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yarn along

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I am nearly done with the first sleeve on my koivua sweater and decided to put it on hold and go ahead and start the second sleeve so that I can try to manage the changing colors on the spincycle yarn to sort of match the first sleeve.  Meanwhile I realized yesterday that Wren’s birthday is in two weeks and I need to get her birthday sweater started!

I became a bit fascinated with the story behind barn quilts last spring when my husband and I were away celebrating our anniversary.  For a few years now we’ve gone to a little cabin in the mountains a couple of hours away and I took notice of all the beautiful old barns in that area.  I couldn’t help noticing the sweet barn quilts on almost all of them and have been wanting to read about it ever since.  I found this book at the library, Following the Barn Quilt Trail, the story of a woman and her husband following the trail of the barn quilts from state to state and sharing the history and stories behind them.  I just began it but I think it will be a good and relaxing read!

Joining in with Nicole’s weekly Crafting On link-up today.
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Also, here are some photos I took of barn quilts last spring when I began to notice them in my area.

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a february birthday

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Brandon’s birthday fell on a Monday this year, so we planned for him to do some fun things over the weekend to celebrate.  He did a long trail run in nearby Dupont Forest for most of the day on Saturday.  Sunday he took Noah fishing on a nearby river for the day.  I was happy for him to get out and have lots of time doing the things he loves outside.  Monday we had a very full and busy day planned but I woke up that morning to a spinning world.  Every once in a while I have vertigo and it hasn’t happened in a couple of years but it hit me that Monday.  I was so bummed because not only did we have a full day of homeschool co-op and piano lessons, but it was also Brandon’s birthday.  My mom came to help for the day as I couldn’t get out of bed/sit up without everything spinning.  I didn’t think to take dramamine until a little later, and it did seem to help (though my mom picked up a “natural” kind which was just straight ginger root).  Thank goodness for moms, right?!  Anyway, in the early afternoon I managed to pull myself out of bed to try to make Brandon’s cheesecake as I knew it would have to sit for a few hours before serving.  As I began to move around the vertigo slowly lifted.  Usually it lasts for a few hours for me so this was a longer day of it, but I was just grateful it lifted.  It’s amazing what a blessing normal functioning is!

The children were so happy to see me up and able to move around and Phoebe helped to make daddy’s birthday cake.  He loves cherry pie but my kids don’t really like pie and Brandon isn’t really picky, so we made a cheesecake instead with my own cherry topping.  For the topping I basically used a bag of frozen cherries, juice from half a lemon, about a 1/2 c. of honey, 1 c. water, and a couple teaspoons of arrowroot powder as a thickener.  It was really delicious, even Phoebe liked it and she is my pickiest.

Philippa asked to decorate the table for daddy’s birthday which was very helpful as I felt still so brain-foggy.  She did a lovely job.  Brandon was truly surprised to see his hand knit sweater and I think it fits just right (though when I gave it to him I hadn’t had time to block it yet).  The “children” gave him a jigsaw which he was very happy with.  I have in mind an item or two he could make for me now that he has it. 🙂  Noah gave him a little notebook/journal he had kept with notes and drawings in it while they had been out fishing.  Phoebe gave him a little woven item.  All in all, I think he was quite spoiled this birthday which we well-deserves.

We had a little bit more snow this past weekend and so enjoyed it.  I’m grateful for any wintry weather!  I convinced Brandon to let me get a couple pictures of him in the sweater, which did take some convincing since he doesn’t love being in front of the camera.  (He’s also wearing a hat I knit for him awhile ago.)

yarn along

MarthaKimball2 Comments

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It’s a chilly grey February day here.  We just wrapped up our school morning and soon I’ll get lunch on the table.  I meant to get this post up yesterday, but lately my days are so full I always feel a bit behind on everything.  Not that it matters much at all to be a bit late posting here. 🙂  I wonder how you are and how your February is going wherever you might be in the world as you read this.  I’ve been knitting away on my projects when I find time, usually in the evenings when all the work is done for the day.  Last night I bound off the body of my koivua sweater and am reading to start working on the sleeves.  A few days ago I cast on a simple ribbed hat for myself with this beautiful yarn by Colleen of Little Lionhead Knits in a color way called The Great Smoky Mountains.  I thought it would be tedious to do this much ribbing (because I want a folded brim hat), and the fiddly beginnings were tedious but I am actually really enjoying working on it here and there when I need something totally mindless.  The color is hard to capture.

I’m still reading Fierce Convictions. 🙂

Joining with Nicole’s weekly Crafting On.

yarn along

MarthaKimball1 Comment

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After finishing Brandon’s birthday sweater this week (yes, I made it in time!!) I picked back up my Koivua.  I so enjoy knitting for others, but I do ache to get a few projects done for myself that I actually need in my wardrobe! 🙂  It’s early February but it feels like people are rushing into spring already.  I don’t feel like we’ve had a proper winter yet.  So I’m hoping I can finish this sweater soon and have opportunity to wear it before spring! 🙂  At the same time, I’m trying to knit mindfully and make it last because it is lovely to work on.  The yarn is so squishy.  I think rambouillet is one of my favorite fibers to work with!

Also, I’m still reading Fierce Convictions, a biography on the life of Hannah More who was a poet, reformer and abolitionist.  I am quite captivated thus far by this extraordinary woman and just getting into the part of the book where she makes acquaintance with John Newton and begins to become more aware of the atrocities of the slave trade.

Joining with Nicole’s Crafting on and Ginny’s Yarn Along.
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joy in january

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And then the last of January comes, and with it our first blanket of snow for the winter.  We throw our usual morning work to the side and bundle up in layer upon layer for this special and rare occurrence in North Carolina.  When the snow comes, you might as well get out and enjoy it because by day’s end it will likely be gone.

So the first month of the year stretches long and quiet, maybe even a bit dull — but it ends in joy.

JOY… maybe my word for this new year, and not because I’m feeling it but precisely because I’m not.  Last year was shadowed over with a lot of heartache and sorrow, things I cannot share here because it involves other people, stories that haven’t finished playing out yet.  But I’ve spent too much time in that sorrow and maybe it’s time to put away the effect of other people’s brokenness and broken choices and move on into joy.  I don’t want to miss the beauty and joy that is here even now.  I have been given so much, blessed beyond measure, and I choose to see and focus on that.

Only God is able to turn our mourning into dancing.  And He is sufficiently able!

He sends the snow from His storehouse and it covers all this old familiar territory with sparkling clean white and just like that, everything is new again.  And we are dancing in the freshness of it, reminded of a great God who washes us white as snow.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
Isaiah 1:18

 

yarn along

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I’ve nearly finished knitting the plain stockinette body portion of Brandon’s riddari sweater, tonight I will probably be joining sleeves and starting the color work yoke.  I have been working on this around Brandon in the evenings, though discreetly.  He hasn’t asked about it but he may suspect it’s for him.  I only have a few more days to finish it before his birthday and I’m not thinking it’s likely, but its definitely possible!  It is amazing how much more we seem to accomplish when we work exclusively on a project, however I much prefer the freedom of having multiple projects on the go and picking up what I feel inspired to work on in the moment.

I checked out Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More  (affiliate link) from the library and have been enjoying it so far.  I can’t remember what inspired me to check it out.  I do remember wanting to read it when it was first published some years ago but never getting around to it.  Glad to do so now.

I hope you all are having a good week so far and do share with me what you’re making and reading lately, if you’d like!

Joining Nicole’s weekly Crafting On.

yarn along

MarthaKimball2 Comments

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I’m chuckling at my last post title because for the last few days after writing it, the weather has been gloriously wintry and bitter cold!  We even saw our first snow flurries of the season, though they only lasted a few minutes and were so tiny.  It looked like glitter in sun.

I have been knitting away on Brandon’s birthday sweater and am relieved to have both sleeves done.  It feels good to just have the body left, and since it is bottom up, the anticipation of the funnest part (the color work yoke) will be what fuels me to the end.  Can’t wait.  I cast on for the body this morning.  So far, I am really enjoying this project and definitely think I will knit it again.  There’s just something I love about working with lopi.

This week I also finished up a couple of socks and need to knit their match. I’m knitting these for Brandon and these for another loved one.  I did cast on these for myself on Christmas day but I think I’m going to use a different pattern.  This one is very “hole-y” and I want something a bit warmer I think.  I’m thinking the fir socks by Melody Hoffman.  I don’t know what it is but I just love sock knitting so much lately.  I always have a couple of pairs on the go for when I’m out and about.

As for reading, I’m still plugging away on Little Women (I feel terribly slow) and I’m enjoying it.  I feel that you would be bored seeing it’s cover once again 🙂 so I’m sharing a book the children and I are reading, The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine.

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january mild

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What a mild winter it has been so far.  I feel a bit complain-y but I do miss a good cold/snowy cozy winter.  I hope we still have some of those days ahead.  Yesterday the warm sun felt so good and who could resist sitting out in it and basking in it in the middle of January?  Certainly not me.  I am a firm believer in taking the gifts of each day’s weather.  Still it feels unnatural to move from fall into spring.  I’m missing my old friend winter, the way she makes us crazy toward her end and ready for thawing soil, spring rain, vibrant color, and the smallest glimpses of new life.  It strikes me that maybe we just can’t fully enjoy the glories of spring without the quietude and bleakness of a long winter.

We’ve been back to our usual routines and though there’s always a rub to the mundane parts of life, there is a simplicity to it that feels healing.  Our mornings are full of books, writing, arithmetic, our afternoons full of time spent outdoors, music lessons, tutoring, or running household errands.  We had a fair bit of rain the last few days, and in the glorious sunshine that follows, I find myself wandering about the garden, starting to think about what we will grow this year.  I knit up a pair of baby bloomers for Wren.  They are knit top-down in yarn from local-to-me Bovidae Farm, with a sweet little lateral braid separating the rib and the squishy fisherman’s rib on the body.  They are simple and darling.  Wren seems to love anything I make for her, she loves dressing up and trying things on, so she is always game for new hand knits.  I snapped a few pictures of her this morning in the blustery morning air.  She was very busy tidying up her little house outside, bringing me all sorts of items the older children had left out there and throwing whatever else she didn’t want down the slide.  She is full of big feelings, this little one, one minute ecstatic and the next minute screaming her frustration.  In a little more than a month she will be two and I can hardly believe it.

ps. Wren is wearing the wiksten animal bonnet which I knit in naturally-dyed yarn, and in the earlier pictures she’s wearing her flax light sweater from her first birthday.  Yes, I’m already contemplating what her birthday sweater should be for this year. 🙂  I’m thinking about another Camilla Babe sweater in my own hand-dyed worsted eco yarn dyed with marigold.

yarn along

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Happy Tuesday, friends!  I’m glad to have a few moments to pop in here and share what I’ve been working on the last few days.  I certainly didn’t need to cast on another sweater, but I did.  This one is for Brandon and it will be the first sweater I’ve knit for him.  I’m hoping to have it done by the first week of February for his birthday, but I realize that might be a challenge.  I’ve never knit a man-sized garment before!  I’m knitting a riddari sweater for him, a classic icelandic lopapeysa and started with the sleeves.  I’m enjoying the colors I’ve chosen so far and I think they will be really wearable for Brandon.

Still reading Little Women. 🙂

yarn along

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Happy New Year, friends.  I hope the first week of January has been gentle and kind to you.  It has been for us, and I am grateful.  I’m still reflecting and processing in this month because honestly there isn’t much brain space for that in December anymore for me.  I’m grateful to ease back into ordinary time and the world feels a bit quieter.  Yet there is so much to think through, process, plan, and it all overwhelms a bit.

I’ve been so happy to knit away on whatever suits my mood at the moment.  I want to say gift knitting is done, but not totally.  I have yarn coming to knit a birthday sweater for Brandon.  I’ve never knit him a sweater because he’s always overheated and doesn’t really want many woolly items, but I really want to make him a sweater he can wear as a good warm layer at work since he works outside often in the winter months.

I’m not knitting a ton on my koviua because I’ve started a couple small items for Wren (both test knits, though one I am late on).  But when I can work on it, it is a true pleasure.  I am loving the way the yarn is working up, hoping it will fit well, too.

I’m still reading Little Women, and the children and I have been reading a couple poems daily from this collection, Winter Poems, and really enjoying it.  It has been so mild here and warm, which I can’t really complain about because it is so lovely.  But I really do want some winter days and some snow.  I miss living in the Rocky Mountains where snow was on the ground for months at a time.  Maybe reading a lot of wintery snowy-themed children’s books will help? 🙂  I find myself gathering armloads of them from the library when we go.

What are you knitting and reading lately?
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