By Brienne

Lucky

To celebrate the season with the long days we are running through the wet woods. We are building with the stones on the beach. We are eating all things fried and sweet. We are not weeding our garden. 

At night, I've been fretting about the jungled garden. About all of the fresh, homemade meals that I did not make. About the time that they'll spend away from me come fall. 

But our ordinary scattered, summer ramblings are extraordinarily joyful. I am lucky. 

Our romp on the beach early this week was unexpectedly chilly. So, when my daughter asked if she could use the sweater that I was knitting, in the spirit of this summer of no structure, I agreed. I tore the yarn that would tangle it and looped up the ends so that they wouldn't slow her down. Can you spy the circulars still dangling from the half finished sleeve?

Earlier in the month, I had the good fortune of winning a giveaway on the Gypsy Forest blog. It included Heather Ross's new book and a precious little bundle of her fabrics.

I'm hoping to finish up my daughter's Livie Sweater and to begin this book. Have you read it?

Joining Small Things readers today over here:)

This is It!

Me, attempting some hand-stitching on a beautiful spring day at Squam. Photo source: Maya Made.

It has been over a week since I returned home from my second annual trip to Squam Art Workshops. I've waited to blather on about it because the task of capturing the profundity of it all is staggering and because I am sure to fall short.  

Nighttime knitting in our cabin. Photo source: Julie Dillion

When we arrived the first night, excited and anxious, wondering what was coming next, we were greeted by the retreat's founder Elizabeth, who directed our attention to a handmade banner that read: "This is It!" She reminded us that the retreat would be best approached with an open heart and with no expectations.

I needed to hear it. I knew it to be true, but still, the charge that "this was it" was both comforting and terrifying to me. I knew that in the quiet and calm of the New Hampshire woods I would certainly have the opportunity to rest and to stitch but that I would probably miss my family too and that the time and space might allow for thinking about things that were hard. 

That being said, this trip, like the last, was primarily joy-filled. My cabinmates were hilarious and whole-hearted in their efforts to help and care for one another. I whiled the hours happily away with my roomate who is a  gifted writer, a truly generous soul, and a night owl. We could not have been more skillfully matched. There was yarn bombing galore - toadstools poking out from the underbrush, canoes in sweaters, large stones wrapped in handknits, nothing is safe...

 The things that I made were humble but carefully crafted. I spent one day working through different methods for making short rows. If you are a knitting nerd you know what short rows are, but if not - they are used for adding shape to garments and they are all the rage. You can use short rows to add a bit of ease in to the bust of a sweater (as in the swatch example below), you could use them to shape a hem or neckline, I did so here. Here is another example of short row shaping used to make the overlapping circular fronts of a sweater. Gudrun Johnston taught the class. She was charming and clever. It was a dream to meet her. 

 I spent two more half days learning to print on upcycled fabric with the luminous Maya Donenfeld. We then used our printed fabric to stitch up a couple of pouches. The stitching was done primarily by hand and primarily out-of-doors. I loved the freedom to get away from the machines and to be outside. 

 The retreat is celebrated on the last night with an art fair. There were many rare treats to be found  there including the gorgeous knitting tools sold by Fringe Supply Co. and Cal Patch's original designs to name a couple. I was thrilled to be included as a vendor this year too. It was such a fun way to meet people. One sweet woman (Angela, are you out there?) even admitted that she had recognized me from the blog. Wow!!! And I met others who I had connected with via Instagram. Sometimes I love you so much social media...

Photo Source: Heather Classen.

I think that Elizabeth's reminder, that - this is it! is so totally right on. And, I think that if you're thinking of attending Squam, there is one thing that you CAN expect. The group is relatively diverse, last year I met my dear friend Felicia from Australia and this year, Maltina, from Germany. In spite of their diverse reasons for being at Squam, though, one simple thing is sure, each attendee is there to make time for art. We make time for art. 

And you? How are you making time for art this summer?

Joining Frontier Dreams today over here:)

Home

I am here. I just returned home from a week of magic in the New Hampshire woods. And in the weeks preceeding there was so, so much sewing but no time for the blog kind of sharing. I feel so grateful for having had the opportunity to participate in the beauty of Squam again. And  I'm really glad to be home and to be joining the other parents on the bleachers for a season of tee ball. 

There was a crafting extravaganza before I left and between making for sale and making to wear, I have so much that I want to share. In the meantime, though, I am soaking up the long summer days by watching my littles and kissing my date. 

How are you passing these well-earned summer days?

Sunday

How did it go, dear friends? Were you treated well? Did you meet the day with an open mind and with your whole heart? 

We had a very peaceful weekend. I tried to unchain myself from the sewing room and I managed to do so for at least a couple of hours of daylight:) 

I was given a gift certificate for yarn from my daughter and it will be this to use for another go at the Lila. My first attempt is over here. 

We had our picture taken as a family.

 

Many of the businesses in town are seasonal and we patronize them with glee when they open in the spring. We had dinner out. 

We played beauty shop (and when I say "we," I mean my sister, with my daughter - I am no good at all the-things-girl, but she is!)

Please treat yourself to Sylvia Bourstein's "What we Nurture". 

And watch this, it only takes a second. 

Happy Mother's Day, however it finds you. 

P.S. My son's green polka dot hat was made from Leila and Ben's Little Cap Pattern for the freshly released issue of STYLO magazine

Joining Frontier Dreams readers today over here. 

Perspective

More and more, my son has been reaching for my camera. It's always been my intention to share photo taking with them but I've never been very good at including them. It's heavy, it's fragile, I'm lazy. 

I'm working on letting him in, though. So, yesterday - when I heard the shutter clicking, I resisted the urge to caution him or to tell him that today was not a good day for it.

He took these in the sewing room yesterday and although, like many moms, I have a deep fear of camera lenses - I am saving them. 

I was fortunate to participate in a photography class with Thea Coughlin last summer. The camera technique was over my head (due in NO part to her instruction - I was just out of it that day:). But the classwork  also included material about the spirit of photography and so much of what she and the other students shared really stuck with me. 

I hesitate to try to narrate the details because her presentation was so well articulated. Do help yourself to one of her classes one day, you'll not be sorry!

Suffice it to say that Thea encouraged us all to be photographed. She shared a slideshow with us of her mom, who - like me and practically everyone else in the class, did not appreciate having her picture taken. Her mom is now gone. And she reminded us that those photos are for our families - who are not likely to look back on them with disdain over imperfect skin or the way that their mama looked in jeans. 

If you're curious about Thea or her photography projects, or if you're a mom, or a blogging mom, or an aunt or a grandma or a sister, check out her across the room project. Just head on over there and read a bit of what she has to say. It will do your sweet soul some good. Be sure to have your kleenex close at hand. 

Love this one he took of his sister, hard at work. 

Do you let yourself be photographed? How do you get past the discomfort? 

P.S. I was working on a Brigitte Needles and Notions Pouch . I need about four or so of these, upsized in order to fit my longer double points. 

 

Joining the Small Things readers today - head on over for loads of knitterly inspiration. 

Let them be.

I finished up some knitting last week, a quick Barley cap to block out the balance of the winter cold.  

The snow turned into rain. 

This transition was a thrill for the littles. They couldn't wait to try their limbs out in this new medium. 

This is how we wash away the winter. 

I've been mulling over this article in the Atlantic all week... Have you read it? 

I always fret about, well everything. But parenting in particular. While I fret, they grow. Scratching out meaning on their own. 

If you need an extra dose of funny this week, be sure to give this hilarious short story your ear: We are Fine Parents  by John Jodzio. 

What are you working on?

Joining Frontier Dreams readers today. Thanks to Nicole for hosting:)

Slow Sewing: Practicing the Button Placket

I'm getting to be a relatively quick sewer. Relatively. And I feel like I'm beginning to get a feel for patterns - to sort of know what to expect from the sketches, what the techniques used will most likely be and how I can tailor the pieces for what I need. 

But when it comes to technique, I could really benefit from practice... Especially the finishing!! So I'm taking the plunge. I'm trying to tackle techniques that have long been ignored on my sewing list. Patterns that I've been avoiding because I can't necessarily bend them to my will:) 

First up: taming the button placket. Here's my first attempt...

I love buttons. My mom is a pioneering seamstress. She made my baptismal gown, quilts, stuffed toys galore, a poodle skirt for the school play, added feathers to my prom outfit, and on and on. She did put her foot down about making my wedding dress but I think that was because she was already responsible for making the genache for 300 plus guests and because I wanted her to make a Vera Wang or something ridiculous. Oh youth...

Insert gratuitous shot of youth with mom waiting on me literally hand and foot at the end of the aisle, which I insisted on tromping down alone. Wince. 

As a saavy seamstress, she has always had a box full of intriguing buttons.  I remember combing through them as a kid. Some time over the last couple of years, she handed them over to me and now my daughter spends hours sorting them in the sewing room while the machine hums. 

So, I've long wanted to add buttons to projects but it is a tough step. You know, you have a perfectly pretty garment and the final step is to cut holes in it? Eek. But Rae's Geranium dress got me used to the idea a couple of years ago. And she makes the process foolproof. 

I added the buttons to the front, instead of the back and made the placket extra long to overlap the skirt. 

It is not perfect, it almost was, though, but at the last minute I decided to make the buttonholes that I had already marked, washed off and remarked, horizontal instead of vertical and instead of taking the time to mark them again - I eyeballed it and they ended up quite a bit east of where they should have been:( But I still think it's sweet and next time I'll do better. 

About the dress and the alterations that I made: 

• I cut out a size 3/View A
• I changed the hem to a high low, inspired by the dress in this post and using my previous notes for monkeying up a hem. 
• I eliminated the overlapping button placket part on the Geranium's back bodice piece and cut the back bodice on the fold instead of in two. 
• I used this tutorial for making the new, front button placket and made mine 9.5" long. 
• Additionally, I omitted the lining and instead used bias tape as facings. I made the bias tape using this tutorial .
• The lavender shot cotton and gray linen are from here. The whitish/bluish dot is from here (this shop is so super awesome, fastest shipping ever and pixie sticks in their packaging, woot!). 
• The buttons are from here. 

It took me most of the weekend to make. And it really is something that I'm proud of - just a muslin, I don't think that it'll end up in her regular rotation but now I know! I can make bias tape, I can make a placket and practice makes perfect, right? 

What are you working on?

Joining Nicole and her readers today over here.

And finally, just caught a lovely little Geranium with back ties over here. Check it out:)

I Was Wrong.

I was in no way ready to have kids. I didn't plan on it. Never planned on being married, never planned on being a mom, never planned on raising a family in my hometown. My only plan, in my twenties, was to flee. 

Somehow I ended up back on the shore of Lake Superior where I grew up. I fell in love bought property with my boyfriend, lived in a tent, then built a tiny house that we lived in with our two dogs and without running water. I went back to college. I got pregnant. I had two kids that were born 16 months apart. I studied all the time and traveled back and forth to my school, five hours south of home,  every other weekend. 

The travel and school plus two new kids was a strain on us financially, to put it mildly. I taught dance in the evenings to supplement my husband's modest income. We boiled water to do dishes and carried our son up a ladder to bed with us at night. 

I was a fearful new parent. I read everything that I could about parenting and scoured the internet for advice. My college courses offered an opportunity to do scholarly research about child rearing using many different lenses: biology, history, womens studies and literature. It was pretty thrilling to discover concrete research to back up my more casual reading about parenting - you know the guys, Kim John Payne, Dr. Sears and Alfie Kohn. The one that I liked the most was probably Naomi Aldort's, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves.  

I graduated when I was 31 years old, with honors and with two toddlers in tow. I will never forget how proud I felt. I'll never understand how my husband coped so lovingly with all of the chaos that my education brought to our young family. 

I got to be a pretty confident parent. I've even dared to think that parenting is what I was meant to do - if there is such a thing. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to raise kids. I'm so glad that we're doing it.

While teaching preschool children to dance, I could never understand why a parent would drop a screaming child off at class and leave them. I judged. I felt so sorry for the little, misunderstood people. The early childhood parenting techniques that I favored included: holding your children when they cried, nursing them (if applicable), sleeping with them - protecting them from harm above all else. 

My son started preschool this past September. I wept when I dropped him off the first day. I pledged never to leave him there if he was crying or distressed, like the children in my dance classes had occassionally been. To me, that would have been an expression of neglect - of disrespect. 

He's always been happy to go. He's quiet and cautious but loves his friends and the teacher. Then we were ill for almost three weeks and he remained home with his sister and I during that time. When he was well and I brought him back, something had changed. He clung to me and screamed. He was exhibiting behavior that I was not at all familiar with. He rarely crys and I really can't remember a tantrum. He's easy going and skilled at articulating his feelings. This was uncharted territory for me. 

I asked his teacher, a friend and studied early childhood educator, what I should do. She gently recommended that I allow him to lean on her for help - that I would leave and that he would remain for his regular afternoon class. 

I trust her fiercely. Eero has known her since he was a wee babe. She is kind and respectful. Her classroom is well ordered and provides predictable rhythyms for the students that include songs during transition times and independent work opportunities followed by reflection time. So, I left. It was awful. And I expected him to have stopped trusting me by the time he got home. 

But I realized that it's not my job to teach my son how to avoid discomfort and suffering. It's quite the opposite, isn't it? The most difficult part of being  a parent, for me, has been teaching my children how to experience sadness, anger and frustration fully and in such a way that they are able to move past it, once it has run its necessary course. 

So I was wrong. I was wrong to say that I would never leave him somewhere while he was crying. And I was most certainly wrong to think badly of those parents who left their distressed children with me. I wish that I had been as compassionate with them as my son's teachers have been with me. Sheesh.

It was very difficult to leave him when he was so sad. And I wish that it hadn't happened. Still, I am confident that my role in this case was to reassure him that he is safe, that he can rely on people outside of our family to help him through difficult times and that although suffering is a part of life, it is fluid. He will move past it. 

I haven't talked about parenting much here. I don't know if I will again but this lesson was significant for me and I hope that it might be a comfort to someone else out there. I'm interested in your thoughts. 

P.S. I'm almost through with the Lila and I'm totally in love. I simply cannot wait to get it off of the needles and onto my shoulders.

Nursing my emotional scrapes todayby joining the Frontier Dreams readers "Keep Calm and CraftOn..." and yarning along with the Small Things readers too. 

Also, hats like his can be found in the shop. And I talked more about his galaxy sweatshirt here.