Life on the Home Front: Week 8 and 9

The last two weeks have been full: the weather is feeling warmer, leaves are on the trees, school is nearing its end. 

David had a Zoom recital for cello! So painless for the parents -- no place to drive and show up on time and it only took 15 minutes to get through all the students! We are thankful for our cello teacher and David's weekly lessons!

Leaves on trees make a huge difference. The world feels completely different. I love trees. They make me so very happy.

We've even managed to start eating outside when the weather is warm and dry enough!

A glimpse into a weekend moment: Laura relaxing on the couch with some strawberry-rhubarb pie.

I am getting the gardening work done a little at a time. Already the garden is farther along than when I took this photo. I'm excited for June when the flowers are at some of their best!

Our local Red-shouldered Hawk nest -- I love taking a walk and checking on things. If the hawk is not in the nest, he is sitting on a nearby tree keeping watch!

Flowers are a huge part of my life right now. The week of Mother's Day I worked four full days at the flower shop. The demand was so great, even with three people working, we had to turn people away.

Working with flowers makes me so happy and towards the end of the week I start getting excited for Monday to be back with them.

The Mother's Day flowers were so very, very beautiful!

We have a number of dedicated tea drinkers in our house and poor Michael now has to share his pot with the diligent students who share his study.

One of the most refreshing things I did in the past two weeks was to take time to watch The Sound of Music with Laura while I sewed. I did this the day after the week in the flower shop and singing along with all the music filled my heart with joy. Laura loved it too!

Another thing that brought me so much joy and happiness these last two weeks was re-reading Susan Branch's two "fictional" books about her becoming an artist. LOVED them all over again and for those days I was imagining myself holed up in her cottage on Martha's Vineyard.

I'm moving forward on art ideas -- and art workshop ideas! Those on my newsletter list will be the first to know my ideas for the fall (sign up in the side-bar if you aren't already).

With church being online we had time and energy for Mother's Day breakfast this year. A special treat.

Somehow it is Saturday again and I am working on planning out my week, chores, gardening, and moving furniture around to better suit our family's needs. Laura is getting her own room in the loft for the summer. It's so cute I want it too!

And how cute is this mole? Every year we have a high school junior in the house we get an adorable mole project for that person to do (I don't remember which class assigns this). James' turn this year and we have a Samurai mole.

And now it's time to go find some lunch and transition to other chores. Have a good weekend!

Why I Don't Knit Anymore, or, The Miracle of the Empty Net

I don't knit anymore. More precisely, I can't knit anymore, which is a surprising turn of events for someone who led knitting groups, taught people how to knit, and kept several projects going at once.

It all started with a cardigan I cast on nearly three years ago now. It was such a stress-relieving project and it moved along at such a satisfying pace. Then the pain hit. Sharp, burning pain up and down my forearms. What to do?! It wouldn't go away. Wrist splints were ordered and worn faithfully at night. Soon it became clear -- the knitting had to stop. I figured maybe I could stop for a few days, or a few weeks. But then it was months that have turned into years. As someone born with an insatiable need to create, this was a true problem. My creative outlet was suddenly, and totally, gone. Now I had to sit patiently for hours on end helping my kids with their homeschool homework with nothing to occupy my hands or keep me calmly settled in my seat. It was both sad and frustrating, not to mention patience-building!

In the sermon from John 21 this past Sunday our minister (yes, also my husband) said something very enlightening as he spoke about the miracle of the 153 fish the disciples caught. He said, "We forget that it was just as great of a miracle to keep the fish nets EMPTY all night as it was to fill them to bursting at Christ's morning command." Do you know, there was something of a miracle for me in the taking away of the knitting, in keeping my "nets empty" for those months. I didn't realize it until much later: removing the knitting created the vacuum necessary for my interest and focus on painting to develop which led into nature journaling and art classes and workshops and the opening of a whole new world.

As it turns out I didn't have to give up yarn projects entirely. For some reason crochet doesn't cause as much acute pain as knitting! Who knew?! I eventually started crocheting tea cozies during school. This summer, with a bit of a break in my schedule, I even made it on to some bigger crochet projects! I'm just about to finish up a shell-patterned cardigan and have started on a second one! I also managed to make this Linden Bee shawl and am thinking about a few more patterns by Cherry Heart. I also want to try a granny square shawl like this one. I even discovered there are beautiful sock patterns for crochet -- that look like knitted socks!

So that's the story of why I don't knit anymore, and how one of my empty nets actually turned out to contain a beautiful gift. It helps me have hope for those other empty nets I have.....

Words and Wool

 One of the things I love about winter is that there is more indoor time for the possibility of creating! January has been a fairly productive month that way, probably because I brought my sewing machine out of my craft closet into my bedroom. I did this because I am helping with the sewing for Rachel's high school production of Mary Poppins. With the sewing machine cluttering up my bedroom I feel more inclined to get a bunch of sewing done before I put it away!

I got another owl made for a belated Christmas gift. These owls are so fun!

I think my favorite project was turning a pair of too-small trousers into a skirt! 

I bought this jacket/trouser suit a year ago for probably $5 at a thrift store intending to cut it up for wool. But, I was so in love with the jacket (which fit me) that I decided to keep the jacket and just cut up the trousers. However, a year went by and I still didn't have a really good option to wear with the jacket. The trousers were still several inches too small, and I didn't really want trousers anyway. Why not make a skirt?! 

Fortunately, the recreation went well and I was even able to salvage the lining for this skirt! I took the waistband off and added a few inches, let out the side seam, opened up the inseam and sewed new front and back seams. I'm sure there are plenty of good tutorials out there if you want to try this yourself!

I was very pleased with the results. I made sure to leave a little dart at the back so I could walk normally in the skirt. Good thing the trousers never shrunk when I carelessly washed them!!!

It's also been fun to do some recreating for the Mary Poppins play. This women's coat was turned into a man's costume with specific measurements for the individual who is playing the Admiral.

I love trying to create replicas of things and it was fun to take a photo and make the bars on this jacket match.

I also took a man's trench coat and created this British police jacket using buttons I found at Goodwill Outlet on a different coat.

I finally redecorated my mantel and living room for the post-Christmas winter months. I needed some sort of different pillows on the couch so took these needlepoint pieces I found at Goodwill Outlet and sewed them into pillows.

 And I needed a painting for my mantel and this is just what I wanted! (Note: mantel is pictured on blog header.)

 I found this darling miniature version of the exact doll I had as a child -- Holly Hobbie's friend 'Heather'. She makes me happy. :) I've also managed to finish sewing this bright and cheery quilt together and get it sandwiched with the back and some batting. Now for quilting -- I will be using perle cotton size 8 so things go quickly.

I managed to snag a bunch of vintage sheets at Goodwill Outlet this week. I use them for tablecloths as well as for backing on quilts.

I'm making wonderful progress on my super easy Ramona Cardigan. One sleeve is almost cast off!

Now to switch passions to reading......


Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution by Avi was a gripping Revolutionary War story that I read with the children. It is historical fiction and just about all the people and events (except the main character) are based on true happenings. The book takes place in New York City and is told from the perspective of Sophia, a young teenager who vows to avenge her brother's death and therefore takes up spy work. The book is very well written and made me interested to know more about what went on in NYC during the Revolution.

Making Choices by Alexandra Stoddard. Since it was January I wanted a bunch of books that make me focus on home. Alexandra Stoddard always does that for me. Her works aren't brand new, and I suppose she can be a bit eccentric, but she never fails to inspire me and she did so with this book. This book was more about saying no and being true to yourself rather than feathering the nest but I really enjoyed it and took some important things away.

No More Christian Nice Girl: When Just Being Nice--Instead of Good--Hurts You, Your Family, and Your Friends by Paul Coughlin and Jennifer Degler was another read in the category of recovery from codependency. Definitely helpful and plenty to think about.


The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard by Kara Tippetts was a difficult but important book written by a young mother who lost her battle with breast cancer last year. Kara recounts in honest words what her battle looked like and how God saw them through it. It is certainly a helpful book to read if you are going through a hard struggle or know someone suffering with cancer or other major illnesses and trials.

I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation by Bruce Chadwick. This was such a fascinating and well-researched book! I particularly enjoyed touring the Wythe House in Williamsburg last fall and so when this book was recommended to me I snatched it up! Through it I learned what a remarkable man George Wythe was, who he mentored, more about the lives of the founding fathers, and also how messed up politics were even back there at the start of our nation! Nothing new under the sun! The book almost reads like a mystery as you are drawn into finding out whether or not the murderer is convicted or acquitted.

Winter Holiday (Swallows & Amazons) by Arthur Ransome. It seems like we always have an Arthur Ransome in the car to listen to. He's our comfort listening. Winter Holiday is the perfect thing to listen to in January! (or any other cold and snowy month)

That's it for now. Ginny has more ideas for knitting and reading over on her Yarn Along.

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Words and Wool

Since my last wool post I have managed to finish this crewelwork pillow! I just need to sew it up and plop it on my couch -- it will be the perfect addition for fall. I love the colors.

I've also managed to sew some blue roses for this tea cozy. I just need to fasten them on and upload this to Etsy!

And I did get this cozy finished and uploaded.

This one was made for a friend who chose the colors. The photo didn't capture the orange of the roses very well. It was a lovely color choice.

As for reading, that's what I've spent much more of my time on!




Through the Pages of My Life: And My Encounters with Beatrix Potter by Willow Taylor was a short little memoir of a woman who grew up at the Tower Bank Arms just around the corner from Beatrix Potter's Hilltop. It was interesting to get some firsthand "snapshots" of what Beatrix was like and what village life was like. Of course it makes me just want to go back to Far Sawrey in the Lake District.


Middlemarch (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot. This has been on my list for awhile and this summer I attempted it. I finally gave up half way through. It was just becoming too much of a chore and hard for me to plow through the tedious chapters. Perhaps part of my problem was that I was not putting hours at a time into the book which may have helped to tie it together more. Anyway, I think I'll just take a shortcut and watch the BBC production of it and move on to other things.


Walk the Worlds Rim by Betty Baker tells the fictionalized story of a young Indian brave, a African slave, and several Spanish explorers in the 16th century as they explore the American southwest. I wasn't overly impressed with the book but there are not that many children's books out there for this time period and this subject so I felt it did add something to our early American studies.

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith. I'm actually not a fan of Jane Austen re-tellings but since Smith is a well-known author whose writings I have enjoyed I thought I would read this for a little light entertainment. There was nothing revolutionary about it -- we know the characters and the plot line. However, what I found most interesting and enjoyable was watching how Smith took a classic and brought it into the present. He kept the book fairly clean -- I think there was a small amount of language and he hinted at one or two things that he didn't need to but of course fit his modern interpretation.

I have a number of good books in process right now! Can't wait to share them.....

For more ideas on wool crafts and reading, please visit Ginny's Yarn Along.

Please note: this post contains affiliate links.