Five Days in NYC

Last month, when the glow of the 4th had faded and the month stretched out in front of us, we traveled for five days to New York City.

I really don’t want to be dramatic, but it was pretty much a completely perfect vacation.

Yes - it was completely hot and sweaty the entire week. Yes - we got downpour rained-upon while leaving the MoMA and had to walk home absolutely soaked. Yes - I sprained my ankle on the fourth day walking home after dinner in clogs. Yes - one of my rolling suitcase wheels gave up on me on our last day of travel. Yes - it turns out that decriminalizing marijuana plus the summer heat leads to some STINKY neighborhoods, as it turns out.

But man. It really was perfect. We were absolutely so jazzed to be traveling, to be in a beautiful, big place and feel so safe (thank you, thank you, thank you vaccines), and to be together celebrating my husband’s incredible achievement of finishing his medical training. What a guy. He’s the hardest working person I know. I can only think of one time the entire week where we even got a little miffed with one another, and almost everything we wanted to see or do was open (except for, sadly for me, Purl Soho). I did, however, spend an absolutely wonderful hour making a return visit to the Brooklyn General Store and managed to completely treat myself, so don’t worry.

The last time we were together in NYC was over five years ago (when we were celebrating his match into residency!). This time around we stayed in the East Village in Manhattan, had the world’s best cocktails, bopped around to several museums and art experiences, walked around everywhere, and ate as many carbs as we wanted. I’m still dreaming about the blue crab pasta I ate for lunch in Brooklyn at Frankie’s 457 Spuntino. Life changing, I tell you. We spent an hour sitting and listening to jazz in Central Park, and spent a morning at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens where summer was in full swing. We walked around The Battery and saw the Statue of Liberty through a bed of blooming coneflower and drank so much water and iced coffee. We sat and read books and knit in coffee shops and in our tiny studio apartment that we rented and just spent some amazing days together.

In my mind, most of my ideal vacations are to the countryside. My favorite part of our trip to Montreal was the day we drove out of the city and saw all of the tiny ski villages and mountains, and I miss my summers hiking in Colorado so much. But I absolutely loved this trip to New York in all of its stinky, crowded glory. We are already looking forward to the next time we’ll be able to go back (and perhaps this time, in the fall, when we can trade our shorts for peacoats and our sunglasses for scarves). We’ll be riding the high of this amazing vacation for a long time though, that much I can tell you.

I love you, B.

July, as it were

How are we doing today? Today it is July, next week it will be August. This time of year is hardest for me typically: I’ve experienced all the best that summer has to offer (cool water on a hot day, fresh tomatoes, fireflies, a getaway, a celebration or two) and my heart starts to wonder when the heat will subside and the cool relief of the fall will arrive. The days where the hottest it will get is 85 degrees are over and we are in heat indexes nearing 100 which makes it hard to feel good about doing anything out of doors.

And yet! There is gratitude in each day. I’m home after a week with family, the first week I’ve spent with them all since November, and it filled my heart so full. It was a lot of travel and way more levels of stress than any of us were thinking with the virus still rearing its ugly head in the areas where I was destined, but it was also 100% worth it. For a long time I think I expected to get into more of a rhythm with living far from home but honestly, each year is still a bit of a heartache. My nieces and nephew are the most special little people I know and photos are not the same as being with them. (How far away are the holidays now?)

The highlights of my week this week are the ten pounds of heirloom tomatoes that Nash insists on munching whenever he gets the chance that will turn into the best tomato sauce and my weekly bouquet from Bluebird Meadows Farm. I’ll get a photo soon, because everyone needs to know how amazing these flowers are. Having a pitcher of happiness in my dining room never meant so much to me as it does this year. I’d take celosia and zinnias and black-eyed susan over most things.

The Paeonia Shawl testing is also complete and will be launching this week! Check out my Instagram for more information and photos today. I’m so so excited to share this with you all. Wishing you joy (and air-conditioning) in the meantime.

Resetting & Restarting

I feel as though I blinked, and it’s June 23.

We have been longing to get out of the house, and we did, and now time seems to be flying by in a new, wild pace. B graduated from his residency program, we celebrated at the beach, we made a day-trip to my in-laws for Father’s Day, we worked a lot, we mowed the lawn, we worked some more, and we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary with a little staycation in town. We stayed at a tiny, historic house just a few minutes up the road and ate takeout and read books together. We had the most FANTASTIC Japanese food I’ve ever had in my life and reconnected sharing a meal.

Perhaps the shifts feel so much more dramatic because there’s still just so little sense of what to anticipate for the future, and it still feels very not normal to live this way. In our state the number of hospitalizations hit a new all-time high today, and this week we experienced a new wave of cancellations for events and special celebrations in the end of summer and beginning of fall. The little griefs get all bottled up and then come out in waves, sometimes, and unexpectedly. We are unable to make plans, and I need plans as a part of my DNA. It’s so hard not to have them.

And yet, I am so attuned right now to the changing seasons and the natural world in a way that I think I never have before. I feel the heat without judgement, just feeling it and not dreading it and being present today. Seeing dragonflies resting on the bricks outside of my house, going on a walk and seeing the flora literally change from week to week as the month unfolds. Lightning bugs every night. Seeing the persistent piles of leftover leaves and sticks on my driveway and feeling a sense of clean, declutter, reset, renew in this space we are in, this new day that we have found. Get rid of everything that didn’t work before that’s taking up physical and emotional space. A new dining table, and this room just works now. There will be sungold tomatoes in our produce box this week. Tomatoes! It’s tomato season. What a blessing to be here. Hostas and lilies and fresh basil and fruit in every drink.

We are less than a month away from completing the 100 Day Challenge, and to no one’s shock I haven’t completed this in the way that I certainly imagined I would, but that is 100% ok and I’m still really happy to be here, to be writing, to be knitting, and sewing, and making a life. Thanks for being here with me and I am happy to be back at my desk at the end of June.

Summer Knits Roundup

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As I’m sure comes as a surprise to absolutely no one except for me, I’m looking forward to summer in a way that I never have before this year. I always joke with folks who always say, “You grew up in Florida! Shouldn’t you love summer?” In fact, I left Florida because I was over the heat. The older I get, the more I love to visit my home state, but in general, summers even here in NC are too long and too hot for my taste. But this year? This year I cannot wait for all of the tomatoes, all of the heat, days on the lake, and also hiding in the AC at our new downtown library because hopefully summer will also mean more mobility and freedom after quarantine.

I’m also really picky about summer knits because I live in such a hot climate. Ours is not the locale of the evening sweater, but rather the evening sweat. No ocean breezes require a cardigan but rather a full-on embrace of a gust of wind that breaks up the humidity. The only reason that knitting has ever happened over the summer for me is due to one thing: air conditioning. I tend to knit a lot of socks in the summer also because it is generally a season with more travel, and socks are extremely portable and fun. However, I’m super interested in potentially, MAYBE making my way into the world of linen/cotton yarns this year after I have enjoyed working with the Cattail Silk for my Terrace Wrap and if I do, these three tops will be at the top of my “to knit” list. In the past couple of years I have also seen a decent number of new patterns for bralettes and cami tops that are knitted that are very cute, but I’m not sure work with my wardrobe or what I like to wear.

I included this incredibly sweet summer veggies garland from Susan B. Anderson because I just cannot with how cute it is. I knit her Fall Charms mini-set last fall and it was my absolute favorite so you know I’m going to be digging through my scrap bin to find the right yarns to work up some little carrots and corn on the cob this summer.

Are you looking forward to any summer knitting this year? Or projects for Me Made May?

Teaching on Skillshare

Hello world!

It's been a colorful summer so far, literally and figuratively. But I have an exciting new project to talk about. I recently began teaching through Skillshare! Skillshare is an online platform with nearly a million and a half users, teaching everything from watercolor painting to how to pair wines with food, professional design skills and more. My class is on Fiber Arts 101: Spinning Yarn on a Drop Spindle. In the class I go over the basics of drop spindles, what fibers to spin, how to ply and tips and tricks for when you're just getting started. The yarns above are three types of fiber prep that I sample spinning so you can get an idea of how they differ. I'm excited to share a bit of what I've learned since I started spinning and hope you enjoy it!

The class and many others is only available through Skillshare premium, but right now you can get 3 months of Skillshare premium for only 99 cents! Click here for the link to check it out. Happy spinning!