Paper Pie

Hello From Sunday

What are you up to today?

Links To Share

I'm finding such great info about both parenting and education this weekend. Maybe something here will interest you too.

* Oh, actually, this one is just for fun!

* My Parent's Were Homeschooling Anarchists from NY Times Magazine

* From the above article, I found this amazing resource

* I secretly (or not so secretly) want to have a big clan

* What to Say Instead of "No!" from Regarding Baby

I hope your weekend is treating you well.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Amanda Soule 

A More Spacious Studio

Well, it all started innocently enough, as these things often do. In recent months, it has seemed that the studio (and the whole apartment for that matter) has been increasingly overrun with stuff. The thing about stuff mountains in the studio, is that it makes it incredibly difficult to work in there with all of it in my way. When inspiration strikes, I need to get in and get down to business. The ironing board moves in and becomes a permanent fixture and now there is not even room to move. So last week, I did a little reorganization. Nothing too grand or special, just putting things away, getting honest about what will never get used and deciding to donate some things. And it looked great. Clean and ready to be put to work for the upcoming holiday craft-a-thon.

But then came Soul Weekend. Have I told you about it? It's great! Soul Weekend is my family's attempt to schedule intentional downtime. Once a month, we commit an entire weekend as plan-free. We do our absolute best to keep it that way and take those two blissful days as they come. It is a glorious respite and much needed time for all of us to connect and engage in activities that truly nurture our, well, our souls. Also, it is incredibly fun because spontaneity is born out of the very nature of creating space to just let things happen. So on Friday night of Soul Weekend, Ryan mentioned that the Rose Bowl flea market was on Sunday, and that was all I needed to get my juices flowing. How could I rearrage the studio to make it more simple, more calm? What type of organization was needed so everything could have a place and the room did not become a behemoth of overwhelm, not to mention paper, mail, hair ties and cat toys?

Here's what I came up with. Remember the red table that we scored at a garage sale for $10? I decided to bring it in from the garage and exchange it for my much larger desk that held lots of paper, my scanner, books and included ample space for bits and bobs from all over the house to convene.

This space is just blogging and fabric designing from now on. No more grocery list making, notebook piling, CD collecting going on here. And I mean it, too. See the bookshelf in the corner? That is a score from the Rose Bowl. It is tin but looks like wood. It is super simple, but does the job of getting all of our books out of the living area. They used to be on a shelf right at Rylie's height and right near her toys. Many days (everyday, really) the books would come off the shelves into giant heaps on the living room floor. So, yeah, that was not working.


I used to have this inspiration bulletin board inside a frame, but it was too heavy and was not steady when hung on the wall. So it was sitting on the floor and taking up lots of space. Not to mention, it was in Rylie's reach, so all of my pins were at the very top. I discarded the frame, and nailed the actual bulletion board to the wall. I also opened it up for fresh inspiration, love that!

Something else had me itching for new storage solutions last week. My yardage of Domestic Bliss arrived! (More on that next week, I promise) We found these wonderful, wooden drawers from an old file cabinet at the Bowl. Stacked on top of eachother, they make a great home for all of my fabric that I have designed for Moda.


Look, the handles are still attached and everything. They are great drawers and I can imagine lots of uses for them, if say, I ever need to build a custom closet for all of my fabrics.

And I finally picked up an vintage suitcase to hold all of my felt and old clothing that I plan to upcycle. The climber's among us love it!

Perhaps the best fix of all is the one not even interesting enough to photograph. The other half of the room is completely empty! That's right! Abundant space to move, work, dream, create - I don't know, dance if I want to. It is precious, rife with opportunity! Oh the possibilities!

The Knitting of a Sweater

I've only ever knit 4 things before: this chunky scarf was my very first project from Stitch 'N Bitch: A Knitter's Handbook by Debbie Stoller.


These baby booties from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas.

And remember the legwarmers from Never Not Knitting?

Here are the same legwarmers in action just last week.
A while ago, I knit this hat from Knitting for Baby in anticipation for our trip to Chicago and Michigan.
On that trip, Rylie promptly removed the hat from her head, tore the pom pom off and distributed it evenly all over the backseat of our rental car. I'm contemplating replacing the pom pom or deciding to let that one go.

Zipper, not worried about being perceived as cliché

And now the sweater. Wish me luck. It is going ok so far, I've realized that stitch holders would probably have made things much easier for me instead of using double pointed needles with scrap yarn tied around the ends. Right? Well, necessity is the mother of invention, even half-baked inventions. Is there something else I could use for stitch holders instead of buying them? Despite my inexperience, and dropped stitches here and there, I am so motivated to knit right now. When I get out of bed in the morning, I put the coffee on, grab my sweater and knit a row. When I am nursing Rylie, I knit a row. When I am the passenger in a car, I am knitting a row(s), and at the end of the day, Ryan and I relax side by side with a cup of tea - he reads, I knit. Despite all of my other projects, despite all of the email I need to catch up on, despite the proximity of Christmastime, I sit and knit and it is restorative and satisfying, especially as I notice some semblamce of a sweater taking shape.

"Oh yes, that is the armhole isn't it? And this is where the buttons will be sewn on, uh huh, I see."

Whenever I start on a new knitting project, I am surprised by my gusto and how industrious my thoughts can be. I need to be honest with myself and realize that I will never finish all of the projects that I think about. I dream about knitting a blanket, not just for Rylie, but for every expectant mama I know (a lot) and pillows, and cotton towels and stuffed animals and more sweaters and cable knit and this sweater, oh I think about this sweater a lot. 

I read a passage in Knitting For Baby that said essentially every inch of the yarn passes through the knitter's fingers when knitting. Every inch of this sweater/hat/legwarmer/sock has been touched by mama. A lovely thought that each inch is infused with my touch and love. I often find myself daydreaming about when the sweater is finished and how it will look, how Rylie will like it, and what she will think when she pulls it out for her own baby some day. That is, if Grandma doesn't knit her grandbabies all the sweaters they could ever use beforehand. Big plans I tell you, big plans...

**P.S. I just found Ginny's Yarn Along. Perfect timing!

G-Pa

This photo of my Grandpa and Rylie was taken last weekend when we were in Michigan. I love it so - the contrast of innocence and experience, young and old, naivety and wisdom. To see someone that I have admired, and has been so dear to me my whole life, hold my child, reminds me of the river of time, the flow of life, and how generation after generation, it all continues. I think of all that my Grandfather has done and seen in his 80 years and how the world has changed since he was born 1931. I remember his look of utter astonishment that gave way to a big grin and his signature giggle when we did our first Skype call to introduce him to Rylie. What will the world be like when I am 80? What will the world be like when Rylie is 80? I call him G-Pa, it's a holdover from my teen years. He loves it and signs all of his correspondence to me in this way.

There are stories of my Grandpa babysitting for me when I was a wee one while my mom, aunt and Grandma were at ceramics class (it was the 70s after all.) And now he babysits my niece, Kenzi, she is the same age as Rylie. I heard he even braves diaper changing, though they sometimes get put on backwards, bless his heart. I remember him pulling into our driveway, in his big Cadillac, to pick my sis and I up for Sunday School. After church we would go to breakfast at the same diner week after week. He would say the same thing to the same waitress each time: "The food and service in this place is exceeded only by the beauty of the help." I wonder if he still says that. I wonder what my Grandma thought about it. She would call him a character. And she was spot on. I was just telling Ryan the other day that I can remember when I was a kid and he had a stationary bike in his basement. He would ride that thing until he was dripping sweat all the while playing Pac Man on his Atari 5200 (it was the 80s after all.)

My Gramps has come to visit me wherever I've lived, which has truly been all over the country: Atlanta, Kansas City, and here he is at our wedding in Malibu in 2008.

These photos below are from G-Pa's 80th birthday this summer. Can you see the family resemblance in all four generations?

There are many things about Gramps that are definitive: he loves his church, he loves his family, he loves his Detroit Tigers (probably in that order, too!) He tinkers, he putters, he hunts for bargains at garage sales. He rides his bike 5 miles to the gym everyday: In Michigan! At 80 years old! Salt of the earth if ever anyone fit that phrase. These photos, these moments at the twilight of his life, are so precious to me and I am incredibly grateful that I am mature enough to appreciate and undertand their significance. I say twilight of his life, but if anyone will make it into Al Roker's club, this guy will.  

Fall Color

Last week we were forunate enough to take a last minute trip to Chicago, and my hometown in Michigan, right at the height of fall color. I realized once there, that I had not been back at that exact time of autumn for probably 10 plus years. It is a fleeting and constantly changing thing this autumn season, so ellusive. We were in Michigan about 6 years ago at the beginning of October, but that was early in the season and the leaves were just starting to change. We've been back at Thanksgiving time too and at that point most of the color is on the ground, except for the sturdy, rust-colored oak leaves that hang on until the coldest, darkest days. But this time, this first week of November, well the North was plain glorious in all of it's autumnal finery.

Rylie and I walked around the Chicago suburb of Oak Park on a bright and shiny Friday afternoon and got these shots. It was a little emotional for me because the fall season is subtle here in LA. I realize it is hard, and perhaps ridiculous to complain about weather that rarely strays from 72 degrees and sunny, but I also never anticipated how much a place, and the climate of a place can really live in your soul. So when returning to the Northern geography, where even still, the majority of my years have been spent, that feeling of fall was in my bones. The smell of the leaves, wet on the ground, the angle of the sun shining through yellow leaves. The gratitude felt on a sunny day, such as this, when, for many days before, the sky was covered with a thick gray blanket. How a smell such as woodsmoke can warm you up when the nip in the air is stinging your face and drizzle is mingling in your hair. How wonderful it is to stop into a Mom & Pop for a warm meal and to gaze into a welcoming fire. All of these things I miss.

I was thinking of our climate here in LA this weekend, and sort of had a new idea - a new thought about the weather. Instead of focusing on the lack of variety outside, I could choose to notice and appreciate even the most subtle of changes here - for instance, the light. The light changes everywhere and it does here too. It is well on it's way to being dark at 4:30 in the afternoon these days, and that feels decidedly autumnal to me. And the wind. I can conciously notice the shift in the wind and when it gets blustery, which it certainly does. I could stand at my window and watch the trees sway in the wind for a while. Perhaps that's why it is called a WINDow. Have you ever seen a 100 foot skinny palm tree sway in the wind? It is amazing how elastic they are. And when we do get rainy days (because they are far more common this time of year) I could choose to treat them as snow days, staying inside - curled up with a blanket, a hot drink, and a book. Sounds like a good plan heading into this colder stretch of the year.

The last photo there was taken in the front yard of my childhood home. I want Rylie to know seasons and what is happening in the natural world as the earth moves round the sun. It will just require this Northern girl a little extra thought to do so in Southern California.

Hello From Sunday

What are you up to today?

Links To Share

Little bits from the Web that have got me thinking this weekend:

* I'm pretty sure in the coming months our home is going to be filled with playthings like this.

* So excited and hopeful about the prospect of a peaceful holiday season.

* I am loving Grace's posts about advent from a few years back.

* Rylie's favorite toys, are definitely not "toys"

* Time for cozy feet!

Wishing you a wonderful and peaceful weekend.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Amanda Soule