead for the week:

I’m hoping to make A LOT of progress on the Penguin quilt. Maybe even to the point of ignoring all my other projects-in-progress. Ride the wave of motivation, right?

I’ve made a lot of progress on the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler in recent weeks, but might set it aside in favor of working on the Penguin quilt. If I can stand, I’ll work on the Penguin quilt. If standing is difficult/my back is hurting, I’ll work on the embroidery sampler.

I am tiring of my Peppermint Blossoms EPP quilt, mostly because I’m wishing I’d worked on an autumn/Halloween project over the last couple of months. I’m wondering if having different, seasonal, EPP projects in-progress might work best for my interest cycles in the future? Or maybe I’m not as in love with Peppermint Blossoms as I thought I’d be and it should be scaled back to a smaller finished project? Or maybe I’ve been working on it for two years with very little progress and I’m just fed up with it? Thinking on those ideas at the moment.

It is so weird that this is the last week of October. Next week is the doorway to the Christmas season, y’all! (I’m a Christmas junkie; it starts on November 2nd for me.) It doesn’t even really feel like it’s time for Halloween yet, how can we already be nearly at Thanksgiving and Christmas, too?!?!

In-progress Penguin Party quilt blocks made from pastel plaid flannel fabrics

The Penguins March on in October

October 24, 2025October 27, 20253 Comments

It is a stormy, stormy afternoon here in Western Washington; our first big storm of the season is moving in and it is drenching everything thoroughly. The leaves are being dumped to the ground by the torrents of rain, and the deafening drumming on the roof is drowning out all else.

In other words, it’s lovely!

Such beautiful, get-cozy-with-some-knitting weather.

Raindrops dripping from green fern leaves in an autumn rainstorm

Unfortunately, I don’t have any knitting in sight because the bug hasn’t bitten until now, so I might spend some time in the next few days figuring out my next yarn-related move. I am eyeing my Fair Isle technique books with the hope that maybe I can start working on my Better Days Ahead Sweater once again.

I have been working feverishly on Renaissance’s Christmas quilt this week and am so very pleased to announce that the penguin bodies are all complete! Yay!

Penguin Party quilt made with cool color palette of flannel fabrics

I still wish I hadn’t decided to make this in flannel because the material is not fun to work with due to its super-unravelling properties and unexpected amount of stretch in the fabric. Those two attributes make for difficulties in all the piecing involved in these blocks. But oh…this quilt is going to be EPIC COZY.

I’ve added another row to the pattern so it can be twin-sized instead of lap-sized. Ren and I are both wishing I’d gone with a more “Christmas”-leaning color palette, but then we both shrug our shoulders because we thought we were being incredibly clever with the icy arctic color palette, and you couldn’t have talked us out of it if you tried. I mean, if it really bothers me I can maybe just possibly make another more-Christmas-color-palette quilt for her in the future.

No work on other quilts this week because I’ve just got a bee in my bonnet about getting this one done so I can get Rachel’s done as well for this year’s Christmas. Fingers crossed for more stormy weather (that doesn’t knock the power out!) that will avail me of more cozy afternoons piecing penguins together in my warm, wonderful craft room.

It’s such a great time of year. I hope the weather is allowing each of you your best crafty life as well!

Linking up with:

English Paper Piecing quilt blocks that look like red, green, and white peppermint candy discs

Christmas Stitching in October

October 19, 2025October 25, 20253 Comments

I’ve written a little bit about the Peppermint Blossoms EPP Quilt and the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler, but haven’t shared any actual info or pictures about them. We shall remedy that today!

Meet the Peppermint Blossoms EPP Quilt:

This one’s going to take a very long time. I spent some time in the past week figuring out numbers for it and I think I’m going to end up needing 50 full blossoms and 10 half blossoms, plus whatever insane number of background triangles and diamonds that I’ll math out later. As of today, I have 8 red blossoms and 7 green blossoms complete. Only 35 to go…

This project is my current crafting-in-the-van project that gets worked on whenever I’m waiting for kids’ practices to get over and when I’m sitting at church during Mutual because I don’t want to drive back home just to turn around half an hour later to come back and pick them up. Progress is slow on this, but I can usually knock out a full blossom a week now that I’m working on it during Mutual.

I also need to cut out more white jewel pieces for this quilt—113 more, actually. Yikes.

And here’s the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler:

The Ziploc bag that it’s stored in says it’s from ~2005, so this project is pretty ancient. I think I bought the pattern shortly after we bought our first home and before I got pregnant with Renaissance. I was leaning towards a primitive and folksy decor look, but decided later that it really wasn’t for me. (That, and my house was decorated in “homeschooling chic” out of necessity for the stage of life we were in, lol.)

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery sampler in rustic colors

I’ve been granting myself some “Whimsical Days” each month to work ahead on upcoming holidays and celebrations when my heart desires it, and I found myself wishing I had a slow stitching Christmas project to pick up on my Christmas days, so I unearthed this and have been putting in work on it while watching movies. I’m not worried about when this will be finished; it’s just fun to work on. Maybe it’ll be ready for this year’s Christmas, maybe it won’t.

But I like to keep track of progress, so this guy is at 12 blocks out of 26, which is ~46%, and we’ll subtract 5% from that to account for the border that will need to be stitched at the end, so 41% done.

"Yuletime" #210 Alphabet Stitches embroidery sampler, pattern by Once Upon a Vine (Kim Goodrich), stitched in primitive and folk colors of DMC embroidery floss

And I just noticed that the pattern itself has a 2006 copyright, so I imagine I actually started working on this in 2006. I do love that fabric and yarn will wait for you!

Hopefully you’re able to find some slow stitching time on this beautiful Sunday! The weather is blustery here and so perfect for some down time with needle and thread.

Linking up with: