Talking Tuesday: Laurus and the mosaic of life

Nizhni Novgorod, November 1998

The last week or so I've been putting photos into albums during spare moments.  When Boo was born, I bought my first digital camera, and started making photo books at the end of each calendar year, but up to that point, almost everything photographic in our lives was in print form.  The three-ring albums I had were clunky and took up a lot of shelf space.  We were trying to make more room for children's books, so something had to go.  I removed most of the prints from the albums and stored them in photo boxes instead (there were a few albums that I stored in a box in the basement because they were so large or were specific to a trip).

Moscow, March 2003

It was fine until recently when I moved all our photo books to a place that was more accessible to the children, and Piglet was slightly upset that there were no photos of him prior to Boo's birth.  I told him that I had boxes of photos of him, but because they were put away, he couldn't look at them.  (I had a similar issue myself when I was younger, as almost all the photos of my first year or two of life are in slide format).  I decided then that I needed to put at least some of the photos back into albums.

At my sister's wedding, October 2003

 I decided to start with the photos from the summer of 2003, when I met my husband, and go forward from there.  Four albums later, I'm up to date with our pictures.  It was an interesting memory journey to go on, to look back to that summer when I returned Stateside after living Russia, meeting my husband, deciding to go by my patron saint's name instead of my birth name, the early years of our relationship and marriage, and so on.  Who was I when I was just Jill?  It almost felt like looking at photos of someone else.  Almost.  The older I get, the more the various parts of my life feel distinct not only from one another but from myself as now.

With Piglet, July 2009

I thought this passage from Laurus perfectly captures it:

"I no longer sense unity in my life, said Laurus.  I was Arseny, Ustin, Amvrosy, and I have just now become Laurus.  My life was lived by four people who do not resemble one another and they have various bodies and various names.  What do I have in common with the light-haired little boy from Rukina Quarter?  A memory?  But the longer I live, the more my reminiscences seem like an invention.  I am ceasing to believe them and they thus lack the power to link me to those people who were me at various times.  Life resembles a mosaic that scatters into pieces.

Being a mosaic does not necessarily mean scattering into pieces, answered Elder Innokenty.  It is only up close that each separate little stone seems not to be connected to the others.  There is something more important in each of them, O Laurus: striving for the one who looks from afar.  For the one who is capable of seizing all the small stones at once.  It is he who gathers them with his gaze.  That, O Laurus, is how it is in your life too.  You have dissolved yourself in God.  You disrupted the unity of your life, renouncing your name and your very identity.  But in the mosaic of your life there is also something that joins all those separate parts: it is an aspiration for Him.  They will gather together again in Him."

~Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus. London: Oneworld Publications, 2015, 330.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

First official make of the new year!  Technically, it is the second, as I made a second canvas-linen dress last week, but I haven't worn it yet, as the sweater I'm knitting to go with it isn't quite finished.  

This is the second of the Mammoth plaid flannel dresses, and I'm totally thrilled with the result.  It is warm and comfortable and I like the neutral palette.

I did actually attempt to pattern match on this version, and the shoulders and one side seam came out pretty well.  The other side seam does match, but not on the same stripe, so it doesn't look quite as clean.  

In my plaid matching efforts, I ended up cutting out the back slightly smaller than I've been doing (it is closer in size to the front; long time readers will remember that my front and back pattern pieces are a size apart.  After making this dress, I'm thinking it might be time to start cutting the back to match the front, size-wise)  I did make my side seams 3/8" to make sure I had enough ease, and I think it is fine this way.  

Apologies for wrinkles; I had to wait until after school drop off to take pictures, so I'm a bit rumpled.

This cowl just goes with so much of my closet this rotation.  I do want a few more colors, but I have to finish some legwarmers for Birdie as well as the cardigan I'm working on.  I ended up shelving the Rincleau pullover I'm working on because I wanted to get that cardigan done.  I'm finished with the body and had just started one of the sleeves, so I might be able to get some wear out of it this winter yet.  We'll see.

Did my pocket on the bias again and like the contrast very much.  This fabric is so lovely--I really love the crepe-like texture and the plush feeling.

I found this pair of Timberland boots for a great price on ebay last week and snapped them up, as I like to have two pairs of boots in winter time, and my other pair is really better for super cold weather.  I wanted something for days like today which are chilly but not arctic.  I think I like them--the footbed needs some getting used to, but overall, they are comfortable and easy to take on and off.  I would like to find an unlined pair like this for spring.

Just the facts:

Smoke plaid dress: Robert Kaufman Mammoth flannel, Simplicity 1080, bias tape, elastic

Tights: Foot traffic via Sock Dreams

Boots: Timberland via ebay

Neckwarmer: made from Main Street Reserve wool-cotton blend (Knit Picks retired)

Undershirt: gap via thredup

Earrings: inherited from my gram

Talking Tuesday: Laurus

I find myself in a small conundrum today; it is 10 years since Philip's repose, and I generally take the day to write about him, to remember.  It is also Tuesday, however, and I had intended to start writing about Eugene Vodolazkin's excellent spiritual novel Laurus this week.  Upon reflection, I find these two things not incompatible.  I find I have little to say specifically about Philip this year.  I thought about him a lot last week, as I always do in the days leading up to the anniversary, but this morning was almost an afterthought.  Almost.

Ten years ago seems like a lifetime; so much has happened in the past decade, so much that has ontologically changed me.  Would I even recognize my younger self now?  

Eugene Vodolazkin's novel is concerned quite a lot with time, and the way that the self changes over time, particularly in pursuit of repentance.  We meet the central character, Arseny, as a young boy, and journey with him throughout his long life until his death in old age.  Several passages in the book stood out to me, but this particular one seemed appropriate for today; Arseny (now called by his first monastic name of Amvrosy) is entering old age, and has joined a monastery.  He is reflecting on the past while talking with his spiritual father, Elder Innokenty.

"I have already been at the monastery but, you know, somehow I cannot get my thoughts together.  Apparently I can no longer understand this myself.  Time, my love, is very shaky here, because the cycle is closed and it corresponds to eternity.  It is autumn now:  that may be the only thing I can say with anything approaching certainty....

Monastic time truly does lie close to eternity, said Elder Innokenty, but they are not equal.  The path of living, O Amvrosy, cannot be a circle.  The path of the living, even if they are monks, has been opened up because, as one might ask, how could there be freedom of will if there is no way out of a vicious cycle?  And even when we replicate events in prayer, we do not simply recall them.  We relive those events once again and they occur once again....

So you think time here is some sort of open figure rather than a circle?  Amvrosy asked the elder.

That's exactly it, answered the elder.  After I have become enamored of geometry, I will liken the motion of time to a spiral.  This involves repetition but on some new, higher level.  Or, if you like, the experience of something new but not from a clean slate.  With the memory of what was experienced previously.

A weak autumnal sun appeared from behind some clouds.  Elder Innokenty appeared from the opposite side of the wall.  He had managed to walk around the monastery during the time he spent talking with Amvrosy. 

And you, O elder, are making circles, Amvrosy told him.  
No, this already the spiral.  I am walking, as before, along with the swirl of leaves but--do take note, O Amvrosy--the sun came out and I am already a little different....

There are events that resemble one another, continued the elder, but opposites are born from that similarity.  The Old Testament opens with Adam but the New Testament opens with Christ.  The sweetness of the apple that Adam eats turns into the bitterness of the vinegar that Christ drinks.  The tree of knowledge leads humanity to death but a cross of wood grants immortality to humanity.  Remember, O Amvrosy, that repetitions are granted for our salvation and in order to surmount time."

~Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus. Trans. by Lisa C. Hayden.  London: Oneworld Publications, 2015. Pages 308-309.

Medici

I rarely devote a whole post to a series, but I think this series warrants a small dedicated post because I keep thinking about it and I generally find that to be the hallmark of a good show.  (I may start doing this on the regular, as I do enjoy watching things on Netflix and amazon, and discussing them in some way).

 I recently watched the newly released Netflix original series, Medici: Masters of Florence.  I watched the whole series (8 episodes) over two or three nights.  I liked it so much that I started back over at the beginning to pick up some of the details I missed on the first go-round.  I'm currently in the middle of episode three or four.  The series deals with the Medici family in late 15th century Florence.  It particularly deals with the passing of power and control from one generation to another, and the themes of the story are about duty, loyalty, and family.  I think the central question of the show is whether it is better to do a bad thing in service of a greater good, or whether that bad thing will ultimately overcome the greater good.  The answer, in the end, is a mixed one.

The story is loosely based on the early history of the Medici family, particularly the period between 1410-1434.  The major plot points are historical, but the smaller details of the family relationships and some of the larger details appear to be fictional. I appreciated the way that the writers contextualized the era and got inside the worldview of the people in the story.  You see how Christianity inhabits the world these people live in, and informs their worldview in every respect.  I got a more visceral understanding why the medieval Popes were constantly meddling in the affairs of wider Europe.  I appreciate that the actors play the religious aspects without any irony (something I greatly appreciated in the series Rome).  As I've just finished reading Laurus, which is set in almost exactly the same time period (and part of which takes place in Italy), I had a better understanding of some of the things that were going on during the period in the wider world.  I studied medieval history quite seriously as an undergrad, but it's been a long time since I inhabited that world in my mind.

The main draw for me in this series was Richard Madden.  I love historical drama if it is done well, but I'll watch Richard Madden in almost anything. (I totally gave up on Game of Thrones after the Red Wedding--he was the only thing that kept me going with that series).  What I appreciate about him (as with so many of the actors and actresses I love) is that he is a very subtle actor, and really inhabits a character.  His face is very expressive, and he uses that quality to good effect in his work.  (He also has really really beautiful hands; my mother will understand!)  A lot of the story rests with him, as it is primarily told from his point of view (although it does toggle a bit between him and his wife).

Cosimo d'Medici is a man who holds his cards close to his chest.  He fears God, and wants to honor Him with his life, but he also wants to ensure that his family will stay strong and powerful in Florence for generations to come.  These two things come into conflict quite often as he is torn between his familial duties and his Christian duty.  He cherishes art and good form in architecture and wants to nurture these things in wider society. He is a flawed man, but not fatally so; he is willing to repent, to reconcile, to change, to receive God's mercy.  I particularly enjoyed the relationship with his wife, Contessina, and how that relationship changed (in different ways) over a long period of time.

There are several love scenes through out the show, but, as in Outlander, they are used to advance the story rather than as titillating filler.  Richard Madden masterfully uses those scenes to convey some important aspects of his character and to set up some plot points for later in the series.

I thought most of the rest of the cast was well done, and I liked the mix of Italian and English/Aussie actors.  Sad to say, the sore thumb in the group is Dustin Hoffman (despite the fact that he does somewhat resemble the actual Giovanni de Medici).  I don't really care for him as an actor to start with, but I was prepared to give it a try.  His accent and posture stand out in a mostly European cast
and I wished he'd fleshed out his character more.

Some reviewers really panned the actor playing Cosimo's son, Piero, but I actually thought he was spot-on.  Pierro isn't meant to be some stunning princeling; he's meant to be quite awkward and young, and the actor playing him does it well.  The real Piero was a sickly bedridden man who only ruled the Medici family for a brief period before succumbing to illness.  A robust actor would have been unbelievable for this character.

There were some Netflix reviewers who didn't like the series because of the supposedly "pop" soundtrack.  Some compared it to the abominable series Reign (that show was so bad, I couldn't even get through the pilot--the costuming was horrendous, the storytelling terrible, and the pop sound track extremely distracting).  It is true that the opening credits of Medici feature a rather pop-esque soundtrack that can be off-putting at first, but the actual drama itself is free of that.  I found the musical score quite lovely and fitted well with the overall story.

My main quibble with the show (and it is a minor one) is with the women's costuming.  I thought that the men were all wonderfully dressed for the period, and I particularly liked the palette that the costume designer used.  The women's costumes were visually stunning, and very beautiful (I really love the silhouette of the long vest over the long dress, buckled at the waist).  But there was nary a shift in sight!  It was pretty standard for women to wear a shift under their dresses throughout this period (and indeed, up through the early 20th century) because washing was so arduous, and it is much easier to change your linen shift every day or so than to hand wash a woolen or brocaded silk outer dress regularly.  I am curious now to research early 15th century Florentine clothing, so I suppose in that respect, it is a positive thing!  I also could have done without some of the modern-looking eye make-up on a few of the women, but I know that some of those kinds of decisions are often a trade-off between period accuracy and audience expectations; sometimes one has to be sacrificed for the other.

The series was shot on location in Italy (some of it in Florence itself) and the landscape is just gorgeous.  The cinematography is truly stunning; there is one particular long shot of the cathedral that is fantastic.  I've never had a great desire to visit Italy, but after watching this show, I think it needs to go on my list!  The director used a lot of close shots of different characters faces, particularly their eyes, and I thought the effect, combined with the sweeping landscapes made for a particularly good contrast.  I also loved the way that religious imagery was used throughout the show, and the interior cathedral scenes were marvelous not only for the beauty of the space, but for the quality of the scenes.

I hear that season two has been commissioned and will focus on Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo; I'm eager to see the story the next season has to tell!

Plaid Flannel #1

Happy New Year!  New year, new project!

Technically, I made this dress just before the new year, and wore it once already, but I'm wearing it again today, so I think it counts for the first project of the new year.  In any case, it's my blog and I can do what I want to.  ☺

I've been wanting a plaid flannel dress for several years now, but my last attempt a year ago was an utter disaster, and pretty much put me off working with plaids of the flannel variety.  My mistake then was choosing a cheap fabric that was badly off-grain, but the experience was sufficiently frustrating to make me never want to make a plaid flannel dress again.

Enter Robert Kaufman's Mammoth flannel.  I've been eying this stuff for a long time, and saw some lovely things made with it on the interwebs.  When the color way I'd saved came back in stock at fabric.com, I decided to take the plunge and just make it up already (as an added bonus, there was a discount for ordering three yards, which is my usual dress yardage).

I confess, I made no attempt to pattern match on the side or shoulder seams.  I probably could have done it with some better attention, but it is the winter break, all four kids are home, and I've spent the last two weeks getting interrupted approximately 5,246 times a day.  I felt I was doing well to complete the dress and alter my rust corduroy skirt again, which has gotten too big on me lately.

I made my pleats slightly looser, using a 3/8" seam allowance rather than my usual 5/8" because I knew I would always be wearing an undershirt with this dress, and the undershirt that goes best is a thick waffle henley, so I wanted a little extra ease.  

I also gathered the back slightly looser to the elastic, and I'm really quite pleased with the fit of this dress.  It is so comfortable and warm, especially with my wool-cotton blend cowl!  I made it for the kids, but none of them wanted it, so I took it back and have been happily wearing it the last couple of weeks.  I realized recently that my uniform for the fall and winter has fallen into something like this outfit: undershirt, dress, knitted neckwear, simple earrings, cotton tights, and tall boots.  Sometimes a cardigan over the top.  It feels like me.

I decided I need more knitted neck warmers in my life, but my knitting queue is a bit long at the moment, so I'll probably get to them this summer so I can use them next cold season.  Neck warmers are great traveling projects because they are small and require little concentration, so I like to take them on trips or to keep my hands busy when visiting with friends.

I made my pocket on the bias for some visual interest, and I did line it up exactly on the center orange line of the dress.  It was the only pattern matching I did, but I made it count since it is front and center!

The texture of this flannel is rather interesting--it is almost crepe-like.  I really like it.  I like it so much, that, as the title of this post suggests, I have another in the works!  

I recently went through my fabric stash and made better sewing plans for spring and summer, and realized that I really wanted another winter dress or two.  There are at least two dresses/sweaters in my current rotation that I'm kind of meh about, and either aren't warm enough for really cold temps or don't fit the way I prefer, so I might rotate them out or retire them.  (I am also considering another canvas dress from some Cotton + Steel fabric, but might hold that for next year)

Another discovery I made when I was writing my 2016 Wrap post was that the main problem with my summer clothing was that it was all too light.  The clothes that I wore the most, felt the best in, and generally was happiest with, were darker shades in light weight fabrics.  I wore the Blueberry dress and Lily Pad linen dress a ton this summer.  I like having one or two lighter colored dresses in my summer, but not a whole closet full.  That realization helped me to make some changes to my sewing plans for the summer, as well as to critically examine my summer rotation as a whole and make some good decisions about it.

Here's to 2017!

2016: Wrapped

I love doing these annual wrap up posts, as it gives me a chance to evaluate my year, sewing and other-wise.  I thought about participating in the Take Five link up, but I'm not very good at whittling things down to five.  So I'll just make it up as I go along.

~Hits~

1. Folk Tapestry dress: I love this dress.  It is easily the highlight of my winter rotation, and I really love wearing it.  I like the heavier weight, the print, the whole thing.

2. Bandana dress: I wore this rayon dress a LOT this summer.  It was cool and comfortable, easy to slip on in the high heat, and I got tons of compliments on it every time I wore it.

3. Linen dresses (1) (2) (3 & 4) (5): more of a category than a specific dress, I developed a serious love affair with linen this year, and made six linen dresses.  One of them I'm saving for next summer and haven't worn yet, but the other five I wore very regularly.  I did have to take the red linen dress out of my winter rotation because it was leaving a faint pink cast on my favorite cream colored sweater just from wearing them together, and I don't have anything else in this rotation that is warm enough and coordinates with the red.  Hopefully I can wear it in the spring or summer.

4.  Lawn dresses (1) (2) (3) (4): another category of fabric that I got to like very well this year.  I bought several of Robert Kaufman's London Calling Liberty lines of fabric, and got a lot of wear out of almost all of them.  The only one that ended up being a bust was the Art Deco lawn dress, that I gave away at the end of the summer.

5. Geo Flannel skirt: I love this skirt.  It is funky and warm, it fits me very well, and goes with several sweaters in my drawer.  I get compliments every time I wear it, and I feel good in it.  

6.  Bluebird dress: I wore this dress so much in the first half of the year, that I ended up remaking it earlier this month with the modifications I've added to the pattern over the past year.  (The fabric was starting to fray under the arms, and I really prefer a longer length in my dresses)

7. First Light Dress: I wore this dress a ton in the spring, and really liked it at both ends of my rotation.  It worked with a heavy sweater, with a light sweater, with no sweater, making it an ideal transitional dress.  I'm looking forward to wearing it again in the spring.

*The jury is still out on my Return to Tokyo dress from the spring.  I really like the print, but the length still bugs me.  I'm going to put it in my spring rotation and see how it feels in the spring.  I tend to like shorter lengths with tall boots, so perhaps I'll just reserve it for the first half of the rotation when it is still cold.

~Misses~

1. Ivy League dress: This dress reminded me why I dislike working with Michael Miller's fabrics.  They are too stiff, they are printed only on one side, so if you use pins, it tends to put a white runner in the fabric, and unpicking any stitches is a total nightmare.  This dress also convinced me to tackle the underarm sleeve draft on my pattern, as it fit poorly and wore badly over time.

2. Asian floral dress: I didn't even wear this dress except to photograph its awfulness, it was that bad.  It was an experiment in making the Afternoon blouse neckline with my Simplicity 1080 and was generally a disaster.  I do think a lot of it had to do with fitting issues, but I just wasn't in a place to tackle them at that point.  I also chose a fabric that was particularly unflattering to my skin, which didn't help.

3. Chambray skirt:  I wanted to like this skirt, and I did wear it quite a bit over the summer, but I spent a lot of the summer fiddling with the fit, because I couldn't get it right.  First it was too tight, then it ended up a little bit too loose, and generally didn't fit the way I wanted it to.  I think it was probably a poor match of fabric and pattern, as my Anne Adams 9486 is generally a good pattern for me, but in stiffer fabrics.

4. Cherry blossom dress: this was just a poor fabric choice.  I really don't care for Art Gallery's mid-weight cotton as a dress fabric, and I didn't like wearing this dress at all.  It made me feel like I was wearing paper.

5. Moneta, Coco: this fall I made the long leap into sewing with knits, and I discovered that I really don't enjoy it all that much.  There is the instant gratification factor, but I learned that I prefer to buy my knits ready-made.  I didn't like a lot of things about the fit of Moneta, and even after fiddling with it a lot, I couldn't get something that felt good on my body.  The Coco fit pretty well, but I didn't care for the style for every day wear.  I had a hard time sourcing fabric that I liked and that turned out the way I wanted it to, and I didn't really care for the look of zig-zagged hems.  I couldn't master my twin needle, and didn't have the lightning bolt stitch on my machine, so I felt limited in the finish that I could accomplish.  That said, I ended up liking my Coco dresses for pajamas, and as I do have a terrible time finding nightgowns that I like, I consider this a minor victory.  I have some navy blue printed knit fabric that I bought in the fall that I intend to make into a summer pajama dress in the late spring.

6. Pullover sweaters (1) (2): I made two pullover sweaters in the late winter and early spring and both were total fails.  I didn't care for the way they felt on my skin, or the style or the fit.  I passed them both on to a good friend who looks great in them!

7. Pincushion dress: I actually liked this dress a lot when I first made it, but I quickly fell out of love with novelty prints in the spring sometime, and by summer, the dress was about two sizes too big on me and the too-wide shoulders just annoyed me without a sweater over top.  I think some fitting changes I made in the spring may have contributed to the poor fit by the end.  I gave it away earlier this fall.

8. Pots and Pans dress: this dress was a spectacular fail on many levels.  I was using a vintage novelty print and stretched it with some contrasting broadcloth (mistake #1); I hadn't figured out the optimum length for my Simplicity 1080 at that point, so it came out too short for my liking (mistake #2); I made contrast pocket facing which looked awful (mistake #3); I didn't have a cardigan that looked good with it, and the red shirt was not really that great.  I did make it into a blouse later in the spring, and I really did like the blouse, but the vintage fabric proved to be a little too fragile to stand up to regular wearing.

9. White florals dress/blue gingham dress: I liked both of these dresses in theory, and I did wear them all summer, but by the end of the summer, I was just really meh on them.  I never did get the fit right on the white florals dress, and the print, which I still love, looked terrible at a distance.  The blue gingham dress fit very well, and looked good on me, but it felt too young for me by the end of the summer.  I gave both dresses away.

I had quite a long string of misses in the late spring and early summer, but things perked up by fall when I figured out the best way to draft my Simplicity 1080 (aka Dottie Angel frock).

~Highlights~

1. The biggest highlight of my sewing year was the 18th century working woman's outfit that I sewed for a presentation at my kids' school.  I learned so much in the process of researching and making the garments, and I really enjoyed wearing it.  The cream on the cake was the stays that I made at the eleventh hour.  I love them so much.  (And yes, I know I promised construction posts about that outfit, but things have been kinda nuts in the last six weeks...maybe I'll get to it in 2017)

2. A non-sewing highlight was being told my my optometrist in June that after 30 years of wearing bifocals, I could now wear drugstore readers!  Yippie!  I promptly bought three pairs for less than the cost of one of my previous pairs and spread them throughout the house.

3.  Another non-sewing highlight has been the changes we've made to the house in the past month or so.  We had the interior and the wooden bits on the exterior repainted, we bought (and I helped assemble) a lot of functional furniture for the kids' rooms (dressers, bunk beds, a few bookcases), and changed out the futon and cushion covers in the living room and office, plus a few other little things like that.  I'm still waiting to rehang the pictures and icons on the walls, but I should be good to go by early next week.  I'll try to take some pictures to share when things are settled in their places.

4. I continued my weight loss journey this year, and stalled out over the summer.  I realized that logging everything on My Fitness Pal had become a problem for me, on several different levels, so when we went to the Midwest to visit my parents and some friends, I stopped.  I felt free of a burden.  I also had my last dilation endoscopy early in the summer and had a much rougher recovery after that, so eating almost anything this summer was super stressful.  At the end of August, the doctor decided to try a different medication therapy (one I'd taken years ago with good effect, but isn't clinical standard in their office) and things have improved a lot since then.  I'm eating more or less normally (although I still can't manage bread and a few other bolus-producing foods) and I've successfully challenged a few foods that I have been avoiding for a long time (sweet potatoes, buckwheat, eggs).  I decided that having a varied diet was more important than the lower GI consequences that I suffer, so I've been eating more fibery things like brussels sprouts and onions and oatmeal.  I've had a few rough nights as a result, but I feel better overall, so I think the trade off is worth it.  

5. I did some meatier writing this year, mostly in the summer and the fall, as a result of reading Matthew Crawford's excellent World Beyond Your Head and some related books and articles.  I also finished an essay on body image that I've been picking away at for ages, and I am happy with the result.

6. I read some great books this year: I started War and Peace as a Lenten podvig, and am now nearing the end (I'm part II of the epilogue, 93% done!).  I'm hoping to finish it sometime in the next couple of weeks.  I read The Light Between Oceans in the summer and was gutted by it.  I'm eager to watch the film version when it hits amazon in January.  I am currently reading the excellent Laurus and finding it quite profound.  I read a lot of non-fiction this year as well, including several gulag memoirs, social history of the Stalinist period, a few books about East Germany, and several books by Svetlana Alexievich.  I read a bunch of light fiction earlier in the fall--I got caught up on my Decker/Lazarus mysteries as well as a few other easy mysteries.  I also re-read several books in the Outlander series when I was looking for comfort reading.  I'm currently in the middle of book six.

7.  I also completed several sweaters, a bunch of knitted accessories and some non-selfish sewing this year.  I made most of the girls' summer dresses, sweaters for each of them, a vest for Boo, a wool kombu for my husband to replace one that fell of his bike (!!), and tried to mend things that needed it as I went along.  I made more of an effort to recycle clothing and textiles that were past their shelf life (having an H&M on the way to school has proved useful in this regard) and have gotten pretty basic with how many items of clothing each person in this house has.  It is a delicate balancing act.  

~Goals~

1. I don't have a lot of sewing goals for this year.  I'm pretty happy with the range of patterns that I work with right now, and while I bought a few more this past year, I don't have a great desire to sew any of them right now.  My sewing storage expanded a lot with all the changes we made to the house in the late fall, so I don't feel an intense need to cull my patterns at the moment.  I do try to get rid of patterns that don't work for me, so my pattern pile fits tidily into two small shelf boxes.  I've planned my sewing projects through the summer, and went through my fabric stash earlier this week to cull it a bit.  My main goal is to pick fabrics that I will want to wear a lot during a rotation or two, and to keep my rotations between 25-27 pieces.  I just bought some Monmouth flannel for a winter dress and hope to sew that up in the coming weeks.

2.  My knitting goals are limited as well.  I'm still working on several pieces for myself, and learning some new techniques along the way.  I've accepted that I can't handle complicated all-over stitch patterns right now, but I can manage something that is in a small panel, or is an easily readable 4 row pattern.  I'm also getting better at understanding what sort of fit to aim for with different sorts of sweaters, and I'm finding I want a little more ease in my clothing generally speaking.  I'm working on a pullover and a cardigan that I think meet my criteria.

3.  During the all-consuming stress of the repainting and everything else earlier this month, I briefly dropped close to ten pounds in two and a half weeks' time, putting me at the first of my weight loss goals for the first time.  I've since gained back about two and a half pounds, but hope to continue on the path started.  I've made more of an effort to give up sweets, and to be more structured about when I do have a treat.  I can say with confidence that any success in this area is all God's doing, and not any of my own.  I do find myself craving salty things more as I get older--I've developed a particular fondness for tortilla chips and salsa, and anyone who knows me well will know how strange that particular liking is!  This fall particularly, I find myself craving wholesome foods.  Not necessarily what is marketed as "healthy" or would show up on a Beachbody-approved diet plan, but plain, whole foods.  Things like roasted autumn vegetables with olive oil and maldon salt, or grechka (buckwheat) with homemade gravy and mushrooms, a plain or baked apple, or fried eggs over easy with thin sliced black forest ham on the side.  Foods that make me feel like I've eaten real food at the end of the meal. I am still relearning how to eat, after 18 months of completely abnormal eating patterns, and have to relearn things like portions and satiety and get better at reading hunger cues.  I also have to be careful as I still have things get stuck in my throat (although it tends to go down now with liquid, rather than sticking in my throat for hours or days).  It is a process.  I'm slightly nervous about the 12 Days of Christmas, which tends to be gloves off with regard to desserts and rich foods, but I'll beg God's mercy to help me get through it.

As with any blog, there is much about my life that I don't write about, and my heart is sometimes heavy with things I cannot share here.  I do not know what the future holds, but I do know Who holds the future.  And I try to rest in that.

Happy 2017!

Red Linen

This week feels like an All The Things week.  The house is s-l-o-w-l-y coming back together after all the upheaval of the last few weeks.  

The boys' room is more or less done; I can't put pictures back on the walls until the end of the month, but the furniture is all built and in place.  FedEx messed up the delivery on the bunk beds  (it is always something!), so we are still missing the under bed drawers, but at least I was able to work with our task rabbit person yesterday to assemble the beds and the desks.   Their room looks so different from before!

  I'm sort of embarrassed how long we have managed in this house without proper dressers for the children.  I'll take some pics after everything is up on the walls and I get stuff on top of their dressers and desks--right now it resembles a generic dorm room.

And of course, IKEA messed up our delivery on Monday and neglected to deliver one of the two boxes for the girls' bed, so I have to wait another week before we can finish up in the girls' room.  I'm hoping that by this time next week, all the furniture building will be complete, and we'll be ready to finish putting the house back together.  The kids are having a hard time coping with everything being different, and I'm having a hard time living with all the chaos and frustration of companies who can't manage to do their jobs.  In any case, the living room is clear enough now that I can contemplate putting up Christmas decorations this weekend--I usually try to get them up right before St. Nicholas Day (which is on Monday).

 

But enough about that.  This is one of the dresses I made for my winter rotation: a red heavy-weight linen dress.  It is exactly like the charcoal one I made in the fall but heavier.  I finally remembered to put a note on my pattern to remind myself to raise the back neckline a few inches.  I should probably just redraft it higher, but I do occasionally make it where originally drafted and like it, so I guess I'll just leave it.  No construction notes, just a straight forward, easy TNT make.  I zig-zagged all my raw edges in addition to pinking them, as I find linen frays a lot.  The red is really pretty--much more of a true-blue red than the photos make it seem.  I'm a fan.  I think it goes well with this sweater.

It is very cold today (the highs are barely going to hit 20F) so I didn't want to faff about in shirt sleeves.  You've seen this before, so I think you get the idea anyway.  Nothing to see here, moving right along. 😉

Just the facts:

Red linen dress: Simplicity 1080, heavy weight linen in crimsom from fabrics-store.com (I *love* that place), bias tape

blue undershirt: JCrew via thredup

cream heavy weight wool sweater: Banana Republic (thrifted--either ebay or thredup, can't remember)

Pavlovo-Posad scarf: bought in Moscow in 2002 (still one of my favorites despite a few moth nibbles)

earrings: etsy

boots: Uggs via ebay