July always seems to be the busiest month for us. Some sort of travel is usually involved, and the birthdays! It's one celebration after another and today, it's M's turn to blow out the candles. "Why did you marry Daddy and not someone else?" K asks me a lot. Partly to tease M, but also (I suspect), because she wants to hear about M's best qualities over and over. The first answer that pops out is, "Because he made me laugh more than anyone else." M has a very particular brand of humor and to …
Spools, spools everywhere
Ba-chan made it in one piece to Seattle yesterday, and already she and K are thick as thieves. One of the benefits of having a mother who collects everything is that I can ask, "Hey, do you have any vintage-y thread on wooden spools in assorted colors?" And she brings me this: (one errant plastic one snuck in there, I see). I love the faded, peeling, cracked labels, the silk threads with saturated colors. Sometimes, multiple hues are wound onto one spool, and I can envision someone carefully …
Monday Outfit: Nautical Knit Halter
Good morning! It's so good to be back. We had a fantastic vacation, but there's nothing quite like home. I'm still suspended somewhere between west coast and east coast time zones, and am feeling a bit foggy, but I'm eager to get into productivity mode. So did you know that it's KCW week this week? I didn't. At least not until late last night. That's how out of touch I'm becoming with the general sewing interwebs. What with frenetic book deadlines and all, I'm barely keeping up with regular …
Happy Friday + Randomness
As you're reading this, we are most likely flying over several US states and rapidly approaching home. Family vacations can sometimes yield stories that become eyebrow-raising legends passed from one generation to the next, but aside from a couple of mosquito bites, ours was entirely painless. Not boring or forgettable, no, but solidly good. You know that feeling of slipping into a comfortable bed with freshly laundered linens and settling down with an engrossing book? Our holiday in the Midwest …
Indy Menagerie
It's a bit of a departure from my usual topics (though do I really have a set of usual topics?), but we spent a lot of time at the Indianapolis zoo a couple of days ago, and I have to say, I loved it and went crazy with my camera. I've gone to the Seattle zoo a fair number of times, but I've never been able to get decent photos of the animals. I think they might be introverted. Not so at the Indy zoo. I felt up close and personal with so many creatures, sometimes it was disconcerting. For …