This is the Jolly Bar Jazz Quilt Pattern from Fat Quarters Fabric Shop. I will post a little more information about the pattern and the fabric when I post  the final pictures.
This really was an easy quilt pattern to put together, so don't let my procrastination deter anyone for doing this quilt.

~

To all of you Moms out there, have a WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!!

"Be still to know the absolute.
Be active to know the outer.
The two spring from the same source,
All of life is one whole."
Deng Ming~Dao

It's been a little while since I have visited, but here I am again like a bad penny that keeps coming back..LOL

I have found that I am feeling less and less comfortable spending time on Facebook.  I miss the uncomplicated days of getting to know new friends through blogging, so I thought that I would try to spend my more of my time here blogging and reading blogs again.

So in the world of "makers", May is a dedicated month of concentrated making, whether it be sewing, quilting, knitting, etc.  Every year on Instagram, I see all of the fun things that people I know both personally and from afar are creating and I love it!  I find it so inspirational.  This year I thought I would take a little jump into this effort.

Now, I will be lucky to finish a few things, but knowing that I have such a hard time finding clothes that fit correctly, I wanted to concentrate on sewing some new things. Taking it slow and spending more time on quality over quantity and learning new skills.  I am always amazed at the people who can consistently crank out both beautiful quality items and doing it quickly.  I'm sure that I won't be one of them, at least for a spell for sure.

I'm also going to try to sew with a purpose by trying to create somewhat of a capsule wardrobe to mix and match and commit to keeping and having less.  I think it will help create more space in my brain if that makes sense, ha!  If nothing else, it will make getting ready for a day or traveling much simpler.

What do you think?  Do any of you live with capsule wardrobes?

Now that the Christmas tree and decorations have been taken down, we are coming into one of my favorite seasons minus the cold weather.

As much as I love the craziness of the holidays and spending time with my big family, I love when we settle into the hum-drum days of winter.  The days are now getting lighter, ever be it so slowly and the demands on our time are much less.

Last year my friend, Terry, sent me this puzzle knowing how much I love the ocean and how much I loved the puzzle when she pieced it together.  I didn't dare put it on my kitchen table however with a young cat in the house who notices "EVERYTHING!" 
I wasn't quite sure if I was ever going to be able to do this, even this year.  Such a dilemma!

After Christmas, I presented this dilemma to Ken knowing he enjoys doing puzzles with me.  He hemmed and hawed a bit at first about what building materials would work without breaking the bank and this is what he came up with.
I love it!  
The material is lightweight and the handle makes it so easy to take on and off while keeping little "Miss Nosey" away from the puzzle pieces.  
Looking back at one of Terry's posts when she was putting this together, I noticed that she found this one a bit challenging because the colors in the picture are not quite true.  Hmmm, if she found this a bit challenging, then I am going to probably find it very challenging as she is a puzzle aficionado!  Wish me luck over the next few weeks..ha!

How do you like to pass the winter days?

It's no surprise when it is in the teens and single numbers here in New Hampshire in January, but with all of the warmer weather we have been having these last few years, it always makes you suck your breath in when the usual winter weather makes her cold appearance!

I have been working on this beautiful shawl, designed by Woolenberry, named Spotlight and I am knitting this in my Opal yarn. Using the colorways "Cornhusk" and "au naturale", I am loving how soft and squishy this is knitting up and looking forward to the lacework that comes at the end of this shawl.  It's been a while since I have done some real lacework!  
I may have a larger lace project on the horizon this year, so this will be good training for reading those lace charts again.

The temperatures are supposed to moderate a bit this weekend, it will be nice to get outside again without freezing!
Yay!!!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!
xoxo

“A moving door hinge never corrodes. Flowing water never grows stagnant.”
Deng Ming Dao

I was up bright and early this morning to shape this lovely pumpkin sourdough bread and put it in the refrigerator for its long slow fermentation sleep. I had Corelli quietly playing in the background along with the quiet sounds of the much needed rainfall as I let my mind wander to the things I wanted to get done today.

Next week will be a busy one getting the house ready for Thanksgiving and family.  All of my kids will be here to celebrate this season of giving thanks with us.  I am so incredibly thankful that all of my kids enjoy each other's company and I am even more thankful that I will get to spend some quality time with my "littles" (pictures next week!)

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!!

How cute is this little scarf?  I just love it!
Pattern:  Just Enough Ruffles
Designer:  Laura Chau
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit ~ Wren
Colorway:  Blue Moon

A few weeks ago I saw a sweet picture that my friend, Ann Falcone, posted of this lovely ruffle scarf that she made for her young granddaughter.  The extremely pleased smile on her little face just made me chuckle.  I loved it and immediately wanted to make one for each of my little granddaughters.  This one is for little June and a pretty pink one is on the needles for my other granddaughter Raegan.

I think they will love them too!

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."
Bruce Barton

 I didn't mean to stay away so long again!

I retired at the beginning of Summer this year and while I have enjoyed the freedoms that it represents from schedules, I have also found that some of the demons that I struggled with during covid have reared their heads again.  I have had a very hard time explaining how I have felt for a long time because I can't find the right words, so I've just kept it all in and I've stayed quiet. It's almost a mental paralysis that keeps me from doing simple things and a loss of my voice.
It's a lack of ability to really put myself out there, finding it is easier just to stay home than to venture out where people are most of the time, even though I do enjoy the time I spend with family and friends.

One of the things that has really helped me focus on getting things done and feeling a sense of accomplishment has been creating short daily "to do lists". Crossing off each one of those to do's makes me smile and motivates me to do the next one. I'm feeling a sense of rhythm as the days go by.
Top of my list to day was to sit down and write this blog post..ha!

I have been following Kim Klassen for a long time going way back in my early blog days.  Her classes helped me learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop more effectively.  I hadn't received an email from her in a while but this showed up in my mailbox this weekend and I immediately resonated with it.  It was about "Self Gatekeeping", something that I have never heard before.  I completely recognized myself in her words, it was like a light bulb going off in my head.

So, I started researching this a little further and came upon this post from Juan Reyes where he describes Self Gatekeeping "as  as the act of imposing barriers or limitations on oneself, often driven by self-doubt or a belief that one does not belong or deserve to participate in a certain community, activity, or opportunity." 

While a lot of his post doesn't completely pertain to me, I can still see so much of what I struggle with in his words and it's nice to know that I am not alone.

Whew…this one was a hard blog post for me to write, especially given that I don't usually put many of my personal struggles out there but this post has been marinating for a long time, I just found the right words thanks to the information that I read this past weekend.  Knowing that there is a name for some of the paralysis that I have struggled with since covid has helped so much.

So to close, I am just going to say that I working on finding both my social voice and my creative voice again. I know for me it's not going to be easy, but I am going to try to show up in places that matter to me more often.
Photo by: Matthew Henry

What a fun weekend we had, but did I take any pictures?  Of course not, mostly because I was enjoying the moments, but I do need to remember to take out my phone and record more of the moments now and then.  

Saturday afternoon we drove down to Southern Maine to watch my grandson, Finley's, championship playoff game, as we have done most weekends this fall.  The boys won their ticket into the championship with a win, so we will go back down again this weekend. We will also watch my other grandson Asher's championship football game on Thursday.
(I love that the boys love to play sports!)

Last night we went to a friends house for a birthday get together.  The birthday boy made us incredible pizza's in his amazing and big outdoor fire pizza oven.  Those pizza's were cooking in less than 10 minutes and were so light and fluffy.  It was a fun night of good food and good conversation.


In between, I have been working on a three cute quilts, all the same. I had hoped to have them all completed by Halloween, but time will tell if I can get all of them finished.  I have to admit, I stole this quilt pattern from my friend, Terry @knittingtheblues who made them last year for her grandchildren.  She was kind enough to tell me where some of the cute Halloween prints came from so I ordered them right away before they sold out.  

Of course, I should have started these quilts months ago, but I've had some life challenges that I wasn't expecting and all of the planning for our amazing trip that took up many happy hours.
Don't you just love those little girls in their "trick or treat costumes"?  I know I do!

 
Good Morning Venice!!  We woke up to a beautiful day, the weather was cooler and much less humid which made traveling around both on foot and by boat so much more comfortable .  One of the things that I really wanted to see was the Rialto Fish Market, so we hopped on a Vaporetto instead of walking this time. We met a wonderful couple who had been traveling around Europe for 8 weeks! It was fun meeting and chatting with people from all around the world.  I'm not sure I would want to be away for 8 weeks but 2 weeks sounds pretty good to me now.

The fish market was something to behold for sure! So much amazing fresh fish.  I am not a huge fan of fish, but seeing and smelling how fresh this fish was, I even wanted to sit down and have some.  Not so sure about the Octopus though..LOL.  My younger girls have had it and like it, but even Ken who will eat almost anything didn't think he could eat it either.

Just look at those tomatoes!  So much delicious goodness there.

After a short break for breakfast, we then walked over to the iconic Rialto Bridge and it was SO crowded! In saying this when we went it was the weekend, so extra busy with tourists and locals.
(I took this picture the night before when it wasn't so busy)
On each side of the bridge are lots of little shops.  I had fun tucking my head into a few of them and purchasing a few things to bring home.  
I will say however that I wasn't sad to leave the crowds and head back towards Piazza San Marco for a special treat!

Ken really had his heart set on riding in a Gondola.  It is pricey for sure and I had told Ken that I was fine with not going on one if it was too much money, but I think that this was something that he really wanted to do.  It was definitely a highlight that we will both remember!

This was our Gondolier and he was so much fun!  He was well versed in the history of Venice and shared so much of that history with us as we sailed along.  Traveling along in those canals is something else!  Between the gondolas, the water taxi's and the workers bringing things in and out for the shops, it could get quite crowded, but it was all so much fun!

I had to include this groovy little gondolier cat painted on one of the shops in the alleys that we walked by on our way to dinner to the very best meal I had in Italy!

Ristorante Sant Angelo was amazing!  Tucked into a little square not too far from our apartment, this little restaurant served some incredible food.  As I mentioned, I really didn't feel it was right to pull out my phone and take pictures of my meal in such a small space, but you can trust me…. it was soooooo good!  Take a look at the menu. I had Filetto di bue Angus al pepe and it is one of the very best Filet Mignon's that I have ever had…that sauce!
The meal also included a complementary glass of Prosecco before dinner and a complimentary glass of Limoncello after dinner.
I highly recommend it, but make reservations early if you want to sit outside.

Our first trip together abroad was nothing short of amazing and I am already looking forward to visiting Italy again!
Until then…..Goodnight Venice. ❤️