the never-ending boyfriend blanket

Hi guys! 

Today I'd like to show you the biggest knitting project I have ever done-- a Vivid blanket for my boyfriend.  Now that we've exchanged gifts and I won't ruin the surprise by showing photos, I'm so excited to be able to share this labor of love!  It got its name, The Never-Ending Boyfriend Blanket, because I started knitting on it in early November and kept knitting on it until the end of January!  I guess objectively that isn't a particularly long time to be knitting a blanket, but when you knit exclusively in 4 colors, all of which are shades of grey and blue, for three months... well, it seems like a while.  I went to Vogue Knitting Live while I was in the midst of knitting this blanket, and in rebellion against the grey and blue, I bought oodles of pink and purple sparkly yarn and fiber.  But more on that at a later date. 

I didn't want my fella to have to worry about hand-washing this blanket, so I knit it out of Berroco Vintage.  The fiber content is 50% acrylic, 40% wool, and 10% nylon.  I'm not generally a fan of blends including acrylic, but the Vintage was lovely to work with.  I'm actually planning another Vivid for myself in the same yarn!

 

The Vivid squares traveled with me everywhere, including on the trip to my mom's house in Pennsylvania.  This was a very cozy day, knitting in front of a fire and listening to audiobooks.  

 

In the end, I knit thirty squares.  They filled my entire bathtub when I soaked them in preparation for blocking!  My current blocking board situation only allowed me to block 8 squares at a time, so there may have been some creative drying methods to speed along the process.  A hair dryer was, perhaps, involved, as well as an intricate arrangement of blocking boards around my bedroom radiator.    

 

I finished the blanket the night before Christian arrived in New York.  Bucky became very attached to it.  He was not pleased when I took it away!  It's not like he is lacking for blankets, either.  Every blanket that is supposed to be for me gets claimed by the cats as it is!  But of course, all other blankets paled in comparison to the only one he couldn't have.  

The finishing touch on this blanket was a little copper heart charm, a very tiny one so that only Christian will know where it is.  

The best part of this whole project was Christian's reaction when I gave him his blanket.  He melted my heart by choosing it over a fluffy hotel duvet when we snoozed after a long walk.  Mmhm, he is most definitely knit-worthy.  

Project details!

Pattern: Vivid by Tin Can Knits

Yarn: Berroco Vintage 

Yardage by Colorway: 1302 in Cracked Pepper, 325.5 in Smoke, 271.25 in Gingham, and 271.25 in Tide Pool.

Total Yardage: 2,170 yards total (!!!) 

♥

Impressions Jewelry by Romano Sculpture!

Hi there-- I hope you're having a wonderful week!

Today I'd like to share my mom's new Etsy shop, Impressions Jewelry by Romano Sculpture!  She creates beautiful, unique handmade jewelry using pearls and semi-precious stones.  I'm so impressed by the way she can combine colors and shapes and textures in ways that are completely unexpected and gorgeous.  Her shop officially launched on Sunday, July 13th, and it was stocked with 14 stunning pairs of earrings.

 

 

The sunstone in this pair has the prettiest subtle sparkle when it catches the light!

 

 

I love my mom's take on the classic color combination of pink, black, and white.  They're a bit feminine and a bit tough.

 

 

This pair is one of my favorites-- the Baroque pearls are so beautiful and I've never seen anything else  like them!

 

 

 

This pair reminds me of a walk on the beach at night-- the luminous moon shining on bits of beach glass.

 

 

I love this pair-- the combining of sterling silver, rose gold, and yellow gold looks so modern against the sleek black onyx.

 

One of my favorite aspects of these earrings is the mix of textures.  The pearls are polished, but soft, in contrast to the matte finish of the amazonite and the reflective smoothness of the tourmaline and onyx.

 

This pair is no longer in the shop, as they have already sold, but they were one of my favorites and I couldn't resist posting them anyway!

Which pair is your favorite?  If you would like to stay up to date with Impressions Jewelry by Romano Sculpture, add it to your Etsy list of favorite shops so that you can see new pieces as they are added!  Custom work is also welcome-- my mom is happy to work with you to create the perfect jewelry to give as a gift, or to wear for a special occasion! (I've already asked my mom if she will make my bridal jewelry, when the time comes!)

Thank you for letting me share my mom's beautiful new creative endeavor with you-- I am so proud of her and so impressed with her work!

♥

boston

Hi there!  Today I'd like to share a few pictures and memories from a trip to Boston that my boyfriend and I took a few weeks ago. 

  

 I took the train from New York, which was completely pleasant.  The views out the window were beautiful.  This was also my first experience with something truly spectacular:  the Quiet Car.  I can't even describe how wonderful it was to sit on a train knowing that nobody would be yelling into their phone as though they were screaming across a football field, or-- actually, I can't even come up with an 'or.'  The cell phone thing is what gets to me.  Anyway, it was marvelous.  I listened to podcasts and knit the whole way to Boston, and I had my own seat the whole time.  Apparently, not everyone is crazy about the idea of sitting in a train car where you can't make noise, but to me, it was ideal.  I love train rides, and this was one of my favorite ones yet.

  

 My grandmother used to take my mom and my brother and I to Boston every year, and every year I was so excited to go on the Swan Boats in the Boston Public Gardens.  It turns out that I get just as excited about them as an adult!  Since we went on a grey morning with some sprinkles of rain, there was no line at all.  It was just as lovely as I remembered.  There was a pair of nesting swans next to the lake, and the swan who was on the nest moved just enough that we could see the eggs!  It was very exciting.  I didn't want to disturb them by trying to take a picture, so instead, I just hissed "Look! Eggs!  Look!  Eggs!" repeatedly to my boyfriend, who had, in fact, pointed out the eggs to me.

  

Completely by chance, we came across a rose garden on our way to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  I've never seen so many roses in one place!  And I've gotta say... There aren't too many things better than walking hand in hand with someone fantastic through arches of roses.  I highly recommend it. 

  

We also went to two Red Sox games!  I hadn't been to a baseball game in years, and it was my boyfriend's first time at Fenway Park.  He's an avid Red Sox fan, and David Ortiz hit a home run on his birthday.  So that was pretty great.  It turns out that I really like baseball!  I've known for a while that it's my favorite sport, mostly because it's one of the few sports where I am both interested and can figure out what is going on, more or less, but it turns out that I really like it.  I wore a baseball hat twice and I've worn it to the grocery store since.  I even have a favorite player!  (It's Jackie Bradley Jr., in case you're wondering.  I like him because he has cute chipmunk-cheeks and because the first few measures of his walk-up song sound like they're being sung by Alvin.  I obviously have very strict priorities for choosing favorite players.)

 

We had such a wonderful time.  It was a perfect blend of revisiting my favorite places from previous trips and going on brand new adventures and making brand new memories.  Boston is definitely still my favorite city (sorry, New York) and it was so much fun to experience it with such a special person.  

Where are you all traveling to this summer?  I hope your week is off to an excellent start!

♥

moonrise kingdom

On Tuesday night, I saw Moonrise Kingdom.

It was one of the cutest movies I've ever seen.

Y'know what's in that basket?  A kitten.

I've gotta admit, I spent a lot of the movie worrying about something happening to that kitten.

I blame The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Which I hated.

But this post isn't about a movie I hated.

It's about a movie I loved.

So anyway.

One of my very favorite actors in the world and one of my earliest crushes, Edward Norton, is in Moonrise Kingdom!  Yay!

He is LIT-trally the only man on the planet who could make high-waisted khaki shorts look good.

I loved the storybook aspect of the movie-- interestingly, none of these books actually exist as published works, Wes Anderson just wrote passages from them, but he's currently working on a side-project of animating the books that Suzy brought with her.  Yay!

I absolutely loved the whole movie.  Although it did make me a little melancholy that these two twelve-year-olds did so much to be able to stay together, and it made me very conscious of the fact that I don't currently have someone to go on adventures with.

(Except my best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world, Marissa, of course.  But I mean a male someone.  A male someone who isn't one of my cats.  You know what I mean.)

If you saw Moonrise Kingdom, what did you think of it?

This awesome piece of embroidery is one of my favorite quotes from the film.

Have a fantastic evening!

♥

happy birthday mom!

Happy birthday to my wonderful Mom!
We've had so much fun together, and we've been there for each other through so many ups and downs.
And I know we always will be.

I love you so much!

♥

face-palm.

     Hi, guys.  Let's get political for a second.  We can do that, right?  We've known each other for a while, we can talk about the issues, yeah?  Ok, I'm glad we're in all agreement about that.

     So, Amendment One to the North Carolina state constitution effectively bans same-sex marriage.  NC isn't the first state to do this, but honestly, I'm more disappointed with every state that decides to take part in this nonsense.  Because, insultingly enough, same-sex marriage already wasn't legal there.  So I kind of feel like it was just a big obnoxious statement of beliefs, particularly religious ones-- except that religious beliefs don't really have a place in a state's constitution.  That is called theocracy, and it's pretty much exactly what the U.S. Constitution was set up to prevent.  But the religious aspect isn't really what I want to talk about.  Regardless of whether we're on the same end of the theological spectrum, I'm not here to knock anybody's belief system.  But I am going to knock behavior that is thoughtless, reckless, and dangerous.

     I'm lucky enough to live in a city that embraces a huge variety of cultural backgrounds, religions, gender identities, and sexual orientations.  However, not everyone has that same privilege.  Nobody disputes the level of tragedy when they hear about the suicides of gay teens who feel like the world is against them.  But these things don't just happen without any outside influence.  Nobody wants to think that their influence, no matter how big or small, could lead to an adolescent taking their own life, but that's the reality of the situation.  Amendment One and similar legislation in other states are a tidy little way to say, "Hey, if you love somebody who happens to be the same gender that you are, you don't deserve equal rights.  Your love is second-class.  Your feelings are less-than.  And just in case you don't feel enough disapproval as it is, let's slap a legal label on it."  Very few people think that in-school bullying of gay teens is acceptable, but legislation like this is bullying on a massive scale.  It's appalling.  If you keep repeating the same action, you will get the same result, and right now the result is a wave of young people killing themselves.  It's a growing number of families having to live with the loss of a child, niece, nephew, sister, brother, grandchild.  It's a huge number of kids growing up having the legally reinforced belief that they are not enough.  

It's not necessary, and it's not okay.

bittersweet

    

      I wrote a few weeks ago about my frustration with finding a topic for my memoir class, mentioning how I'm generally quite a private person (despite all evidence to the contrary, given that I'm writing this on a public blog, which quite literally exists for other people to read) and how while I love to read memoirs, writing down intimate details of my life to share with others is not so much my thing.  I managed to write one piece that I was reasonably pleased with, and it got a good reaction from my classmates, and I felt like I was getting somewhere with this whole experience-sharing business.  But even with that piece, there were details that I deliberately omitted-- the memory was too close to my heart to share more than a glimpse into it.  When it came time to write the next piece, I was stuck right up until the night before class.

     I decided pretty early on in the semester that I wouldn't be writing about losing my dad and everything that led up to it.  It's still much too soon for me to be able to think about it without crying, never mind sharing it with a class.  But it made me wonder if I was being neglectful or disrespectful to my dad's memory by not writing about it, because it's truly the most intensely painful and impactful thing that I've ever experienced.  It's on my mind constantly, he's on my mind constantly.  But writing about it in detail felt out of the question, and not only would it be really, really difficult for me to write.  My dad's life shouldn't be defined by its ending.  Instead, I started writing about some of my favorite memories of my childhood-- coming home from school and spending time with my family and the special bond that we shared and still share.  Finally, a subject about which I have years and years of experience and emotion.

     Writing memories from my childhood, which was as wonderful a childhood as anyone could ever ask for, was bittersweet.  I'm so relieved to finally be able to remember life before my dad got sick.  The good memories are slowly making their way to the top of my mind instead of being firmly pushed down by the upsetting ones.  After my professor read my memoir fragment on Monday, she said "It's lovely...I was just talking with [another professor at my school] about how if someone were to write a deep, heartfelt memoir about a happy experience, we'd love to read it, but those aren't generally things people write memoirs about.  Keep writing about this-- a happy childhood is rare and the rest of us who didn't have one can live vicariously through reading about it."  Her words really resonated with me.  My blissful childhood was an event that deserves description just as much as any of the devastating memories.

     As much as I'm enjoying recalling happier times, it's also painful.  As I wrote about the simple pleasure of coming home from school and opening into the door to our wonderful, welcoming hobbit-hole of a house and saying hello to my parents, I couldn't suppress one thought from circling in my mind.

How could everything have gone so wrong?

It's a question that I'll never have a satisfactory answer to.  And that is really, really difficult to live with--the idea that tragic things can happen completely arbitrarily.  Right now, though, I'm trying to find comfort in exploring my recollections of a time before I ever asked that question.  I'm trying to honor my dad by remembering his life and how joyful my family's lives were together. 

 I'm trying to remember that before everything went wrong, everything was right.

♥

if you're interested in the memoir fragment that inspired this blog post, feel free to read it here.

♥

fill-in-the-blank friday ♥

via the little things we do

(these are love-themed, too!  Lauren wrote them to celebrate her anniversary.)

1. The love of my life is out there somewhere.  Right?  Right?

2. Falling in love is strange.  You're just going along, living your life, and then wham!  You suddenly realize that you can't imagine life without one particular person and then you have to figure out what they feel about you, and... although, y'know what?  That's totally not how I go about falling in love.  I'm of the opinion that love is a good thing even when it doesn't last forever, and I've never been one to read relationship advice, and while I had plenty of moments of "Aaaah!  How does he feeeeeeel about me?" in high school, I pretty much just roll with it now.  I don't have the time or inclination to play hard-to-get or try to convince someone to be romantically interested in me.  I don't play hard-to-get because I am hard to get.  I have pretty high standards, and I know that removes quite a few fish from the dating pond, as it were, and it doesn't bother me.  When I'm in a relationship I give it everything I've got and I'm clear about my feelings and I enjoy every moment I have with that person.  So I kinda expect the same level of effort from whomever I'm in that relationship with.  As for trying to convince a guy to be romantically interested, I just cannot be bothered.  I am either someone's cup of tea or I am not and all the tomfoolery in the world isn't going to change that.

Oh boy.  I said 'tomfoolery' and 'cup of tea' in the same sentence.  I am officially old.

This answer has gone way off-track.

3. Marriage is a big flipping deal.  Especially now, when it's completely socially acceptable to live together as a couple and never get married-- it's something that I think people should very sure they want to do before they actually do it.  That said, I do also think it's very special, and everyone should have the chance to do it if they want to.  Saying something is equal to marriage does not make it equal to marriage and I can't believe with all of the other tragedies happening in the world that this is even an issue.  If two people are deeply in love and want to get married, for crying out loud, let them.

I'm looking at you, NJ Governor Chris Christie.  And I have my disappointed face on.

4. The longest relationship I've ever had was about two years.

5. The key to a good relationship is empathy.  I think if you can imagine how the other person feels, it makes you more honest, more caring, more sensitive, and creates a closer bond.  This goes for any relationship, not just romantic ones.

6. I feel loved when someone does something sweet that they know specifically that I'll like.  I'm not talking about big stuff, either-- I feel loved when someone leaves me the middle pieces of bread for a sandwich because they know I don't like the end pieces, or when takes my hand when we're walking into an unfamiliar situation because he knows sometimes they make me shy and uncomfortable. 

7. My favorite quote about love is this one!

It always makes me think of one of my very favorite nights ever, spent wandering around Manhattan holding hands and giggling and going on the swings in Battery Park.

anyone have fun weekend plans?

only two and a half days left to enter the etsy shop giveaway!  aaaaaah!  

♥

things I love ♥

Today was awesome from top to bottom.

My Valentine's Day post was pretty much completely about romantic love.

So today let's take it in a different direction and talk about things I love (and things you love!  leave them in the comments!).

♥the view of the Empire State Building from my bed-- especially on Valentine's Day, when it was red and pink!

♥getting quality Mom-time last weekend.  We had so much fun and listened to so much good music and had delicious food like the phenomenal bouillabaisse at Lillie's.  And she gave me a Valentine's Day card with cat stickers!  She knows me so well.

♥finishing all my homework by 10 pm and having a few hours to blog, crochet, watch movies, read-- anything!

♥A Fine Frenzy.  I go in phases with Alison Sudol's beautiful music.  I listen to the same few songs over-and-over-and-over and then I don't listen to them for months.  Right now I am in l-o-v-e with these two.

'steel and concrete break beneath the steady waves of fearless hope and grace, in kindness there is strength.'  

this is life-philosophy material.

♥getting closer to spring and waking up to sunshine instead of darkness

♥little signs that my Dad is still looking out for me

♥peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam and cold milk.

♥New York Fashion Week!  I'm putting together a 'favorite's of fashion week' post so you can see what caught my fancy.  (hint: it's a lot of full skirts and pastels.  shocking.)

♥having an internship that I'm excited to spend extra days at.  I can't believe how lucky I was with this one!  For newer readers, I intern at Allison Parris New York, with the lovely little group of ladies in the design studio.  And it is seriously wonderful.

♥that feeling of waking up and realizing I cleaned my room the night before.

♥my morning cup of tea!  lately I'm on a peppermint kick.

♥twinkle lights.  I keep mine up year-round.  They give just enough light to read by, but little enough light that turning off all my other lights for half an hour before bed makes me relaxed and sleepy.

♥wonderfully hot showers.

♥the moon

from here

♥waking up thirsty in the middle of the night and having nice cool water in a ceramic mug.

night night

only three more days to enter the etsy shop giveaway!

♥

dad's birthday.

Today is my dad's birthday.  He would have been turning 57.

One of my favorite memories of my dad actually happened over the phone.  I was walking down 8th Avenue, talking to my dad on my phone, and it was right around this time of year, because we were talking about his birthday.  He said, "I went this whole year thinking I was going to be turning 56, but when I said that to your mom, she said I was only going to be turning 55!  I did the math, and she was right!  How about that?  I just turned a year younger on my birthday."

I miss my dad so much every single day.  There are days when it's almost impossible to deal with having lost him.  I've been trying to deal with it in part by living in a way that he would be proud of and following the wonderful example that he set.  One of the things that stands out most to me was how openly he expressed how much he loved his family.  Pretty much every time he saw one of us (which was a lot, because my parents worked at home, something for which I'm extremely grateful), we'd get a "Love you, Hon," (to my mom,) "Love you, Bud," (to my brother,) or "Love you, Jules" (to me).  One of the things that has comforted me most since losing him is the knowledge that there was absolutely no doubt about how much we cared for each other.  I'm never going to have to look back and say "I wish I had told him I loved him more often."

This is from my high school graduation party, one of my very favorite memories.

That's what I'm trying to incorporate into my own life-- letting people know that I care about them, and that they're special to me, and never to take anyone for granted because life truly is too short for that.  So if I can make a little request of you, my dear and sweet readers who have given me so much support over the past year, I would request that you help me celebrate my dad's birthday by finding someone who is special to you and telling them how much they mean to you.  Let them know that you're there for them, and that your life is enriched because they are in it.  Tell them you love them while they can hear you.

♥

both sublime and absurd

It's no secret that I love cats.

So I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that I desperately wish I was present at the filming of this video.

Because what's even cuter than one cat?

One hundred cats in a kitty playground, naturally.

enter to win my etsy shop giveaway!

♥

new year ♥

Happy New Year!

Ashley, from You're the Charlie Browniest, wrote a really great New Years post of a letter written to the version of herself that existed one year ago.  I thought that was a great way to look back over the year, so I've written my own letter.

Dear Julie of December 31st, 2010,

     You are so happy at this moment-- hold onto that feeling.  Hold onto it tightly.  Because you will need to draw on that reserve of happiness so much for the next year... but you will make it through.

     There's a man next to you right now, and you are absolutely convinced you're going to be spending the rest of your life with him.  You'll actually only be together for a few more weeks.  But even though you're heartbroken and furious at first, you don't stay bitter for very long.  You've learned how happy and alive you can be, and how deeply you can love.

     April... in April, you lose another love.  I wish I could tell you that you get over it quickly and painlessly.  But it does get easier, and eventually you're able to remember the quietly joyful moments and smile instead of cry.

     When your dad gets sick, spend as much time with him as you possibly can.  Losing him is the worst thing that you've ever experienced and you won't understand how the world could possibly go on without him.

     That still hasn't gone away.  Hang in there, Julibee Roo.

     The year does have some good points, though.  You do very well in school, and you grow up more this year than in any other period of your life.  You learn that having an amazing best friend is an invaluable gift.  You learn to deal with overwhelming grief by channeling it into your art, even if you can't put it into words.  You learn that, as one friend puts it, "there's a tiger hiding under all those ruffles and bows."  You're a strong girl.  Keep trying to find a balance between that strength and letting yourself be soft and vulnerable.

Be gentle with yourself, busy bee.

Love, Julie of December 31st, 2011

start the new year with a giveaway!  click here to enter to win goodies from my etsy shop.

♥

fill-in-the-blank friday! ♥

Helloooo!  I'm taking a (very) brief break from schoolwork to fill in some blanks.  And this week they're about love.  Hunh.  This should be good.

via the little things we do

1.   Love is life-altering, even when it isn't the forever kind.  Love saved my life a few years ago and even though that particular love ended, I'll always be grateful that it started.

2.   Being in love feels like being able to face the world and handle anything as long as you're by that person's side.  For me, it feels like waking up happy and excited every day.

3.  My favorite quote about love is  actually a lyric: "You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you.  You know I dreamed about you, I've missed you for twenty-nine years."  It's from the song Slow Show by The National and I just think it's so beautiful and romantic and true.  I'm an absolute believer in love at first sight, that feeling that you've finally found what you've been searching for and that nothing is ever the same after that first glance.

4. The most important thing in a relationship is  empathy and communication and passion.  ...Okay, so that's three things.  But I think it's so important for partners to be able to put themselves in the others place, to understand what they're feeling.  And as a very private person, and a perfectionist, sometimes I have a hard time communicating what's going on with me that's making me behave a certain way, partially because I'm afraid I'll get hurt if I'm that open and vulnerable.  But people are so much more forgiving and understanding than I give them credit for.  If two people can get that communication going both ways, it makes for such a steady base for the relationship to stand on.  As for passion... well, if that isn't there, what's the point?

5.  A "deal breaker" for me in a relationship is if a man's natural scent doesn't appeal to me.  I know this sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  I like when a guy naturally smells a bit warm and spicy.

6.  The way I show love in my relationships is by making things.  If I'm constantly giving you little gifts that I've made, it indicates pretty strong feelings.  Also, obvious as it seems, I show love through physical affection.  I'm not naturally a touchy-feely person, so if I'm touching someone a lot, I probably love them.  And using names in conversation-- for some reason, I am SO UNCOMFORTABLE using someone's name in conversation when I'm talking to them, but that goes away a bit if I'm in love.

7.  I love ...my cat.  I don't know.  I'm not in love at the moment.

That was so much less bitter than I expected!  Yay.

Stay tuned over the next week or so, I'll be posting some photos of my final projects for the semester.

♥

hugo ♥

This has not been a great year for me.

It started out with two heart-shattering break-ups-- the really, really bad kind, where all you can do for a week or two afterward is cry and get sick.  One was with someone who I genuinely thought was the love of my life. The other was with my exact opposite. I was his anima, he was my animus.

The summer culminated with the sudden and devastating loss of my dad.

I'm emotionally exhausted.

Life doesn't feel magical anymore.

Tonight I saw Hugo with my mom.

It's such a beautiful movie, visually and thematically.  It felt so poetic.

It was reminiscent of Amélie, especially in the color story and the mix of reality and fantasy.

It made me feel more alive than I have in months.  I plan on seeing it at least two or three more times.

Have you seen Hugo?  What did you think of it?

♥

also, the Cyber Monday sale has started at Julie Rose Sews on Etsy!  enter the coupon code 'CyberMonday' for 15% off any order.

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i love these paintings by Kelli Murray...especially the one with the kitty.

♥

speaking words of wisdom

Even though I could count the number of times I remember being with her on one hand, I've always really liked our family friend Eve.  She gave me some advice the other day that's really stuck with me while I'm trying to begin to comprehend the loss of my dad.

"You're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days, and it's okay.  You're going to break down in the middle of the A&P and you're going to be in the most sad situation and start laughing, and none of it is wrong.  There's nothing you can feel that's wrong.  Whatever you feel, it's okay.  It's all okay."

♥

In other news, I'm being serenaded by the peeping of these three little guys...

hope everyone's having a lovely summer sunday

♥

 

celebrating my dad

Thank you so much for all of the support and love during the past few days. The viewing for my dad will be on Thursday 7/7 at Hessling Funeral Home (428 Main St., Honesdale, PA 18431) from 10 a.m. until noon. The service will be at Grace Episcopal Church at 1 p.m., followed by a celebration of his life at my grandmother's house (1708 East St.) at 4 p.m.

"Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

♥

dad

love you forever, Dad.  the world is so much better because you were in it.  you'll always be in our hearts.

♥

birthday yarn! ♥

I turned 21 today!  First, thank you so, so much for all of the incredibly sweet birthday wishes on Facebook and Twitter.  ♥ They completely made my day.  The other thing that made my day was...birthday yarn!!!

I love my local yarn store, The Gentle Arts, so much to begin with that even going in there makes a day pretty fantastic.  The yarns are wonderful, and they're displayed in such a way that you just can't help touching them.  Oh, and the owner of the shop, Jan, winds the yarn into center-pull balls before it even leaves the store, it's wonderful.  And now I have two more skeins of the lovely green Ushya yarn, by Mirasol.

This is being added to the first skein and made into a hooded scarf.  I have the hood part of it done, now I just need to knit the ends.  It kind of makes me feel like Link from the Legend of Zelda games, and being something of a nerd, I'm really happy about that.

The other yarn that I got is my favorite yarn ever (thus far): Louisa Harding Willow Tweed.  I had some left over from a scarf (which I just realized I never posted pictures of... those will be up later in the week), and so the Field of Flowers blanket started.

Aren't they so sweet?  They remind me of little pastries or something.  One of the things I love about this yarn is that all of the colorways have a similar tone, so any combination of them looks beautiful.  I'm so excited to see how the new colors look as flowers!

I hope your day was just as lovely!

♥

bear with me

 

it's strange how everything can change but nothing changes.