Monday

Dear Mom,
It is nearly noon on Monday as I write this. I am puttering, still in my jammies (but wearing an apron!) and because I've crossed many things off my To Do list, I am rewarding myself with a fresh pot of tea and some blog catch up time. We had a busy weekend and sitting here in my quiet house feels good.

It is that time of year when keeping on top of the outside and inside work is overwhelming and feels impossible. We've had a string of wet, humid days and yesterday, even though I knew Olive would be tracking wet paw prints in, I could stand the condition of the kitchen floor no longer and mopped it. I think it took at least an hour to dry. I know it is cleaner that it was yesterday, but it looks like a floor that dried in puddles and prints.

The busy weekend really started on Friday. I taught my knitting class on Friday morning, got home in time to take Olive to an appointment for laser therapy on her elbows, then picked you and your garden tiller up on the way home (scaring Olive with the tiller handles hanging over the back seat). We dropped off the tiller, headed to The French Seam to take advantage of their Birthday Sale- I got fabric for another Factory Dress and buttons for a sweater- and then home to till up the garden.
Knowing that rain was coming, I did manage to get the vegetable garden planted on Friday evening. I was a sweat-soaked, limp rag when I finished. My glasses were sliding down my nose, sweat was dripping in my eyes and when I showered, my clothes peeled off in twisted clumps.
Carrying on with my 'Keep it Simple' approach, I only planted tomatoes and green beans this year. In March I planted potatoes in big containers and added cabbage on top, knowing the cabbages will be harvested before the potatoes are ready.

After all that I should have fallen asleep as soon as I sat down. I must have been running on an adrenaline burst or something because I stayed up very late. I finished a sweater and stayed up to watch the newest episode of Outlander as soon as it was available for viewing  On Demand at midnight.

Here is the sweater, freshly blocked and finally dry. Knitting with cotton is never my favorite thing, but this Rowan Handknit Cotton is agreeable. My hands are ready for wool, though. I've been contemplating shawl patterns that I can knit using my marigold dyed handspun.

This sweater is  a basic raglan cardigan. I made a sort of hybrid neckline- taking some of the stitches out, crew-neck style, right away, and then decreasing the rest in a gentle v-neck slope.

I picked up the button/neck band and mitered the corners, adding 2 stitches, every other row, to the outer corners and decreasing one stitch on the "inner" corners every 3rd row. It worked out as I'd hoped it would.

The stitch pattern is "Wildflower Knot Stitch" from one of the Barbara Walker Stitch Treasuries. I've used this in sweaters before. It is one of my favorites. Here are some close-ups of the buttons I purchased on Friday. Aren't they perfect?!

You can see, in that first photo, and in this next photo, that my flower garden is coming along. The peony, no longer blocked by the hot tub, is thriving. It should start blooming soon.

I've had to put some temporary wire fencing around the garden to keep Olive from running through and bringing mud in. The nasturtiums are sprouting in the planter beneath the bird feeder. It looks like I've just lost one english daisy- everything else looks healthy and my marigold and zinnia seeds have sprouted. I have had thousands of safflower seeds to weed. I wish the birds were just a little bit neater. I use safflower seeds in the feeder because the squirrels don't like it. Having that feeder right outside the kitchen window in enchanting and I was treated a week or two ago with this:

A pair of rose breasted grosbeaks were guests for a few days. I was hoping they would stay for the season (I'd already named them), but I think we were just a stop on their spring migration.

Okay. One more thing and then I really should get dressed! Writing this blog post was interrupted once when Olive accidentally-on-purpose opened the storm door and ran out to chase our neighborhood fox. I must not have had the door locked firmly. Luckily she did not run far and is not built for speed. I am sure I was a sight to see frantically chasing after her in my jammies and apron with leash in hand. Thankfully, she fell for my desperate shout of "car ride" and the view of her leash pin my hands and came running. I guess she is also proving that the laser therapy is working, because she did not come limping back after that effort.

I have more watercolors to show you, but I'll save that for another day.

Love,
Kim

Spinning

Dear Mom,
My visit to The Fiber Event in Greencastle a few weeks ago inspired motivated me to get spinning. I have 3 rather large boxes of roving to get through and have more coming once the angora from Duncan is processed.
I finally finished spinning the wool I dyed with marigolds last summer. It's not that there was so much of it to spin; I just needed to buckle down and spend time spinning it.

There should be enough to knit a shawl. I ply-ed it to take advantage of the gradient shades.

The next bundle of roving I pulled from the stash was one that I dyed in the workshop I took at Tabby Tree a long time ago….

 Oh my. I see from THIS POST that I took that workshop 5 years ago!
Oh well. Five years ago I would not have been able to spin that roving into something this lovely. I think this just might be the prettiest yarn I've spun so far.

I am so enamored with it that I am taking its picture wherever I think it will look prettiest. It is only the fear of having to explain myself to a neighbor that has stopped me from draping the yarn in the lilac bushes.

Love,
Kim

This week in Watercolor class….

Dear Mom,

I think the actual painting looks better than this scanned image. I am still amazed that I am able to paint anything at all, and therefore have no objectivity. Someday, I may very well look back at what I've shared here on the blog and be extremely embarrassed. Until then I'll celebrate the paintings that don't wind up as scrap paper or in the recycling bin.

Love,

Kim

Hot Tub Time Machine

Dear Mom,
Over the last winter, when our hot tub coughed up its last breath and My Hero decided it wasn't worth fixing or replacing, I immediately started plotting out what I would do with the space while trying not to look too pleased to be rid of the thing. Not that I minded having it- we had lots of fun with it- I just didn't enjoy the view of it out my kitchen window.
My Hero loved that hot tub after hockey games and on winter days.

Our Young Man and his friends filled it to capacity and over-flowing on occasion,

and we will never forget the harrowing episode when the guinea pig escaped and hid out under the hot tub.

And Patsy jumped in and enjoyed some spa time, too!

Once the hot tub was hauled away, My Hero took apart the deck underneath. I was expecting to see a network of chipmunk tunnels and a warren of rabbit nests, but the dirt was black and ready for planting.

I decided to clear out the overgrown and undesirable perennials I had growing in the space between the house and the hot tub and start fresh. And I had the inspiration to ask for your expertise to help me plan the space.
My Hero and I relocated the bird feeder into the new garden spot. Now I'll be able to bird watch from the kitchen and porch. I planted nasturtium seeds in the planter around the base. And I've rescued all the surviving hopscotch stones the kids and I made all those years ago to use as paths to the hose spigot, bird feeder and across the garden. (I'll need a way through to cut and tend all the flowers I am imagining!)

The area was finally cleared on Sunday afternoon, and on Tuesday we were ready to plant. The weather was perfect.

You alerted me to the fresh delivery of perennials to our favorite nursery and we stocked up on Foxglove, Delphinium, Tickseed, Shasta Daisy and English Daisy, Forget-me-nots and Hollyhocks, Cranesbill and Pincushion Flower and snap dragons. 

I moved a Stella Daylilly and left the Peony and Sedum where they were. We planted some of the zinnia and marigold seeds I'd harvested from last year's garden and added some purchased 4 O'clock seeds to fill in some gaps. My plan is to add some spring flowering bulbs this fall into the spots occupied by annuals.

It took us several fun hours of team work to get it all planted (we imagined ourselves a surgical team) and cleaned up.  I am looking forward to watching this garden mature and envision masses of cut flowers in the house.

When I got up this morning I was almost afraid to look out for fear that all our tender plants had been eaten down to the nubs but the rabbits, or carried off in great clumps by some wicked perennial-eating vulture. Happily, all is well and looking invigorated.

Between demolishing the deck and prepping and planting this garden, My Hero and I could use a long soak in a hot tub.

Love,

Kim

Gentle sign of Spring

Dear Mom,

They aren't as exciting as those first croci, or as obvious as the forsythia in bloom, but there is just something about pussy willow branches that make my heart sing.  

We had our first spring thunderstorm this morning and I came home from watercolor class to nap under a quilt while the heavy rains fell.

What I love is near at hand.

-Theodore Roethke

Love,

Kim

Spring

Dear Mom,
The calendar says spring, and so does my front yard! Right on schedule, a few of the  100's of crocus bulbs I've scattered throughout the front lawn over the last few years started blooming on Tuesday.

 There are a few snowdrops, too, but they don't show up as well as those bright yellow croci.

Seeing those blooms gives me hope. 

I think we had more winter after the Groundhog saw his shadow than we had in the months before. It was wearing me down. 

However, the longer winter did give me more opportunities to wear a sweater and cardigan combination that I love. The dress is The Factory Dress from Merchant and Mills. I ordered my pattern from Purl Soho. This pattern went together like a dream and the dress fits exactly as I hoped it would. I splurged on some really nice wool from The French Seam. The pattern, fabric and I all got along fabulously. When a suitable spring/summer fabric presents itself at the shop, I will make another dress.

I then knit a cardigan to wear with the dress. The pattern is Tiramisu and I knit it with Shepherd's Wool,  color "Milk Chocolate". This is one of those colors that can look brown or grey, depending on what it is next to. The sweater knit up very quickly and the design is very easy to wear- a practical, pretty sweater. I've cast on for another in a cotton yarn.

Here is the combination, on me.

I found some sweater tights at Target that look nice and stay put. I had a pair of fleece-lined leggings - warm and comfy!- but they were sadly lacking in anything resembling elastic in the waistband! Of course this is something a person doesn't know until she wears them and I had a rather interesting day keeping my leggings up.  By the end of that day had some serious concerns that they would be around my ankles before I could walk from the shop to my car. I was thankful for the long coat I was wearing and imagined myself in the middle of the street with a puddle of leggings at my feet and white legs exposed. I did make it to the car- crotch at my knees. Since then, some reinforcing elastic has been added to what was an empty casing at the waistband of those leggings.

 I had to laugh a few days later when I opened up a new pair of tights.

 The label on these tights boasted a "comfort no-bind waistband". When I pulled them out of the package, the waistband was about the circumference of my thigh. Maybe smaller. (Actually the words 'small' and 'my thigh' do not belong in the same paragraph, but you get my meaning.) From one extreme to the other. The miracle of spandex allowed them to stretch enough to fit around the location formerly know as my waist, and at least I had no worries that this pair would be overcome by gravity.

*******

It comes as a great surprise to me to find myself painting. I thoroughly enjoy the escape into watercolors  and look forward to the class every Thursday morning. I nevereverever thought I would be holding a paintbrush and making any Thing. I may even be spending more time with watercolor paints and brushes than I am with my knitting. This shocks me. And scares me just a little. I have piles of failed attempts, but I do want to share two things that turned out well enough that you won't need to play that kindergarten game where you ask the child to "tell me about this picture" because you have no idea what it is she painted.

I think part of the appeal to painting, for me, is the total escape.I am exploring a new world of things to learn. I feel No pressure to produce anything for anyone and feel an enormous thrill when something actually turns out. The escape is especially appreciated and the NEED for it is possibly explained when I take a step back- our Young Man celebrated his 21st birthday and our Young Lady has taken the SAT, ACT and is, as I write this, on a college visit with My Hero. Time marches on. As it should. I remind myself that All Shall Be Well and that God's plan is perfect. And my energies are better focused on creative pursuits than worrying about stuff. Maybe I felt the need to paint that fledgling robin for more reasons than the date on the calendar.

Love, 

Kim

A Study in Bartlett

Dear Mom,

Three weeks ago I started taking a watercolor class. I'd been playing around on my own and having fun pretending to be Susan Branch. Let me stop right here and say that painting, drawing and ART are not things I was ever good at, or even considered doing for fun. Bonnie Jo was always the artist of us kids. Anyway, here I am, 54 years old, and learning a new trick. And very surprised that this is the trick I am learning.

I am challenged. Completely outside my comfort zone. Stretching my brain. And having fun. I don't have any realistic aspirations to be a famous artist. Only imaginary ones.  I also don't consider myself very competitive, but I caught myself realizing that I didn't want to be the worst one in the class. It didn't take me long to go from "This will be fun! I have No Expectations!" to " uhoh. what if i can't do this." to "Oh Yes. You can and you will and you will Figure It Out. Dammit."

So last weekend I buckled down and practiced painting pears.

Maybe I am in denial about this competitive thing.

After the first class, Cindy, our teacher, sent us home with a picture of a pear to try painting. I painted a few pears. They were not very good.

There were more. These are the best ones. I am trying to learn "value".  About all I can say about these is that I am rather pleased with the stem on the pear on the far left.
 Clearly drawing is a whole 'nother issue, and one I probably shouldn't try tackling while I am pretending to be a watercolor artist, so on Saturday I traced a whole peck of pears and started painting and trying to get my "values" right.

I may have an obsessive compulsive disorder. A noncompetitive passive obsessive compulsive disorder. NCPOCD.

I painted seven pears on Saturday.

My Pear Period
February 2015

I experimented. I think I am getting better. Or I think they look better because the shapes are traced and uniform.
My teacher said I could graduate to pomegranates or apples or something. I decided to try cherries.

These are not quite right. I feel more cherries will be painted before I am satisfied. Those leaves are pitiful.
I also tried painting a cake. I think I will not be painting any more cakes for awhile.
Yesterday I started a series of tea cups.
I am telling you they are tea cups so you'll know what they are and not have to pretend.

And speaking of tea cups…
About a month ago I ordered a special tea trio from an etsy shop. It arrived yesterday, having travelled all the way from Ireland. I fell in love with this china pattern while watching Larkrise to Candleford.
Dorcas Lane has a hutch filled with Royal Doulton "Countess" china.

Look at the beautiful detail on the handle! Tea time just got even more special.

Love,
Kim

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Dear Mom,
Yoohoo!
A Victoria Sandwich cake is fresh out of the oven!

Won't you come and join me for tea?
I used This Recipe, but put the batter into two 6-inch cake pans and baked them at 375 for 25-30 minutes. For the filling I used the home-made strawberry jam which My Hero declared "too sweet", and rather than adding more sugar I blended the jam with a stick of butter. Worked and tasted just fine.
Keep Warm!
Love,
Kim

Enjoying Life's Detours

Dear Mom,
We left for our scheduled haircut appointments on Saturday morning, thinking we might stop for lunch on the way home.  A rare day with Nothing else planned. We had an entire sun shining Saturday before us. Before we knew it the shadows were getting long and it was time to be home, tucked in for the evening. The hours had flown by.
We discovered a new (to us) tea room and had a delicious lunch in a charming atmosphere,

surrounded by tea pots and anglophile delights.

Our Derbyshire chicken salad sandwiches were perfect with our pot of Prince of Wales tea

 and we strategically ordered two desserts to share: an orange scone (with clotted cream and lemon curd) and an almond-y tart that I can't remember the name of…. a Bakewell Tart maybe?… so we could taste both. I purchased the owner's Scone Recipe Book and baked blueberry scones on Saturday night. This afternoon I baked cranberry scones. The recipes in this book are easy to follow, with simple basic ingredients, and the recipes yield about 1/2 dozen scones- which is a nice amount to bake and enjoy. I managed to get 8 scones out of today's batch.

After lunch we strolled a couple of blocks to a favorite antique mall and browsed the afternoon away, hunting and finding treasures. I brought home some editions of Tom Swift for My Hero's collection, a set of six coaster-sized, crocheted doilies and two things I'd been keeping a look out for.
The first is a lowly old potato masher. I had My Hero hang it on the side of the cabinet next to the sink. It now functions as a very capable dish towel hanger.

And the second "treasure" is a very old, somewhat beat up but still in working order, scale. For a long while now I've thought a scale would be an interesting "something" on my kitchen island. This one had a handsome face and was the right price. I laid a crocheted doily on it, a domed plate on top of that and my scones have a keeping place.

I think a small flower pot with ivy or herbs would look nice balanced on the scale, too. The little checked tin next to the scale was a previous antiquing find. It is an old lunch box with a previous owner's name scratched into the lid. We use it to hold Olive's dog biscuits.

 “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 

― William Morris

Our Saturday together and lunch last Thursday in the warm home of a new friend/kindred spirit have gone a long way to re-awaken, affirm, and invigorate my love of home and home-making, the importance of hospitality and the joy in life's simple pleasures.

“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” 
― William Morris

 “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

― Maya Angelou

Love, 

Kim

Less time deciding =

Dear Mom,
It came to me as a revelation last weekend, I don't know what inspired the thought, but I realized I've spent too much time trying to be someone I am not. Maybe we all do this.  Trying to be better is a good thing, but comparing and contrasting and denying is such a waste of time. And wasting time is a SIN in my book. So there. I am guilty of wasting time struggling to be someone other than me. Am I having a mid-life/mid-winter/Japanese tidying crisis ?
I have a desire to simplify things (who doesn't?!) I am making peace with the knowledge that some things are the way they are because that is exactly the way they are supposed to be and darn it just step back and be happy. I am never going to live on a farm or in the woods and have willowy long skinny legs. I realized that longing for those things means I am not fully appreciating this house and my neighborhood and my  legs that work- even if they are short and…. sturdy.
I guess it took almost 54 years to give myself permission. Or I am just worn out tired.
I am happy wearing blue jeans and white shirts. With cardigan sweaters and shawls. Every day. I don't want to waste time thinking about what to wear. I like that look and it is comfortable. Less time deciding = more time for good stuff.
And aprons. I want to wear aprons. Aprons over my white shirts and under my cardigans and shawls. I just sewed the cutest dang apron and I might where it Out In Public. I'll need aprons to keep my white shirts white.

When I type the word SEW in reference to this apron I want to laugh out loud. Because all there is to sew are the shoulder seams. Then it is fancied up with some trim which was easier than turning raw edges under and sewing them down. And then I added a pocket. That first skirt I sewed in 7th grade home-ec was harder than this apron.
I found this pattern where everybody is finding good things these days, on Pinterest.
I followed the link to this web page:

http://www.outonthetownbibs.com/apron.html

 I downloaded the pattern and it printed out onto 14 pieces of paper which were then taped together, following a grid.
Now that I know this pattern is a keeper, I need to either laminate the thing or transfer it to pattern paper if the paper I have is wide enough.

I purchased this fabric with plans to make a top, but that never happened. I decided the fabric wanted to be an apron instead. About 1 1/3 yards of fabric, which I folded width-wise, is enough for this pattern. I used a fat quarter for the pocket. It took just under 6 yards of trim, with enough left to add a little lace to the pocket.
Quick and easy.  The Sewing was faster and easier than finding the trim and waiting for someone to wait on me at Hancock Fabrics last night.

Elle looks so pretty, modeling the apron, doesn't she?  Sadly, she cannot hold that wooden spoon as a prop, so we tucked it into the pocket.  (P.S. That pocket is awesome. The next apron will have a buttonhole sewn into the apron underneath the pocket so I can run my earbud wires under the apron and into the pocket to plug into my iPod.)
And here is what I look like in the apron, but I won't be showing you the back because my rear axle is not quite so petite as Elle's. Not comparing! Not contrasting! Not denying!  If I didn't have that caboose, I'd bruise myself every time I sat down to weave. I'm trying to eat right and exercise my way to a truce.

Enough about aprons. I have been on a hat knitting marathon. I am trying to tweak and perfect a hat idea and I have about one.  more.  hat.  in me before I wave the white flag.  I now have 4 hats of various shapes and sizes. The last one, the one I just finished 2 nights ago, thinking it was going to be the final pattern? Yeah. Well let's just say one should pay attention to the yarn she grabs out of her stash because gauge does matter and this hat….. the hat I thought was going to be the answer to a more elastic cast-on edge and proper fit? Way Too Big Hat. Like I said- I think I have one more hat in me.  This whole thing started as a way to use leftover skeins of yarn. Well. I did accomplish that. In fact, I've been so successful in using up those leftovers that I will be buying yarn to make what I hope is the last variation on this theme.

These hats are drying on a variety of vases and candlesticks.
Way Too Big Hat would not fit in the picture is not pictured.
This is the Mama, Papa, Baby bear of hats: 1. a long slouchy too tight hat,
2. a too loose hat and 3. a slightly too tight, much too short hat.
Will the next hat be Just Right?

Time to go cast on.
Be ready to try on another hat.
Love,
Kim