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San Diego –> Nashville

One last roll of film from our California life.

I will miss these porch dinners and the people who sat around the table, but there are many new porch dinners to be had in Nashville, and for that I am so grateful. Cheers!

Ocean Isle August 2015

I never knew a week could be filled with so many conflicting emotions before this summer. We ate, laughed, cried, talked, walked, swam, and took turns holding our new tiny family member. My heart grew 100 times while we were there I think.

Life is such a whirlwind. I’m so glad to have these precious people to go through it with.

Simon Jennings Child’s first bath. Ocean Isle, NC 2015.

Venice, CA - May 2015.

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. June 2015.

Five years of marriage! We celebrated by driving up the coast to Big Sur. We have wanted to do it since we moved to California two and a half years ago and finally we did it.

We woke at 4am and drove seven hours north along the craggy ocean cliffs, me doped up on dramamine, with a thermos of coffee and a loaf of homemade sourdough bread between us. I had done some reserach and found that even though Big Sur is overcrowded in the summer and no campgrounds were likely to have any openings whatsoever, there are lots of places to pitch a tent outside of the campgrounds, particularly along a windy one lane dirt road up a mountain which has wide open ocean views at almost every turn out. It sounded too good to be true, and we were a bit nervous to set out, not knowing where we would end up that night.

After miles of switchbacks and one particularly scary moment when our car couldn’t make it up the steep road and we almost got ourselves stuck on top of the mountain with no cell service, we ended up finding the perfect spot in the woods just off the road with a view of the ocean and with lots of shade. We pitched our tent and sat with beers and our cooler full of food with nothing to do but read and knit and eat. We felt crazy.

For being the textbook example of opposites attracting, we enjoy each other’s company more than you might think. We’re not similar and we didn’t fall in love because we had a lot in common. We don’t understand it ourselves, but we can’t seem to ever get enough time together, always wanting more, never seeming to need much space apart. I like it that way and every time we get to do something adventurous like this trip I feel it more and more. Four years dating and five years married…we talk about the year when we will have been together longer that not. For us that time is not too many years away and I imagine when it happens that it will feel like it couldn’t be any other way. For some reason, somehow, we belong together.

This summer is finally here. I’m not excited about it for reasons that others usually are. I didn’t spend many long hard months cursing the snow and wishing for the sun to come out. But I have many things to look forward to these next few months and for that I am grateful. Birthdays, new life, trips, opportunities, goals. It’s almost like the New Year in a lot of ways. I am only realizing this now as I sit to think about it. It is a nice gift to feel that rejuvination twice in one year. I think I find myself at a midway point most years, looking forward to so much, unable to believe that half the year is already gone. At the start of this year I could hardly imagine myself sitting in the month of June feeling as happy and content as I do now. I went through a rather hard time flying back to California last January after being home on the east coast for the holidays with family and I went through a bit of a slump in the first months of the year that I hadn’t expected. But on the other side of it now I can see that time really does do wonders to heal pretty much anything.

Summer seems a little bit magical to me still, like it used to when I would be let out of school for break and the entire world opened up. I am glad to see that feeling sticking around as I near a quarter of a century in age. I never want to lose it. Maybe adults are able to keep it as they grow old if they have children and grandchildren in their lives to remind them how to feel it.

My sister Lauren is having a baby boy! She and her husband Nathan told our family over Christmas last year and that very week I knitted her these teensy socks to open Christmas Day.

Since then I have had enough ideas of things to make for this baby to last me a lifetime. The first thing I decided to make was a mobile for the nursery with some soft knit animals that can be taken down and used to play with when he is older. These photos only show the four animals I made, but I shipped it off to my mom and she added her own knit elephant before giving it to Lauren at her shower for me.

I am flying home to be with Lauren at the end of next month after the birth and I cannot wait. And then Jeff will fly out to meet me and our whole family will go on our annual beach trip at my grandparents’ beach house. This time we will have a tiny human in tow. I think it will make the trip ten times as magical as normal. We’re all so giddy!

Made some handmade clothes for the fox. I love how proud he looks to be donning the new duds.

Both the sweater and little collar were made from yarn I picked up from the thrift store on different occasions. Feels good to put that stuff to good use.

I have never been one to make up a pattern or knit something on a whim, but decided that it’s not so daunting or scary when it is such a tiny thing (and not something that has to fit super well). So I picked up my needles and some yarn one night this week and experimented with a sweater. It doesn’t look like I imagined but has definitely inspired me to try again and make lots more. The scarf also was cast on with no counting or checking a pattern and was meant to be longer…but I love how it turned out as a collar instead! Always fun when mistakes turn into something even better than you imagined. Now if I can just get myself to write down notes after I have made these things so I can duplicate them in the future.

Made some handmade clothes for the fox. I love how proud he looks to be donning the new duds.

Both the sweater and little collar were made from yarn I picked up from the thrift store on different occasions. Feels good to put that stuff to good use.

I have never been one to make up a pattern or knit something on a whim, but decided that it’s not so daunting or scary when it is such a tiny thing (and not something that has to fit super well). So I picked up my needles and some yarn one night this week and experimented with a sweater. It doesn’t look like I imagined but has definitely inspired me to try again and make lots more. The scarf also was cast on with no counting or checking a pattern and was meant to be longer…but I love how it turned out as a collar instead! Always fun when mistakes turn into something even better than you imagined. Now if I can just get myself to write down notes after I have made these things so I can duplicate them in the future.

Sometimes all I can think when I look at our bed is how luxurious it would be to be able to crawl into and out of it on either side. So many options! Or to have room for a bedside table. An actual surface wider than a window sill on which to place things. Only in dreams.

It’s a good test to see how grateful I am being on a given day. Or how negative I am allowing myself to be. Do I love our bedroom today? Surrounded by windows and with a view of huge other-worldly succulents in the yard? The one where we get to wake with a front row seat to the heavy fog in the palm trees and patio lights, or the sun peeking in between branches, or even—on some deliciously special days—rain drops beating on the glass all around? Or do I see only a bed that is shoved against the wall on three sides and remember only the claustrophobia I feel sometimes during the night when I wake up pinned between a cold hard window and a hot pup who has wedged herself in between us?

It’s funny how even the things we think will make us happy still fail us once we get them. Why then, knowing this, do I still hold these things in my mind, romanticizing them so, while I know that one day when I have them I will inevitably crave the opposite? I pray for contentment more than almost any other thing.

Finished the little fox over the weekend. Spent a good amount of time trying to decide if it’s a boy or a girl but then realized I really like that I can’t decide. I want them all to be that way. I like that the kid who receives the animals I make will get to decide for themselves. Or change it up based on what their fantasy is that day.

I made the fox from the backyard bandits pattrern by Barbara Prime. The raccoon I made is also from that pattern. I’m loving that pattern more and more. This fox is so perfect to hold in my hands and has such a nice weight and flexibility. Knit from alpaca yarn and stuffed with organic cotton, he feels luxe and yet somehow still basic enough to drag around by the arm. I’m in love.

Little fox body parts all waiting to be given life.

With a needle and yarn and some fluffy cotton stuffed inside, suddenly these weird shapes will be a cute huggable fox. I don’t know exactly what he’ll look like yet…I can’t wait to meet him.

Here lie some of the pretty handkerchiefs and bits of fabric I have found at the thrift store. When I see these there, among heaps of not so pretty things, I imagine them with a brand new life. A doll dress with a delicate edging, a bedspread, rug, or picnic blanket, a hooded cape for a chilly bunny. I wonder how many other adults find themselves wanting a doll house.

I feel lucky to have had some friends, aquaintances, and even strangers reach out to me to place orders for stuffed animals (among other things) these past few months. My most recent request was for a stuffed whale and I was so excited to make one. It turned out bigger than I thought (2 ft long!) which I love. It is going to be a gift for a baby due in September and I like that the whale will be bigger than its recipient for a while.

I used some dark blue fabric from a shirt I was going to give away for the top and grey linen that has been sitting around waiting to be used for a dress I have yet to start. I like the way the two turned out together.

There are a few things I wish I did differently, but wanted to share this one anyway because I do love to see my progress.

I used this pattern and tutorial for the whale. During my search for patterns I also came across this knitted whale and kind of want to cast on right now and make one just for myself. So many things to make, so little time…!

Hudson. From crawling to eating his first birthday cake on my first roll of black and white film that took me forever to shoot for some reason. I love this kid.

More little cotton rabbits stuffed animals. Because friends love ‘em. And I can’t get over how cute they are hanging around my house.

There is a sweater and shorts pattern included with the stuffed animal patterns so I tried my hand at knitting one of the teeny sweaters and it’s definitely something I will be making again. So fun! Just look at that litte clothed bunny.

More here and here.

True love

Leah - December 2014

reflect

This little sweater was knitted for a real life baby, but the closest thing to a baby in my home is my childhood bear, so here you have a bear wearing a hand knitted coat. I had to put it on something. It’s so much cuter when you can see its three dimensions. Stuffed animals wearing clothes makes me so happy–the more anthropomorphization the better, in my opinion.

I used this pattern with this wool and found some vintage wooden buttons from this shop.

This was a good thing for a sweater novice to knit, I think, because it has some very important lessons in sweater construction (even better–cardigan construction. Button bands! Button holes!) that I may have been more scared to attempt on an adult sized sweater.

So baby sized versions of adult clothes are a good thing to make because smaller = cuter, easier, faster. And animal versions of human things are a good thing to make because DUH.