Judy and I are at it again

Dear Mom,
Judy Jetson ( my early 1960's Singer Slantomatic sewing machine- she just so Space-age) and I have teamed up once again, this time making tops for the Young Lady. Yes, actual clothing this time.
This latest project was fueled by a trip to the mall in the annual hunt for age appropriate school clothes. For me, a trip to the mall is an event in itself. It is no secret that I hate to shop. But it had to be done and I took a deep breath and cleared the day and off we went.
Our first stop was fruitful and we found a flattering plaid top that reminded me of tops Bonnie Jo, Wendy and I might have worn, tops that you would have sewn for us. The Young Lady loved it. I suggested to her that once we were done with the mall, that perhaps we could stop at the fabric store and find a pattern and fabric for tops just like this one and that is what we did.
The Young Lady was not so confident in my sewing skills and I informed her that I used to be good at it. "Then you started knitting", she replied. So, armed with the pattern, and enough plaid fabric (The Young Lady is into plaid right now)  for 5 tops (and Yes, the pressure was on!) I began. She must have been nervous, because I had several interruptions for progress reports. Hard to PROGRESS with interruptions. Yet, I acted more sure of the process than I felt and when the first top was completed, I actually got her out of bed to try it on. There would be no waiting til morning. I think we both slept better that night, knowing that the top fit, and that both of us were happy with how it turned out.

this is the first one

And no! I didn't match the plaids. I am sure Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. Roose are disappointed.

We decided the top needed a little more length, so top #2 is about 2 inches longer.

Aren't they cute? Simple, I know. But flattering. Three more to go.

Love,
Kim

p.s. School starts tomorrow. I didn't think I was ready until last week, when the calendar was suddenly filled with back-to-school obligations, schedules were picked up, we toured the building, found the classes, bought the school supplies and loaded them into the locker. I decided if we had to do all that, they might as well be AT SCHOOL. And while I dread that 6am alarm tomorrow morning, I am giddy with the anticipation of 7+ hours of Alone Time!

From My Kitchen

Dear Mom,
We hit the Farmers' Market on Friday and came home with 25 pounds (a bushel?) of fresh peaches.

Besides snacking on fresh peaches, we have baked 3 peach cobblers which we shared with friends and neighbors and 2 batches of baked peaches.  More cobblers, peach muffins and peach ice cream on the baking list soon!!

Peach Cobbler

4 cups peeled, sliced fresh peaches (approx. 6 peaches)

2 cups sugar, divided

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 1/2 cups milk

100% TLW

(TLW= Tender Loving Wendy, otherwise known as the cinnamon-sugar sprinkling for the top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the sliced peaches, 1 cup of sugar and water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and then simmer peaches for 10 minutes.  Remove from heat.

While the peaches are simmering, place butter in a 3-qt. casserole dish and place in oven to melt.

Mix remaining 1 cup sugar, flour and milk VERY SLOWLY (to prevent lumps).  Pour mixture over melted butter.  DO NOT STIR.  Pour fruit on top, gently pouring in syrup.  Sprinkle the top with TLW.  Batter will rise to top during baking.

Bake for approx. 45 minutes.

Serve warm with ice cream or fresh whipped cream!

(Especially good at about 2:30 in the afternoon)

Enjoy your lazy summer days!

Love,

Wendy

Doris, ii

Dear Mom,
With her secret compartments and her technical wizardry, Doris has been given a full name.  She is officially Doris Jane Moneypenny.  She does look rather like a KGB Russian Spy Car.
Doris for when I am a Mom, driving the children around in our day-to-day activities.  Jane Moneypenny for my undercover secret missions (without the children)!!

Love,
Wendy

Doris

Dear Mom,
It is no secret that Doris Day is one of my favorites of all time!  Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson?!  My favorite movie.  Ever.
It is also no secret that I am a lover of all things vintage.  I shop for vintage clothing, wear vintage jewelry, choose vintage over new--whatever, whenever--and I ride Grammie's bike every chance I get!!
So it should come as no surprise that when the family mini-van died a month ago, I didn't shed a tear.  And I didn't look for another mini-van.  I took my time.  And I found her.  Doris.

She is a 1977 Mercedes 280E.  Isn't she darling?
I have a trunk for my picnic basket and quilt!  The interior is brown leather to match the outside of the car and it has the original brown/green shag carpet on the floors!!  Immaculate condition!!  Ahhhhh -- it's love!  One of her most charming features?!  We have to unlock our doors the old fashioned way!  I have heard myself say with a giggle, "Slide over the seat and unlock the back door!"  But she is also fancy for her time--electric windows and an electric moon roof!  Like most things, her beauty is in her simplicity.

I think we were made for each other!
I can't wait to tie a scarf over my hair and drive over to visit!!
Love,
Wendy

Smokey

 Smokey 2001- 2010

Dear Mom,

Smokey, the former second grade classroom pet, who came to live with us during a teacher's one year leave of absence 5 years ago, passed away peacefully sometime during the wee hours on Wednesday, August 4th. While none of us is particularly surprised, (he was an old rabbit, after all) I think there was a part of each of us who thought he might defy the odds and hang around here a few more years. I even considered the possibility that he might just have to follow the Young Man to college.

Despite having lived his early years in a second grade classroom, or maybe because of them, Smokey was a gentle rabbit who was unafraid of just about everything, including Patsy. I won't miss cleaning out his cage, but I will miss that soft bunny.

And no, I didn't save any of his beautiful fur to spin. But I thought about it.

Love,

Kim

Happy Hatchday!

Dear Mom,

The girls are two years old today.

 "Happy Hatchday" to my feathered friends - Marge, Gloria and Golda!
Love, Bonnie Jo

Labels

Dear Mom,
Did you know you can do this? Because I didn't and now I do and I was so excited when I learned this I nearly had a headache from all the possibilities crowding into my brain.
There I was, quietly reading Lizzie's blog and admiring her quilt and the label she made. I left a comment admiring both and asked how she made her pretty label. Lizzie and I exchanged a couple of emails and Tah Dah! I made a little practice swatch, and even washed and dried it to make sure it was for real.
I am sharing it here, just because I think it is very exciting and I can't keep it contained. If you already know how to do this, skip to the end.
Now, in my defense, I already know about and have used those t-shirt transfers you can buy, print off your design or picture onto them, and then iron them on to ... t-shirts, or whatever. What I didn't know and what Lizzie very kindly shared with me, is that you can print RIGHT ONTO THE FABRIC!!!! Of course, here you are limited to a size and thickness that will fit through your printer, but still! This is how it is done. (Or how I did it anyway.)

Draw, sketch, print, write, whatever you want, onto a piece of paper. Hey....that makes me think of another possibility! I bet you could write on decorative paper....I'll have to try that next. Anyway. Draw your design, care instructions, etc. and set it aside. Then iron a piece of fabric onto freezer paper. I used cotton muslin for my experiment, but I think any fabric would work as long as it isn't too thick and not a stretchy knit. It should also probably be pre-washed. Put the fabric/freezer paper combo into your printer so that it will come out with the printing on the fabric side. In my printer, this means that I put the fabric side down when I load it into the tray. Put the paper with your drawing on it onto the scanner just like you would to make copies, and hit "copy". That's it! Well, except for peeling off the freezer paper afterwards. The fabric should feed through your printer and come out with your design on it. Lizzie suggests setting the ink by ironing the fabric, which I did and then, like I already said, I washed and dried the swatch just to make sure the ink would stay put.

Perfect for quilt labels like Lizzie's, but I can also imagine making care labels for my hand knits and sewing them onto a side seam or at the back of a collar. Then I thought how fun it would be to use this trick on a fabric pattern piece (here is where size would limit me) that has already been cut out for sewing and print a design onto it. And no way am I limited to black ink on a piece of muslin.....probably a good thing I didn't know about this during the bucket hat frenzy. If I get any more ideas and have time to test them out, I'll share them with you.

Love,
Kim

Better Late than Never

Dear Mom,
It was a little late getting finished, but Bonnie won't be able to wear her birthday sweater until it gets cold out anyway. I am very happy with how it turned out.
Here is Elle, modeling the sweater in my vegetable garden.

This is the Tea Leaves Cardigan, designed by Melissa LaBarre for Madelinetosh. I used Black Water Abbey Yarns, color Forest. This beautiful Irish wool was everything I was hoping it would be. I love a good hearty wool, and it got much softer after washing it. I suspect it will continue to soften with future washes. I made a few modifications to the pattern- placing four buttons in the yoke rather than two, and I added afterthought pockets because I thought the sweater would look nice with them and Bonnie told me she likes pockets when I asked.

I may have been as excited about the buttons as I was about the yarn. A long while ago I found these vintage Girl Scout Uniform buttons in an Etsy shop. I knew that one day they would be in a sweater for Bonnie and they've been waiting for the right sweater pattern and yarn to come together.

I placed them over a larger button to keep them secured in the buttonholes. The black buttons also serve to frame these special buttons with out attracting too much attention away from the sweater. I always find it a challenge to find buttons that compliment handknits. I want the buttons to be worthy of their place in the sweater, but not be the first thing you notice about it either. This could explain why I buy good buttons when I see them. (Plus, I just like buttons!)

Love,
Kim

p.s. Bonnie tried on the sweater and it fits perfectly.

This one is easy to figure out

Dear Mom,

With My Hero away for a few days on a family golf trip, and Bumper no longer able to jump up onto the bed, Patsy, smart enough to recognize a Good Thing when she sees it, has been keeping the other half of the bed warm these past few nights.

Last night I dreamt about a baby moose.

Love,

Kim

Unexplained

Dear Mom,
My kids, thankfully, are at an age that allows me to leave them home alone without too much worry. It is nice, on the rare occasions that I do some hygiene subbing for the dental office, that I can go to work and be reasonably certain that things will be fine.
On one of my work days last week, I came home to find this.

A scorched tea cosy.

A pretty obviously scorched tea cosy. Kinda hard not to notice, yet a week later, no one has stepped forward to explain just how the tea cosy that was fine when I left for work at 7:30 am, was looking like this when I got home at 5:30pm. Surely it isn't fear of punishment that is keeping the tongue tied; I am thankful that this is all that happened and whatever it was didn't burn the house down. And when I think about it, I am thoroughly amazed that the "innocent" party hasn't thrown his/her sister/brother under the bus.

Love,

Kim

Where the time went

Dear Mom,
Wooo. I feel like I sort of lost a couple of weeks. They were a busy 2 weeks, though. Family vacay, a side trip to Amish country, 2 noisy days of dental hygiene for the pedodontist and 2 birthdays will do that to a girl.

I am now living under the same roof with two teens. And My Hero begins his 6th decade.

Enough said. We will quickly move on. No good will come from dwelling on either of those facts.

We spent a week in South Haven, MI for the family vacation this year. We were joined by My Hero's brother, Eggbert, and his family. The house we shared was cosy, but just right. The guys played golf or tennis every day, we spent hours on the beach, and ate way too much food. I knit only a fraction of what I packed, but I did spend some good hours spinning.

I didn't, but should have lost weight. To get to the beach we had to negotiate these steps. There were 150 of them. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY STEPS. Not a problem on the way DOWN to the beach. But getting back? Let's just say we didn't want to forget anything, and on day 2, we decided to leave our beach chairs piled up in the sea grass until we packed to come home.

We found sea glass, skipped stones, built sand castles and buried the Young Man (at his request, and after he dug the hole).

Things were very relaxed.

 Don't be alarmed!!! These are candy cigarettes.

I visited 2 yarn shops and a fiber farm, and came home with more knitting projects than I had packed. A lot more. I wish I could buy time.

At Needle in a Haystack, in South Haven, I purchased the yarn and pattern for this shawl. I visited Lizzie Ann's Wool co. in Holland and found too many things.(I'll blame it on all the great shop samples they had.) That's the thing about visiting yarn shops. There is so much yarn and so many ideas, that no one shop can have it all. Visiting new shops gives a knitter the chance to see new things. Or new to her anyway. For example, The Grabbit is not a new pattern, but I had never seen it. Lizzie Ann's had a shop sample and the Young Lady and I were drawn to it immediately. It is one of those "why didn't I think of it?" things. So, I bought the pattern and yarn for it. I also brought home the yarn and pattern for this A-line tunic and this Rowan pattern book. I stopped myself before I bought any yarn to make the sweaters I want in this one. Like this one:

 and this one:

I also like this model's hair style.

My Hero drove me out to Marr Haven fiber farm, near Allegan, MI. and I brought home a couple of cones of her gorgeous wool and a bat for spinning.

Because, really, how could I not? I wish you could reach into your monitor and feel how soft this wool is.

We also sailed on the Friends Good Will, a replica of an 1810 schooner that fought in the War of 1812, was captured by the British, recaptured by the Americans and later burned by the British. It is the sloop that Admiral Perry refers to in his famous quote, "We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."

We were treated to some beautiful sunsets, warm water and sunny days.

There is no place like home, and despite everything good about our trip, I was ready to get back home. I am still catching up and need to get in gear before the in-laws arrive on Tuesday (TOMORROW!!!- trying not to panic now) for a short visit, and it is time to start thinking back to school- they start way too early, on August 10th, and I never thought I would say this, but I am NOT ready for them to go back.

Love,

Kim

Happy Birthday, Bonnie Jo!

Dear Mom,

As we were growing up there were lots of times I wished I didn't have a sister, or any siblings for that matter, but now I have to admit that being without Bonnie Jo would mean having no one to share early childhood memories. 

Minturn Lane and Ann, Mark and Evelyn and dressing up their cat, Ping Pong. Making perfume in Evelyn's bathroom. Loretta. Allison. And the Coulson's ( is that how you spell it?) next door. Cuddles and Ruddles. Making potholders. Riding in the Corvair on benches so we could see out the window and not get car sick. The goldfish- Herbie, Cindy and Jinks, and Salt and Pepper and the time Mom and Grandma had to get Herbie out of the tank cause he was wayyyy too big. Going to the circus and the time the clown kissed Mom. Riding in Grandma's yellow mustang convertible, Mary Sunshine, and walking on stilts at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Roller skating and skate keys. Having one tv- black and white- and watching Captain Kangaroo, and then a few years later, Not being Allowed to watch Dark Shadows after school. Getting a color tv and watching the moon walk. Exercising with Mom and Jack Lalanne. Dwarf when she was a puppy. Saddle shoes and watching the Indianapolis 500 parade at night and scuffing up the desk tops at Daddy's office where we sat to watch. Learning to snap our fingers. Bonnie learning to whistle, and me not. Ever. Picking dandelions for fish funerals. Running home for lunch from Evelyn's house to discover Bonnie had taken a bite out of the stick of butter. Harcourt Elementary. Going to doctor appointments with Mom and waiting for the twins to be born. Playing in our beds when we should have been sleeping and falling asleep while listening to albums Daddy played- Finian's Rainbow and Simon and Garfunkel come to mind. Playing in the "boat" next door, and right now I cannot remember their names, but the mom had long black hair and lots of boys- looking back now as a parent, that boat was genius- a crowd of kids all climbed in and and the grass was water and we dared not get out of the boat... and there we stayed for how long? til dinner?.... there were days I would wish for that boat when my kids were little. Playing dolls. The Twins flushing Tracy's dress. Moving to a new house and having to change schools and ride a new bus. Watching The Wizard of Oz and getting scared, and crying every time we watched Lassie -even choking up when we heard the theme song. Those were the days when Charlie Brown specials really were special.

It occurs to me that I have no memory of life before Bonnie Jo, and that having a sister so close in age makes those hazy memories of our Wonder Years more focused and real.  And I never would have believed it all those years ago, when I wished desperately to be an only child, but I am happy to be able to wish Bonnie Jo and Very Happy Birthday today.

Love, Kim

Vacation Plans

Dear Mom,
If there is room to pack 2 sets of these

and a bunch of these

then there should be no problem with this

and this

and this

and this

or especially this

.

Love,
Kim

Cover Girl

Dear Mom,
I interrupt my regularly scheduled  vacuuming to let you know that the September issue of Creative Knitting Magazine has arrived on my doorstep and yes, let me shout it our far and wide....THAT IS MY SWEATER DESIGN ON THE COVER!!!!!

For real.
Pinch me.
Lord, help me not to share the news with complete strangers in the grocery store, or camp out in the magazine section at Barnes and Noble. Amen.

Love,
Kim

The last thing I should be doing

Dear Mom,

Why is it that the very last thing you should be doing is exactly the thing you do???


Last 2 bucket hats. But I am not promising anything at this point. Moving Judy Jetson, my vintage "Slant-o-matic" Singer sewing machine, upstairs did not deter me.
This first hat is for a brother-in-law, who, after seeing the hats I made for his wife and daughter, dropped several not too subtle hints.

 And this next is for the Young Lady. She found some bandannas on our most recent visit to Hancock Fabric and asked for another hat.

I applied fusible interfacing to both bandannas to give the fabric a little more body. This hat has earned a spot on my favorite list. Who knew that two cheap bandannas and a bit of interfacing could turn into something this cute. And leave it to the Young Lady to see it.

Okay, now back to what I should be doing.

I hope.

Love,

Kim

Scratching the Itch

Dear Mom,

I have more bucket hats to show you.

this one may be my favorite

this is my least favorite- I used black burlap

This last batch has scratched the bucket hat itch. For now. I still want to make some wool hats with flannel lining for autumn, but for now I am letting my sewing machine rest.

Love,
Kim

It's gonna be loud

Dear Mom-

The Cul-de-sac Fourth of July Celebration Preparation started a couple of weeks ago.

And he has plenty of fuse.

Boys.

Love,

Kim