Category: things I make

yarn along

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Hello blogosphere, again!  I really missed you last week while we were away in upstate New York but it was good to disconnect for the week for the most part, aside from posting to instagram.  I have so many pictures and stories to share from our trip, more later this week hopefully!

All week long I’ve been knitting this Antarktis shawl per the request of a friend.  I started it on the drive, had to rip out a couple of times and start over, and am just a few rows from finishing today.  I have love love loved knitting this pattern and working with this yarn and colorway, and I will feel quite sad to let this beauty go.  I think I need to knit one for myself now!  😉

I admit that reading has fallen by the wayside this week in lieu of knitting, but I have been trying to work my way into Classical Christian Education Made Approachable as I peruse resources and prep for beginning home education this fall.  Also, aren’t these flowers lovely??  I picked them up at my favorite farm stand this morning after picking blueberries with the kids.  Sigh.. it’s good to be home.

Joining with Ginny today.

 

yarn along

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I cast on last night for a little newborn pilot cap for a friend’s baby.  I’m hoping I have enough yarn left in this ball for it, we shall see!

I haven’t been reading much this week, but still reading The Shepherd’s Life when I can.  We are headed out of town on Saturday morning and I have been a busy bee preparing for that.  I’m hoping for some long stretches of reading and knitting during the car ride and week away!

Joining up with Ginny + Nicole today.

yarn along

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Just plugging away at my precious cowl, reading a few books but this one has been top of the stack this week.  Of course, I heard of The Shepherd’s Life originally through Ginny but  became intrigued with it lately in thinking about the context of shepherding in the Christian life.  I am always interested in learning more about farm-y things, but also curious how Rebanks’ experience as a Shepherd might better inform my understanding of Christ as my Shepherd.  Recently at our church, our pastor felt God’s nudge to step down and we are, as a church, in a season of searching for a new pastor.  I think my soul feels a bit bewildered, a bit like a sheep without a shepherd.  Anyway, I don’t seem to get much reading done lately, more knitting.  I try to squeeze in a few minutes a day before bed but my progress is slow!  Did you see my last post with pictures of the finished lori shawl?  I’m so happy with it.  It feels important to finish and record progress in a season where most of my labor seems to produce slow results.  Little moments here and there add up to something beautiful in the end, right?

Joining Ginny today for her weekly yarn along, where we share our current reads + knits.

summertime lori

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The Lori Shawl, my first real shawl, knit with Quince + Co. sparrow, which is Italian linen, in colorways moon + sans.  It is different to knit with linen and took some getting used to, but after months handling it, my fingers miss it.  This shawl was the most relaxing knit and easiest to take with me wherever because it is just garter stitch all the way.  It turned out to be bigger than I expected, I ended up using 6 skeins.  I made a few mistakes along the way, one little hole that I couldn’t seem to figure out how to fix, but I still absolutely love it.  It is bigger than my kitchen table so blocking it was a challenge with three little ones around, but I made a spot on my bedroom floor and it dried quickly, so we managed.  It feels so dreamy after blocking, the drape is perfect.  I could see myself knitting this pattern again in a wintery wool for sure.  I’m so thankful for this lightweight, summertime shawl and can’t wait to finally wear it!

yarn along

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I finished up the Nantucket throw blanket a couple of weeks ago, but am just now getting around to snapping pictures of it to share with you here.  We are busy enjoying it, as you can see, I keep finding someone snuggled up in it, which makes me happy. 🙂  I originally wanted it as a throw for our bed but it is a little bit smaller than I had hoped, and the kids keep dragging it back out to the living room to snuggle with while reading books.  I love the texture and coziness it adds to our home!

I’m still knitting the precious cowl this week but have somehow made some sort of mistake and I’m on hold until I can rip back (so tedious with lace!) and get back on track.  Somehow I have more stitches than I should.  Ugh.  So in the meantime I’m doing finishing work on my lori shawl and knitting up a few more dishcloths for a gift.

I’m still reading My Antonia, I put it on hold to read When Calls the Heart, which I finished up a couple of days ago, and am a little over half way through My Antonia.  I’m more into it now, but still not sure what I think.

Joining with Ginny’s yarn along today.

yarn along

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Still working on my precious cowl, my first venture into lace + I really love it.

Still reading My Antonia but also reading The Railway Children with phoebe while the other kids are napping and I love this book so much.  I can’t remember if I ever made it through the whole thing as a child, but it is actually quite engaging for me now.  I find myself looking forward to snuggling up with Phoebe and finding out what these three delightful children will be up to next.  I especially like that they are good figures for Phoebe to look up to: adventurous, looking out for the interests of others, honest, helpful, loving and compassionate, while trying to solve the difficult circumstances they find themselves in.  It gives us some simple talking points about behaviors that we admire and want to cultivate in our own home.  Mostly though, we just read it and I let her draw her own conclusions. 🙂  This old copy was given to me as a child by my grandpa on my tenth birthday so it’s a treasure and we love the watercolor paintings that accompany the story.

Joining with Ginny today.

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yarn along

MarthaKimball3 Comments

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I bound off on the Nantucket throw last night as well as the Lori Shawl (two projects in one night!  woo hoo!) and pictures of those finished knits will come after weaving in ends and blocking.  I cast on the Precious cowl last week sometime, my first time knitting lace and working with a chart and I really love it so far.  After the crispness of the linen in my Lori Shawl, this super soft yarn feels luxurious.  It was a perfect small project to take backpacking with me this last weekend, which I did, and didn’t get as much time to work on it as I had hoped being that we were constantly dealing with winds and rain.  It was still really fun to knit in my sleeping bag by head lamp while the winds howled and whipped outside our tent.

I’m still reading Wild and Free, wrapping it up in a couple of days I hope, but I couldn’t resist starting a novel of some sort.  I’ve seen Ginny recommend My Antonia as one of her favorite novels and I spotted it at the library and figured I must check it out.  I’m just barely into it but enjoying it so far.

Joining with Ginny today and her weekly yarn along.

yarn along

MarthaKimball1 Comment

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I finally cast on for this big chunky Nantucket throw for our bedroom.  It seemed fitting as a sort of way to commemorate/celebrate our 10th anniversary last week.  I’m really loving it so far!

Wild and Free is a new release, one I am reviewing, and so far is better than I expected it would be.  I’m about half way through it.  At first the words “wild and free” as a description of a God-fearing, Jesus-following woman had me a little curious as to the direction these authors would go, but here’s a quote from the intro which put me more at ease with what the authors mean:

“If God is wild and if God is free, what does that mean for us?  The answer we’ve landed on is that we believe we have the liberty to walk out our own wild freedom in pursuit of His kingdom, and He will help us as we go.  He is the one who calls us to be wild–walking in who God created us to be.  And He is the one who calls us to be free–resting in what Jesus has done for us.”

As one who has struggled greatly in different seasons of my life with confusion over my role as a woman, and as one who has consistently felt both “too much” and “not enough,” often at the same time, I am finding this book to be a great encouragement! More on it when I review it later.  It’s a quick and interesting read so far.

Joining with Ginny at Small Things today.

yarn along

MarthaKimball3 Comments

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I’ve been in sort of a knitting conundrum, I suppose, for the past week or so.  I’m still finding my way as a knitter, but it seems I need a larger project going and a few quick and simple small projects to rotate to.  My lori shawl is almost done, literally just a few rows from being complete, and I ran out of yarn, so now I must order one more skein + wait for it to arrive before finishing.  I have a handful of smaller projects that I wanted to begin, but am trying to find a pattern for some yarn that I have.  I have made a bad habit of buying one skein here, one skein there, and then never having enough yarn for a larger project that I’m eyeing.  So I’m in the process of deciding on patterns, and I can’t seem to go quickly through that process.  I get a bit discouraged with how expensive it can be to knit what I really want with the yarn I really like.  I am going to work on a few more dishcloths in the meantime, because I literally have to have something I can quickly grab and work on in the spare moments I find during the day, while I wait for a bigger project to settle into.

I’m in the same sort of place with books.  I’m just trying to finish up a few that I’ve been stuck in for a bit.  Meanwhile, a friend gave me Gluten-Free on a Shoestring so I’m browsing through that a bit.  I’m always on the lookout for tips and tricks to do this whole gluten-free diet more economically.

Joining with Ginny today.

 

 

yarn along

MarthaKimball2 Comments

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It’s not terribly interesting, but I’m still working on the Lori Shawl and nearing the end.  Methinks I will need another skein of Quince + Co Sparrow in order to finish.  I am trying to figure out what my next project will be and sort of itching to cast on to something else, but haven’t decided on anything yet.

I picked up The Year of Miss Agnes from the library this week, just a quick, whimsical read about a teacher who comes to the small Athabaskan fishing village on the Koyukuk River.  She proves to be unorthodox in her methods, supposedly, so I’m curious.  Plus, Alaska.  Enough said.  I was re-watching Anne of Green Gables recently with my Phoebe girl, and reminded of what a great impact her teacher, Mrs. Stacy, had on her life.  I love the way she taught, the way she had the kids outside doing calisthenics, climbing a tree to see a bird’s nest, doing nature journaling, etc.  It’s helpful for me to cast some vision, I suppose, as I head into homeschooling in the fall.

Joining in with Ginny at Small Things today.