Making Beauty in Hard Places... Stitch by Stitch

Mom just got her biggest crochet project ironed up and on the table last night! I always love the morning light in this space, and now it is more amazing than ever!

This tablecloth project has traveled many miles, and since it was not a straight-through effort but picked up for occasional seasons, it has been growing for several years. Much of the work was done in family evenings to the accompaniment of audiobooks.

Some of it grew through the painful recovery from knee replacement. And the final stitches were put in while walking through a month of treatments with Dad at Mayo clinic. 

Faithfulness in the hard places. One stitch at a time. It all adds up to something beautiful!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...
 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 
He has made everything beautiful in its time. "
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 10

January 2025

January 2025:

January held a few noteworthy activities for our family.

I got out cross-country skiing for my first time in years, and it felt amazing! A second time at the start of February was just as satisfying. I love this new (old) way to enjoy our 8 acres and surrounding fields in the fresh, cold air!

We ate the last tomatoes from our garden on January 25th... a record for us! They had been picked in hard and green before freeze-up last fall and slowly ripened in a box and then the window-sill through winter. They were even sprouting inside!

Though not like vine-ripened, these were certainly better than from a store. And they worked great in a Fiesta Salad with home-canned corn and beans.

Speaking of canned beans, this was also a first.

I finally tried the several day process I'd been dreaming of and sprouted black beans for extra digestibility, then pressure canned them for an easy protein to add to meals. They turned out delicious!

Elsa launched two new lines in our renamed Etsy shop: Heritage Woolen Co.

Her handknit, soft, woolen bonnets are a favorite with moms and littles alike!

And her new textured mitten design comes in the prettiest earthy colors! (limited edition)

Back to foods:

Mom made our first 2 crust pie (a challenge usually avoided in gluten-free baking) in about a decade. Delicious! 

And we are eating lots of fresh sprouts... courtesy of Elsa's diligence. 

After starting 2025 with a bang... playing Dutch Blitz with cousins at midnight (a family tradition neglected for many years past), we are on a roll!

We are keeping it up by pulling out old favorites for a weekly family game night. My Rummikub memories go back to before age 12 when we sat around Grandpa and Grandma's round dining room table and learned to plan complex moves!

While Nordic colorwork mitten designs for the Etsy shop keep clicking off my needles during family audiobook evenings, I make gifts for my stash on Sundays. This amigurumi zebra is the latest to make me smile.

And the 1 minute blind contour sketch I did of it makes me laugh!

If you haven't heard of this quick sketch practice, it involves looking only at the subject (never even glancing at the paper) and drawing in a continuous line without lifting the pen. A fun challenge!

And yes... I just noticed that this sketch was done in February. So starts a new month...

~ Hannah

A Snowy Sunday

 March 6th: a snowy Sunday afternoon

Beginning to melt

Getting close to finishing my first-ever hand-spun home-knit garment!

 

New Mittens for a New Year

 

On the knitting side of life:

I knit 42 pairs of mittens in 2021 and sold more than that on Etsy, so our stock is super low now.

But rather than simply restocking from the same old patterns, we think a new year begs for a new design added to the Nautical Nordic Scandinavian mitten line! After all, we were created in the image of our Creator to be creative!

One January evening I sat down with my "boss" [younger sister who owns the business and manages the shop] to pore over an amazing book for inspiration. In "Selbu Mittens" Anne Bårdsgård shares more than just a selection of classic patterns, hundreds of charted motifs, and a feast of photo inspiration. The reader is also given a history lesson with real stories and faces behind this beautiful and creative tradition.

Of course the design we both settled on had no pattern or chart, so out came the magnifying glass, graph paper, and pencil. Then it was my turn to be creative to make it fit my yarn/gauge. Plus I tried a new style of thumb gusset increases inspired by other photos in the book and added a little flair to the thumb itself.



Finally, type it all into my (proprietary) computer template, add our most popular yarn colors, and...

We love the result!

But pictures will have to come later. ;-)

Picking up a Brush Again

Watercolor has really gone into a slump around here the past few months - as can be seen by what I turn out when picking up a brush again.

I do realize that the high inflammation and pain levels which hit me each autumn play a big part in disconnecting brain from fingertips. Creativity can't be forced when it is hard to simply draw breath or sit normally due to pain. But more closely observing a bit of beauty while watching the flow and mingle of watercolors is still so therapeutic that I want to push through this slump and see what can come of it.

The first Sunday afternoon of December marked the start of this experiment. When a quick attempt at our first amaryllis of the season failed miserably, I turned to a favorite tutorial by Camilla Damsbo to gain inspiration again. 

It forced me to loosen up, speed up, and use more water... which was much-needed in our bone-dry winter home. And while the results are still far from what I envisioned, it brought some joy back to the process.

Then a Monday afternoon walk to the compost pile through the cold, crunching snow gave me a sunset view to try. As subtle as our winter skies can be, it was fun to try a mix of techniques for this little landscape.

The second Sunday I tried adding ink lines to the Damsbo poppies piece (as shown in the tutorial here)...

...before tackling our favorite succulents for a second time. 

Not happy with the results (rough, hard edges and too dark on the lightest values), I went back to knitting my handspun wool for the rest of the afternoon! 

So, though it still takes a strong will to pull out the paints and brushes, knowing I won't find even the so-so results I was used to some months ago, I hope to keep finding ways to make the process more enjoyable again.

Apples, Chocolate Mint, and Tomatoes

Apple season has begun!

I froze 15 quarts of sliced Red Baron apples (for crisps/crumbles/pies) from just half the windfalls on September 9th.

That was also the day to get to a bit of (late!) herb harvesting.

Chocolate Mint is our favorite mint variety for herbal tea. 

Meanwhile, Mom and Elsa were prepping salsa from the tomato harvest.

Mom has already canned quarts of whole tomatoes and spaghetti sauce.

We are grateful for all of this food even when the processing wears us out!

Delphiniums

Pencil and ink were all I could handle for yesterday's Sunday Sketchout, but that completed my page of the amazing Delphiniums from our garden.

The plant was at least 6 feet tall this year before rain broke most of the spikes for us to then enjoy indoors.

I was particularly amazed by the unusual patterns of the leaf veins!

I know many people don't like to get into such tiny details in their nature journals, and that's fine. I don't always either. But I'm not going for quantity at this point in my life.

Rather, on the days where my chronic symptoms are getting too loud, I can find such therapy in looking closely at a bit of God's intricate creation and trying to copy some of what I notice. All the little wrinkles, folds, and subtle but complex colors make me happy and distract my brain from the pain as long as I can focus.