I don’t think I look at life through rose colored glasses, in fact I know I don’t. Dare I even admit,I probably always look at everything with my super particular and overly picky spectacles on. They say “don’t sweat the small stuff” but sometimes I still do, how can I not. My theory is, if I didn’t sweat the small stuff in my life some of the time, I probably would never notice or truly realize the quiet simple splendor of the small stuff in other parts of my life.
SMALL STUFF EXAMPLE #1
The Koigu I received in the mail last week, looks as if it was dyed to match my little blue bowl of toasted pumpkin seeds (which happened to also be roasted last week). Shockingly, I was the only one in the house to notice or care about this amazing act of color kismet. Anyone who buys yarn online knows tints and colors can vary wildly from what you were expecting, which makes this even more of an event!
SMALL STUFF EXAMPLE #2
Yes, I will always know when you don’t put something back where it belongs, but that also means I will always notice and appreciate the subtle bits of goodness you do, when you think nobody is watching.
The people who love you, will love you always, because you are a perfectly fussy shade of you.
My baby is almost grown, so busy with NHS, speech and preparing for grownup life. We will be touring colleges next year! Even though it’s not relevant to my life (no little babies here) I still find myself enjoying knitting and crocheting for babies. There is a simple sweetness to knitting a mini pair of socks, a lacy little bonnet, or a cotton dribble bib. I don’t know if it calls to my love of miniature, my love of muted milky soft colors or just my love of squealing babies, grunting, giggling and of course pudgy baby tummies.
It doesn’t hurt that baby knits are quick as a snap and can be a bit more quirky in color combinations, shapes & design. Both of which appeal to me as I’m not a long-term project knitter. I get distracted, I get resentful of how this damn project is holding me up from moving onto something else, I hate the guilt of having loads of unfinished business. I tend to just avoid large knitting commitments, maybe someday when I settle down honey you’ll get your cardigan. :)
I can also totally appreciate the lovely in an outrageous outburst of happy stripey polka dots and knitting for baby lets me do just that.
I recently knit up this toadstool baby rattle, for me toadstools are straight out of storybooks filled with magical fairies, mossy thickets where everything is illuminated with moon glow and stars. Babies are that sort of whisper soft magic too.
I used the toadstool rattle pattern from the purl bee. It was everything I love about baby knitting, quick, quirky cute and is perfectly useful uselessness! I am sort of wishing I made this out of 100% cotton, the stripes are cotton, but the rest is squishy wool, which will aid in the drying, but might also leave baby with a fuzzy mouth!? It has a bell kitty toy inside so it’s a jinglier instead of a rattler. A little rice inside of a gumball machine plastic egg would have worked nicely too. I might need to make some of these for myself on a much smaller scale.
When I was a baby my grandma crocheted me a blanket, it’s now safely tucked away in a chest and is one of the few things I have that she ever touched. A few weeks back I stumbled onto a huge stack of vintage crochet books, I didn’t look through them at the shop, I wanted to save that treat until I got home. So with my precious treasures in tow, I piled myself on the couch and started to dig.
I about died when I saw this, that is my exact baby blanket, in the exact same colors! ❤
The pamphlet came out in 1974. Can you tell?
Here’s to all the grandmas (and sometimes grandpas too) for all the bulky crochet covered children, and also to those of us keeping the spirit alive with handmade baby knits and crochet!
I have always loved the idea of hearth baked artisan breads with cornmeal and nut crusts, powdery top slits leading into squishy soft slices all slathered in butter ..yummy. I didn’t want some dry, tasteless, cold commercial bread, I wanted chewy, fresh hot butter melting bread!
When our daughter became vegan our bread life changed (well our whole life changed, but for now we will just stick to the bread part) forget the cow butter, forget coupons, forget brand loyalty, forget what’s on sale, it’s now a matter of what’s in it and how/where is it produced. We needed dairy free bread, we wanted bread with limited ingredients, local if possible, 0 preservatives & nothing artificial and on top of that it had to taste good. Me, I wanted easy, I wanted diversity and I wanted fresh bread in the dead of summer.
In walks a bread machine, yes the expensive contraption that was all the rage back in the 90’s. Except now it’s a bit cheaper, a bit quieter, a bit smaller and it doesn’t shimmy itself off the counter. I can have hot fresh-baked bread in 3 hrs or I can timer it the night before and wake up to the smell of baking bread, I can have perfectly supple “turn it into anything thing I want” dough in 1½ hours, all just by putting the ingredients into a metal bucket and pushing START. I don’t have to knead, I don’t have to cover and let rise in a warm place, I can make 1½ or 2 lb loaves, I can even make quick breads & jams in this thing! In the winter I set the machine for the dough cycle, let it go, then pop it into a loaf pan and bake it in my oven to warm up the house. Did I tell you I LOVE ELECTRIC BREAD!
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