My color palette

I swear I had no idea that I was perfectly matched with this bag until I took the picture.

It's a little ridiculous. You'll be hard-pressed to find colors in my wardrobe that aren't blue, green, brown, yellow or cream. Kind of murky, really. I bought a red and white striped shirt not long ago and, as cute as it is, it never feels quite right on me. The mother of one of my high school friends is one of those people who tells you what season you are, what neckline you should wear, and what shape your jewelry should be. I remember her telling me that I was "spring," and that I should wear V-necks and oval jewelry. I'm not sure how closely I've followed her advice, but at least I know what I like.

In any case, this bag is a gift, so I won't be adorably matching with it beyond this photo. It only took me about a week of half-hearted knitting sessions to make it (i.e., watching a foreign film with subtitles while knitting only results in both losing the plot line and losing my place in the pattern. Not a good combo.), so perhaps I'll make more. I even did my own math to figure out the spacing for the handles, becuase I made mine a little smaller than the pattern. I'm a little bit proud of myself for that part.

The pattern, if you're interested: Fantasy Naturale Market Bag

And the yarn I used: Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Cotton in Gold Rush

Multiple choice for hot summer nights

These two things...

a. were an impulse buy.
b. make quite the pretentious pairing.
c. are delicious, each on their own.
d. become simply magical when combined.

Answer: all of the above, of course, but for this particular post...

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D, all the way.

There's a meetin' here tonight

All of us kids have heard the beloved family legend that Dad was one of the Brothers Four (with his three brothers), a popular folk quartet from the 1950s and 60s.


Photos of Dad from those years were not much different from the album covers. For example:
(I think he was about to sing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" right here on Lake Michigan.)

It was easy to imagine him holding a bass or a banjo and singing "Greenfields," and it was especially fun to pretend that I was the daughter of a faded celebrity who have up his fame to be a dad. Even though Dad knew we knew he was joking, he always did a good job of bringing up the glory days of the Brothers Four from time to time.

This explains what led me to create this embroidered t-shirt for him this year for Father's Day.

I felt that if the Brothers Four ever did have a reunion tour, they would have embroidered mementos like this. And I figure, if Dad ever wears this, people might ask him who the Brothers Four are, and he can continue the legend.
While stitching, I had a heck of a good time listening to these old folk songs, some by The Brothers Four, others by the Kingston Trio, the Limeliters and the New Christy Minstrels. If you've seen A Mighty Wind, you'll realize they got this genre spot-on after listening to these groups. They sang about Tijuana jails, quaint little taverns, sailing on the Sloop John B, what you'd find at the end of a rainbow, and how to say goodbye in Jamaica - sometimes in simple three-part harmony and instrumentation, or, like in the case of the New Christy Minstrels, in robust, hootenanny-like groups. They often prefaced the singing with spoken tales, and repeated the choruses enough times to induce sing-alongs.

After an hour or so of listening to this stuff, I was convinced that if a Brothers Four reunion tour existed, I very well may go.

See if you can pick out my dad in this clip:

Hairpins: Heaven Sent

Fresh from the gym on a hot day - can you blame me for wanting to deck myself out in polyester? Well, you should. While this may have screamed "summer" a few decades ago, these days it screams "craft project!"

I found this flouncy little number at Goodwill after reading about this project in Readymade that practically requires loud polyester in order to create adorable hairpins. I know, like anyone needs hairpins. But it's summer, and while you won't find me in polyester (never say never, right?), you will often find me with my hair up. Why not throw a little synthetic flair to it?

This project was so easy that I didn't even bother to clear off the table to do it. I started things off recklessly by working right over my laptop.

You start by cutting out three circles in descending size. The biggest one was about 1.5". After I had 3 sets of 3 circles, I lit a tea candle and grabbed Joel's needle-nose pliers, which happened to be sitting conveniently nearby. As instructed, I had a bowl of water next to me in case the 4th of July came a few days early in my living room.

All you have to do is to hold each circle near the flame (using the pliers) to get the edges to curl and ruffle a bit. As the fabric got hot, I began to smell the fragrances of the 70s fuming out of it. Specifically "Heaven Sent."

So last night I finished it. Bought some Amazing Goop and a cylinder of beads at closing time at Joann's Fabric, stopped for a root beer float on the way, then found a needle and thread that was also lying around the house (sometimes it pays to not put things away).

And here they are, ready for my next up-do:

Seen in the yard

This is what I get to see as I walk toward my front door.

And this is what I get to see when I walk out my back door.

This, too. (Remember when they were babies? My, how time does fly.)

It's hard to wait when you see a tiny little strawberry begin to ripen.
But I'm waiting until there are a few more.

Pear Galette

"J’aime la galette, savez-vous comment ? Quand elle est bien faite, avec du beurre dedans." (I like galette, do you know how? When it is made well, with butter inside.)


How many rainy weekend mornings have inspired me to make pastry dough? Like, lots. I close the kitchen door so as not to disturb the one who prefers to sleep in (yes, I have a kitchen door; I think it's weird yet surprisingly useful, in our case) and page through a couple of my favorite books. A recent go-to of mine is a heritage baking book that Joel's sister-in-law sent back with me after our last visit. It's got some lovely old-fashioned recipes for such things as shoo-fly pies, brown betties, crumbles, and bee-sting cakes, all of which are right up my alley. This free-form pear galette was my latest sampling from that book.

Though the dough was not the easiest for me to work with initially, it held together in the end. I think I underused the food processor, for once. But as I said, it still worked. So all in all, a success, at least for French children who have penchants for butter. There were five tablespoons of the stuff inside this 9-inch round, with an extra two drizzled on top of the pears for good measure (with a sprinkle of sugar on top of that, of course). The crust stayed crisp and flaky, and even after sitting overnight, it never became soggy.

New booties

Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered an era of just the cutest children ever. I'm not joking. I usually expect to use my "How darling!" line with about 1 out of 5 or so babies I meet, because it's vague enough to allow the mother to think I'm complimenting the baby's looks, when really I'm referring to the pom-pom buttons on the baby sweater. She never needs to know, right? But in the last year, I've practically retired that phrase, and now most of my exclamatory baby statements are along the lines of "He's/she's so...cute!" or "Wow, this is actually a pretty baby!" No fudging the truth, no vague niceties; just utter astonishment of these adorable little wonders.
I'm excited to see what the next batch of babies holds, as I have a few friends who are due in the next few months. For the sake of the world, I hope this precious-little-pea trend continues.

In the meantime, this pair of booties was the perfect thing to knit up on the long Memorial Day weekend, mostly because, after finishing them, I still had some weekend left.

This yarn is soft as baby feet, though I can't tell you what kind (of yarn, that is), because it was in my scrap stash. I couldn't stop touching these things, twirling them around my finger, admiring how easily they shaped up - and held their shape - without much trying. I also couldn't stop thinking about baby feet, and how they are so short and thick, while still appearing as incredibly dainty versions of their future size 9 dogs. How feet could possibly fit into such little booties is simply beyond my understanding. But they do.

My only regret is that I couldn't do the same project in my size (the aforementioned "size 9 dogs") in so little time.

I found the pattern on Ravelry, but you can get it here.