In an afternoon ~

In an afternoon, things can get still and quiet. All three kids sitting in different rooms of the house, creating something within their age/skill level. One may be working on math problems, another cutting shapes out of tissue paper to make a collage, and the youngest using as much tape as she would like to make maps or pictures. But it’s quiet, and I love it. I love how it feels and sounds knowing they are busy in their minds creating something without interrupting one another and working as long as their attention span allows, which sometimes is longer than I would expect. This doesn't happen every afternoon, but its a joy when it does . . .

Yarn Therapy

Call me crazy, but I do find winding yarn therapeutic. It’s the way I get to know a skein of yarn, especially my very favorite yarn . . . Koigu. I love it, love it, love it! This week I bought two new skeins for a project my husband (aren’t I lucky to have a husband who is asking me to knit!!) has been asking me to do for sometime now and apparently my time is starting to run out, so any spare time I get will now be devoted to these two projects.





Now I'm off to knit!

sweet garden hands

It has been so refreshing to see how gentle all the children are with our garden, Elise especially. She has sweetest little garden hands and handles the growing vegetables and herbs so gently.

We love to go out daily and check on how everything is growing, sometimes it seems almost overnight that we have new beans or tomatoes. What a great venture this has been for our kids and recommendations seem to keep popping up from books we read (like possibly planting potatoes from reading Farmer Boy -- which will have to wait until early next Spring), or a leftover pit from their peach they ate at snack that day (or seeds from an apple), or discussions made around the garden that day.

To live in a world that inspires us to try new things is a world I enjoy seeing my children learning and growing in, especially when it's from good literature or maybe a more experienced gardener, or gathering ideas from their world as they see it.

Needle Gauge – FOUND!

I knew it would work . . . late Friday evening I was rummaging through a basket on my sewing shelf for a pattern and voila, what should appear. I shouldn’t have been so surprised right? Jonmichael and I had fun measuring the circular needles through the holes determining the sizes of the needles – turned out that sweater project couldn’t use any of them . . .



I spent the afternoon yesterday with my feet propped up, doing a little knitting . . . yep, on that sweater project!

Father’s Day Crafting ~

We’ve been busying drawing and I’ve been busy embroidering and sewing . . . this Father’s Day we created these bookmarks as gifts. Using Amanda’s tutorial from Mothering, I thought it was such a clever idea to use this for gifts this Father’s Day for all those readers in our family. You can find the tutorial here on Amanda’s new website for her new book coming out in August. You will definitely want to create some of these for yourself and family members!! They are truly treasures!

What I truly love about her project and sounds like the whole approach to her new book is to use what you already have – not to feel compelled to go out and buy the latest fabric, but to truly reuse, repurpose, recycle from something you already have. I have found in my last several projects that cutting up curtains, old linen pants has been quite satisfying knowing that I’m being thrifty, creative, and re-inventive all the same time!!



Speaking of those fabulous size 12 linen pants I've been sewing from since this bag, this doll, this pillow, these few pieces of linen on the fronts of these bookmarks, 'marks' the end of those few scraps I had left over from the "pants." Thrifty! Yes in deedy!!

bugged!

I have these circular needles that I’ve inherited and noticed the other night fishing through my needle stash {for a certain size I needed to cast on with} that I can’t find my metal needle measurer (and I don’t know the correct name for it obviously, please tell me if you do!) to tell me what sizes these circular needles are! I am so bugged!! I’ve looked through everything I can think of and am hoping by posting about my little situation here that it will decide to quit playing tricks on me and show itself!!

I have great plans when I do . . . a little baby vest wants to magically appear on my needles . . .

Inspiring Summer Journaling

The crafting and journaling that's been going on in our home this summer has been inspiring . . .