Author: Susan

A Work In Progress

I was only trying to get a photo of all of the new flowers we chose for the patio containers, but the pictures turned out to also be a pretty good before/after comparison of the weeding of the rock wall. In this one, you can see the total chaos that is the rock wall plantings, plus copious forget-me-nots, pansies (with runners), vinca, dandelions, mint, and assorted weeds.

Meanwhile, in this view, you can see the lovely lack of weeds in the rock wall, plus the attractively pruned japanese maple. 🙂

The “after” photo constituted a good four hour’s worth of work, and unfortunately my back doesn’t tolerate a moment more than that these days. The hopeful news is that we are in the middle of June sunlight hours (well past 9 pm!), so I could conceivably divide the remaining wall into chunks and buzz through it after work.

I’m mostly happy with the way the containers turned out. I think they need a little bit more orange and pink – between the creeper (left over from last year, and I can’t find the tag) and the snapdragons, it’s a little bit too much of that lime yellow. Pretty from the top, though!

Irises

I have more of Kevin’s macro-lens photos of our yard – the first of the irises bloomed!!

A coworker gave me these when she was thinning hers out three years ago. We had one summer of blooms, and then they sulked all last year. I’d forgotten how beautiful they are.

I love the amazing closeups that are possible with the macro lens – the colors are great.

Two years!

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary!

We went out to eat at one of the restaurants on the Kirkland waterfront, with a pretty view of the water and Olympics, and great strawberry basil margaritas (mine was less fun than Kevin’s, but still delicious). We had a table outside right at the edge of the balcony, so our view of all of the boat and swimming activity was perfect, and the sunset was lovely.

I remember thinking this last year, too, but it’s such fun to finally have an anniversary. We met seven years ago (crazy that it’s been that long – a quarter of our lives) while we were both out in Seattle for a summer internship at Microsoft. We didn’t know each other at the beginning of the summer and we were definitively together by the end, but the closest we’d gotten to putting a date on it had been the fortnight between our birthdays in the last two weeks of July, and generally it was more just the summer season. Actually having a day to remember, take stock, appreciate, and celebrate is quite fun. Even better that it holds all of the memories of our wedding, which was such a wonderful, happy day. As nostalgic as the day is, it also feels like we’re standing on the platform about to leap – pregnancy is one thing, but knowing that with next year’s anniversary we’ll be a family instead of a couple, the world feels like it’s about to get so much wider.

Weekend quilting progress

I’ve been looking at lots of bento box quilts trying to decipher what makes some blocks work so well (clear center rings), and some so poorly. (For a reminder of what the pattern looks like, see my old post here.) Each square contains an internal L against a background color, and you assemble four squares (with the Ls rotated appropriately) to make a block with a ring. From what I can tell, there seem to be four rules:

  • The two background parts should have the same fabric.

  • The diagonal squares of a block should not have the same backgrounds/Ls.

  • The diagonal squares of adjacent blocks should not have the same background.

  • The L and the background need to be different colors or tones.

The tone vs. color issue is interesting. I took a picture of my fabrics and transposed part of it in black and white so that I could see the darker vs. lighter fabrics. Isn’t it kind of surprising that that yellow on the far left is one of the darkest fabrics? And that that second green is so much darker than the two to the right of it?

Since I need 36 squares and I have 12 fabrics, I started by cutting pieces for three backgrounds and three Ls per color. (There was some fudging, since I didn’t have enough for three and three of all of the fabric options.) I love the way the piles of pieces look, waiting to begin sewing.

I cut all of the pieces for the quilt top on Saturday morning, and then sewed the squares together in batches on Sunday.

Next up is figuring out the placement of the squares and seaming the top together. It’s so satisfying to be making progress so quickly – it’s a speedy pattern, and the small size helps, but I also think I’m getting better at organizing my sewing before I start.

Inching closer

The second most popular baby question I’ve gotten, after “have you thought about names?”, is what our nursery theme will be. I feel terrible to have to let people down when they seem so interested, but I wouldn’t say that “themes” have ever been my strong suite. (Luckily, I’m not sure how much the baby will notice.) Theme-incompetence aside, we are making progress on the nursery front. After all of the furniture mayhem three weeks ago, we finally have a plan that we’re both excited about for how to free up one of the bedrooms. We have our great glider, have ordered a crib, and have our eyes on an IKEA bookcase that will complete the furniture. We’re planning to use the second vanity in our bathroom as a changer, and the preexisting closet shelves (with baskets and/or hangers) instead of a dresser. I found a pattern online for crib bedding that looks like extremely quick and easy sewing – I just need to find elastic and fabric. There’s the quilt. And then the only major decision-making left is what to do about the walls and floor.

We picked up paint samples after work on Friday – such a cheery pile of potential.

(The two vivid orange squares aren’t really contenders, they were just too pretty to leave there.) It’s been months since we painted anything (last project was the bathroom in January), and while I can’t say that I’ve exactly missed it as an activity, the color is a fun choice to make.

Also, we’ve been planning to replace the carpet in the two front bedrooms (one of the last remaining projects from our initial list), but it wasn’t a high priority item. Since we’re moving all of the furniture anyway, now seems like an ideal time. So we’ll need to find carpet samples, too.

No theme, but I think that both front bedrooms will look extremely pretty by the time we’re done, and it’s not that much work left. 🙂 Good timing, since last week finally marked the beginning of the third trimester!

On your mark…

Before we left for our trip, I finally went out and found fabric for the bento box baby quilt I’ve been mulling. I found two spools of ribbon that seemed like ideal color inspiration: lemon, lime, turquoise and light blue.

I’m delighted with my fabrics for the front.

And I love my back fabrics, too, (shown here with the iron for size reference) but the jury is still out whether they are too saturated. My thought was that I’d make little orange and yellow nine-patch grids scattered across the blue, but it may be too bright. I’m thinking that I’ll make up both the front and back and if it’s not working in combination then I can sub in a lighter color for the back panel.

The fabric is all ironed and waiting for me to start cutting — I can’t wait to see it come together.

Our welcome home

We arrived home to find the yard brimming with brilliant flowers.

Our azaleas and rhododendrons are all beautiful, and we managed to catch the tail end of the lilacs (I have a nice big vase of them on our kitchen counter, and they smell wonderful).

Kevin went out with his macro lens, and had fun snapping photos of the bumblebees enjoying the rhododendron blooms.

The bush is right next to our front door, and the pink flowers are spectacular. It’s right outside Kevin’s office window (soon to be the baby’s room) and every time I walk along the path or through the hall, the size and sheer pinkness of the flowers is amazing.

We were quite delighted to see that the grass seed appears to have sprouted as well! It’s still early, but the lawn already looks impressively better. Kevin put in lots of time the week before we left raking up the moss (more than a yard waste bin’s worth! A herculean task) and then raking in the seed, so it’s great to see that a healthy amount of it took even without us here to coddle it. Also, apparently we had cool weather and sufficient rain while we were away so that the container plants didn’t bake — they all look happy and bigger.

Eight buttons shy of finished

My travel knitting for the trip was the Sirdar Baby Jacket. I managed to leave the patterns for the matching hat and booties at home, but the ribbing took much longer than anticipated and so I didn’t end up casting off until midway through the trip home anyway. The yarn (a bamboo blend) is wonderful — so soft, great stitch definition, and allegedly machine-washable. I wish I’d found it earlier — it’s a great option for baby knits. I still need to get the buttons sewn on, and clearly this needs to be blocked, but here the jacket is in its nearly-complete state:

PA trip, part 2

The second half of our PA trip was a weekend in the Poconos with my mom’s side of the family to celebrate my grandparents 80th and 85th birthdays. The hotel was a stately place surrounded by nature trails and a golf course, and they offered a daily list of activities and good meals. Seeing everyone was wonderful, but it was especially fun to do it in such a pretty setting.

We arrived mid-afternoon and immediately found my mom, grandparents, siblings and cousin in the lobby.

The frequency and ease with which we ran into family members continued to make me happy all weekend. It was such a treat to be in the middle of family – we usually only get to see everyone a few times a year at holidays, and the long weekend visit was wonderful.

The hotel grounds were quite pretty. Here’s one of several hiking groups returning from a hike down to one of the nearby waterfalls with all of the loveliness in the background.

They had dancing on Saturday night – a grand march followed by open dancing with live music. Here’s my sister and grandmother processing by during the march.

The weather was great – sunny and warm most of the days, and then on Sunday our group lawn-bowling event was interrupted by a big thunderstorm, with nice, dark clouds and even a bit of hail. We all took cover under a porch until the storm passed.

(We barely get lightning in Seattle, and a good storm is always a treat to me.) A second storm rolled in a few hours later, but it would have been more fun to watch if it hadn’t disrupted a wedding. They ended up moving it under the roof on the main porch which also seemed pretty, but the bride looked distressed.

PA trip, part 1

Our east coast trip was wonderful. The first portion was a trip home to see Kevin’s family for his sister’s graduation. For Nursing, there’s a pinning ceremony (which we attended — a happy, proud celebration for her nursing class) and a college graduation, which Kristina decided to skip. We have plenty of great photos from the pinning. Here’s Kristina and my in-laws beforehand:

In between graduation festivities, Kevin and his dad spent the first few days working on re-staining the deck. They did great work, and then Thursday was sunny and gorgeous so we all spent the day outside enjoying it. We’ve had a handful of beautiful days so far in Seattle, but nothing that compares to east coast summer weather.

We made a few pilgrimages to Dunkin Donuts. No photos, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Lots of time was also devoted to trying to let Kevin’s family feel the baby kick. He gets very quiet when I’m talking or moving a lot, and so it was hard to stay settled enough so that he’d really get going when other people were around. Increasingly, I can feel body parts pushing out, but it’s hard to decide what they are exactly (a knee? a foot?), and unless he moves other people usually can’t feel what I’m talking about. We had lots of failed kicking attempts, like this one:

I was so pleased that on the last evening everyone finally got to feel squirming and kicking.