I Did It! 2023 Edition

It's time again for the annual pat-myself-on-the-back post. Past years can be viewed here: 2022, 2021 (Apocalypse Year 2) 2020 (Apocalypse Year 1), 2019 (including decade-in-review), 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. Let's jump right into 2022's I Did Its! Shall we?

Andy Goldsworthy landscape installation at Alnoba in New Hampshire, here for no reason
other than it's a place I visited this year and never got around to writing about it. Also it's cool!

Writing I Did Its!

• Drafted a novel in my own version of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), which I called JANOWRIMO. (And I love it!)
• Finished revising and illustrating and writing a book proposal for my second nonfiction book, and submitted it to my publisher for consideration.
• Did some work on my idea for a third nonfiction book.
• Attended five book promotion events for Uphill Both Ways.
• Recorded two podcasts promoting Uphill Both Ways (one of which can be heard here, and one of which will come out soon!)
• Did a big freelance project.
• Freelance articles: 2
• Stories in the Snow
• Maine's Native Butterflies
• Essay Submissions: 5
• Essay Acceptances: 3
• Essay Publications: 
• "Faith in a Seed" Rooted 2: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction, Summer 2023 (reprint)
• "Inflection Point: The Birth of a Mother Writer" Literary Mama, March/April 2023
• Other publications: 
• "Growing an Essay" Rooted 2 Substack, December 2023
• "The Ever-Evolving Journey: An Interview with Majka Burhardt" Literary Mama, September/October 2023
• "Where Are They Now? An Interview with Anne Liu Kellor" Literary Mama blog, March 2023
• Residencies applied for: 3
• Residencies accepted into and attended: 1 (a little about it here).
• Newsletters: 10
• Blog posts: 27
• Workshops taught: 2
• Workshops taken: 2
• Got through >75% of my book coach training program.

Travel & Adventure I Did Its!

• We went to Europe!!! Can't really top that.

• Went on some local adventures to museums and other sites of interest around Maine, and one in New Hampshire, with family, friends, and on my own.
• Did *some* kayaking, but much less than in recent years.

Arts & Crafts I Did Its!

• Knit *one* pair of mittens!
• Took up mosaic-making (mosaicing?), and made three projects, including these two:

Other I Did Its!

• Got my older kid graduated from college and the younger two from high school. (Is this really my accomplishment? I don't care--I'm taking credit for it!)
• Got the younger two kids off to college.
• Hosted my parents for a couple of weeks in the spring (around those grads) and my sister for a few days in the fall.
• Created a true space of my own in the vacated bedroom.
• Maintained pretty regular yoga and walking routines (not-quite-daily).
• Kept a daily journal and a fairly regular morning pages routine.

I have some ideas about what I want to accomplish in 2024, writing-wise, and otherwise. But for now I'll just bask in the glow of self-congratulation for having written a novel and traveled to Europe and learned a new craft.

Finish It Friday ~ Mosaic Shelf

It is very strange that I have never blogged about my obsession with Fiesta ware dishes before, although they have made some appearances in the blog (notably in these posts: Kitchen Refresh, Getting the Plastic Out, and La Cocina en mi Casa). In any case, suffice it to say I have a pretty big obsession with Fiesta and a pretty big collection thereof. And, since I live with a clumsy man and three kids, I also have a pretty big collection of broken dishes, every one of which I've saved over the last 20 years for "someday" making a mosaic.

So when my friend Barbara set up a mosaic-making workshop with an artist friend of hers, I got out all my sad, broken dishes, sorted them by color, and gave them a bath.

Then I turned to Kaffe Fasset's book Mosaics for inspiration. The book includes a wall shelf project, and I just happened to have this sweet little wall shelf that used to hang in the kids' room, where it used to hold the antique toys C inherited from his grandfather. It was long ago evicted from the room and had been languishing in the basement.

To prepare it for mosaic, I first vandalized it by scoring the surfaces I was going to stick the tesserae (that's the fancy word for little tiles for mosaic; another fancy phrase I learned is pique asiette, which means mosaics made from items like broken dishes) to and then I painted it a nice, bright tangerine color with several coats of chalk paint. Then the fun began.

At my friend's mosaic gathering, I stuck shards (most of which I'd previously broken up) into mortar on the back panel of the shelf, with a butter dish finial and teacup handles for hooks. This mortaring part is what had held me back from trying mosaic on my own all these years, but it turned out to be incredibly easy. A lesson there.

At home later that week, I mortared pieces onto the outside panels of the shelf and then, later, grouted it all and touched up and waxed the painted surfaces. 

And now I just need to figure out where to hang it up--and what to mosaic next!

I Did It! 2020 (aka Apocalypse Year 1) Edition

For the past six years, I've tracked my annual accomplishments via an annual I Did It! list, originally inspired by writer Lisa Romeo. Previous posts can be found here: 2019 (including decade-in-review), 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. 

Let me just start this year's list by acknowledging that 2020 was a real sh*t-show of a year, and if all you managed to accomplish was doom-scrolling Twitter and binge-watching Tiger King, that's okay. I'm not here to judge or make anyone feel bad. In terms of hours devoted, streaming TV was probably my most productive activity of 2020. Nevertheless, traditions are traditions, and my tradition is to take a minute to celebrate my wins for the year, big and small.

Writing I-Did-Its!

My big win for the year is, of course, finding a publisher and signing a contract for my book. This was a four-year-plus-long process to get to this point, and I'm not going to let 2020 take that away from me.

My stats for this year:

• Submissions: 16
• Acceptances: 3
• Rejections: 7
• Withdrawals: 4
• Radio Silence: 2
• Publications: 4

"The Quilt" Willows Wept Review, September 2020 

"A Review of The Beginning of Everything by Andrea J. Buchanan" Literary Mama, May 2020 

"Faith in a Seed" Spire: The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability, April 2020  

"Sled Dogs and Search and Rescue" Maine Wilderness Guide, Winter 2020  

As  was the case for the last few years, while I've been working on The Book, I haven't been producing as many shorter works for submission. Some day I'll have to figure out how to keep short pieces going on the side while working on longer works. 

Other writing accomplishments:

• I re-reinvigorated my newsletter, moving to a monthly schedule and sending out 11 issues.
• I only wrote 35 blog posts--my lowest number ever--but I didn't abandon the blog entirely.
• I mostly finished drafting a second book and I did a fair amount of research on a third.
• I started a novel and got pretty deep into characters and plot, but had to shelve it at the point when I needed to delve into historical research, just when all the libraries shut down for the pandemic.
• I continued to edit for Literary Mama, both as a department editor in the Literary Reflections Department and as a Senior Editor (I suppose you could call another publication my letter from the editor in the July/August issue).

Travel and Adventure I Did Its!

Well, it wasn't much of a travel year for anyone, was it? Weeks went by in spring when I barely even left our property, let alone the county. What I did manage:

• Several local kayak trips, including one night paddle among the bioluminescence. I had fun making journal pages for some of these trips

• An overnight at a cottage on the beach, courtesy of a friend.
• A November hike with my family (who are usually impossible to drag out of the house) up a mountain not too far from home.

Arts and Crafts I Did Its!

Likewise, this wasn't a very crafty year, although it seems like it should have been what with all the stay-home-ness. What I did do:

• Made a cute little table topper thingy.
• Made a table runner.
• Made a billion face masks, starting with these.
• Finished C's fair isle vest.
• Remodeled my old dollhouse (phase 1, phase 2, phase 3).
• I've been working on one, long, endless knitting project most of the pandemic. It's been a good TV-watching knit, since it doesn't require a lot of attention-paying, but I've fallen out of the habit the last few weeks. Time to pick it up again.
• I did not do as much art as I would have liked, other than a little nature journaling and a couple of watercolor paintings. This is an area of my life I'd like to reinvigorate in 2021.

Household I Did Its!

2020 was the year of dealing with deferred maintenance, from repairing little things (bracelets and wind chimes that have been broken for years) to finally, finally repainting (most of) the house trim and the exterior doors. (See above. How much do you love that purple and green together?) Not that anyone other than the UPS man has seen the results, but it makes me smile every time I come home. I also:

• Finally cleaned up and organized the basement, starting with the "jar room." Other areas that got tidied up were my arts and craft supplies, three big bins of hand-me-down clothes that are all now either in kids' drawers or at the thrift store (or waiting till spring to go to the consignment store). I would still like to do a better job of organizing the camping gear and my fabric stash (maybe either burn through or get rid of some of it), and I finally threw out stuff I was waiting for recycling opportunities to open up for--old floppy disks and vinyl bags, that sort of thing. What I'd really, really like is for C to finish off the corner of the basement where all this stuff is stored and put in better lighting and shelving so I have better space to work with. Maybe some day...
• Expanded my Fiestaware collection...by a lot. I admit, I got a teensy bit carried away, but I'm pretty happy with my purchases (it all started with Goodwill but after the pandemic began, I turned into eBay, Replacements Ltd., and Fiesta Factory Direct for my fixes). Okay, so maybe buying stuff isn't exactly an accomplishment, but Fiestaware was invented during the Great Depression to cheer people up, so I feel like I'm carrying on that tradition--of cheering myself up with colorful dishes. All the new dishware necessitated reorganizing kitchen shelves and cabinets to create storage and display space where there was none before, so that's something
• In this same vein, I continued on my never-ending (and vain) quest to get the house so clean it stays clean by reorganizing and decluttering various book cases, cabinets, closets, and rooms.
• I spread topsoil and grass seed in front of our house, something we neglected to do after building, resulting in a bald, weedy lawn (don't get me wrong; I'm okay with "weeds" and even planted violets and bluets in the new lawn, but more green growing things than brown dirt was my goal).
• And I planted a butterfly garden, where I long ago put in an herb garden and then neglected it.

Nature I Did Its!

• I co-coordinated the Maine Master Naturalist training course for 2020, with three other terrific leaders. We pivoted and retooled with the pandemic, and were able to continue carrying out a complete and robust course using remote learning platforms, videos, do-it-yourself field trips, and socially distanced field days. The further I get from the elbow-deep, day-to-day operational logistics of this, the more I realize what an accomplishment it was. As a bonus, sitting through all of the lectures reinforced my own learning from the course (back in 2014-2015) and re-sparked my interest in several nature topics.
• I took an online class in butterfly ID and ecology, and discovered 40+ species of butterfly on my property alone.
• Most of my birding I did at home, yet I managed to log more checklists on eBird and more species than any previous year. I also had a couple of life birds and a few not-seen-in-a-long-time species, including two great sightings of sandhill cranes (not on my property), and I worked on my birding-while-kayaking skills. One of my big plans for 2021 is to get a lot better at birding.
• All the kayaking reinvigorated my long-held but recently dormant interest in dragonflies, and I reacquainted myself with some of my favorite species and learned several new ones. I look forward to pursuing this more in 2021.

Not too shabby for an otherwise hellish year. Another goal for 2021 is to not try to wish time away--even pandemic time, even work time--but to appreciate each moment as it comes. I'll let you know how it goes in next year's I Did It! post.

Finish it Friday ~ New Noro Hat

Ten years ago, I knitted myself a Noro Spiral One-Skein Hat. Up to that point, I had been knitting for more than a dozen years, but had averaged only one project per year. That hat was the turning point, when I realied I needed to either knit or get off the pot. It was also the first project for which I remembered how to cast on without help and where I learned about stitch markers and yarn-overs. It was also a really great hat—all my favorite colors, and it fit really well, and I always got compliments on it wherever I went.

Then sometime between last hat season and this, it disappeared. I don't remember seeing it when I cleaned the mudroom over the summer (I don't remember not seeing it, either), and since then I've cleaned the entire house, top to almost bottom, so unless it's lurking in the basement somewhere, it's gone. I suspect that it got jealous of this hat, with which it had to share my head last winter, and went off to find a new home. It should have known I always have room on my head, and in my heart, for another hat.

When it became clear the hat wasn't coming back, I picked up a skein of yarn and made a new one.

I normally wouldn't choose such dark, or such neutral, colors, but I had a hankering for an autumnal-hued head-warmer, in part to go with my bright orange fall jacket, and this skein of yarn called out to me the moment I walked into the yarn store—I liked the sunset/night sky/autumn leaves feel of it. This hat knit up a lot faster than the last one, with ten more years' knitting experience (at an average of six projects per year, I'm happy to report) under my belt. I don't love it quite as much as I loved the lost one, and I wish I'd started the decreases two rounds earlier, but it's a pretty good hat, and I think it will grow on me.

Ravelry notes, such as they are, are here.

I Did It! 2018 Edition

For the past several years, I've paused at the turn of the year and, before listing my goals for the upcoming year (and instead of berating myself for those things left undone from the previous year), I've made a list of accomplishments and goals achieved (originally inspired by this post from blogger and writer Lisa Romeo), both with regard to writing and other things in life.



Writing I Did Its

Books written: 1

My one, overarching goal for 2018 was to finish writing my book, and…I did it! I completed a full draft in June, subjected it to one round of revision, and then sent it off to two writing friends for suggestions and further edits. I subsequently sent off queries to several agents. No bites so far, but I have plans for deeper revision and further querying in the new year.

The focus on finishing the book, meant that my efforts in other writing areas lagged a bit:

Submissions: 14
Rejections: 7
Acceptances: 2
Publications: 3 essays:

"Memento Vivere" Still Point Arts Quarterly
"The Sparrow's Song" The Sunlight Press
"The World in their Hands" Nature Writing ​(republished)

 I launched a freelance career and enjoyed its brief glow before I had to go get a real job, producing 5 pieces:

"Sharing a Love of Wilderness" and "Naturalist's Notebook" Maine Wilderness Guide
"Jargon: Anatomy of a Mountain" TrailGroove
"Rachel Carson's Maine" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide
"Becoming a Trail Naturalist" TrailGroove
"Reduce, Recycle, Retire" Green and Healthy Maine Homes

I also taught four nature journaling workshops, including two in quite ideal circumsances—one on a sea kayak excursion and another on a weekend in a cabin up north.

Other writing numbers:

Writing residencies applied for: 1
Residencies accepted to: 0
Grants applied for: 2
Grants received: 0

I did earn more than twice what I made the year before from writing and teaching—not enough to live on, but a kind of nice bump in the otherwise nonexistant income. I made an attempt to keep a little toe in the literary world by attending a few writing workshops and presentations/panels, as well as the nearby annual poetry festival.

Travel I Did Its!
This was a poor year for travel, being a poor year, literally. All of our trips were fairly local: our usual May camping trip and visit to the in-laws' camp, and another camping trip with friends, plus a trip to Boston in February to visit colleges with M and a family expedition to Vermont this summer for a funeral/family reunion/more college visits, as well as trips to the beach and other day trips.

Art and Craft I Did Its!
For the second year, I participated in The 100 Day Project, this time drawing each day. In the end, I think I only accomplished somewhere around 85 days, and they were nowhere near consecutive, but I did improve greatly on my pencil drawing skills.

I haven't had much of a crafty year. The only knitting I did was preemie hats for the twins' class to donate to the hospital. I also finished up E's quilt, made a fun (but perhaps not that professional) farm quilt for a friend's new baby, and put together the quilt you see at the top of this post, which I'll get back from the quilter any day now, and which I'll tell you all about soon.

Tell me about your 2018 I Did Its!

I Did It! 2017

Time again for the annual I Did It! list, inspired by Lisa Romeo.



Writing I Did Its!

I finished a draft of the narrative part of The Book and put that narrative though one full round of revision. I still have a lot of research to do to fill in a lot of holes, but clearing that hurdle of getting those first round edits into the document felt good!

I continued to write and submit short pieces, especially during the first half of the year. My results:

Submissions: 24
Rejections: 26
Withdrawals (due to acceptance elsewhere): 2
Short-listed: 1
Acceptances: 7
Pending Publication: 2
Publications: 14

• “Monarch Summers” Nature Writing (republished), October 2017
• "Pugnacious Beasts" Zoomorphic, October 2017
• "Thru-Hiking en Famille" TrailGroove, September 2017
• “Individuality, Mutuality, and a Game of Twister” Multiples Illuminated, Vol. II, August 2017
• “The World in Their Hands” The Maine Review, June 2017
• "Jargon: Mountain Pass" TrailGroove, June 2017
• “A Conversation with Tomas Moniz" Literary Mama, June 2017
• “Toy Story” If Mom's Happy, May 2017
• “Five Hundred Miles” Mothers Always Write, March 25, 2017
• “How to Write with (or Despite) Kids” WOW! Women on Writing, March 16, 2017
• “How Being a Mom Helped Me Hike 500 Miles” Parent Co., March 2017
• “Post-Twin Stress Disorder” Multiples Illuminated, March 2017
• “No Fun” The Manifest Station, March 2017
• “I'll Be There For You” Grown and Flown, January 2017

The reason these numbers don't add up is because rejections, acceptances, etc. include a number of pieces submitted in 2016. Even though my submission rate was almost half what it was last year (24 versus 45), my rejection rate was higher (26 versus 20) and so was my publication rate (14 versus 8), but my acceptance numbers were down (7 versus 9). What does all this mean? I have no idea.

The low submission number has to do with me focusing on writing short pieces and getting them out in the world during the first half of the year and turning my attention to The Book during the second half (only two submissions since May!). I would like to find more of a balance between The Book and keeping short pieces flowing next year. 

Right now I only have two essays that are finished and making the rounds of literary journals. They're two of the best pieces I've ever written, I believe, and they're having a hard time finding a home. Probably because I insist on sending them only to paying journals. I've got a bunch of partially written essays on hold in the files and numerous short stories on hiatus. At some point I have to address the gap between essay and short story—why am I having more success with the former than the latter? Which stories in the queue truly have merit and which need to be retired? I also want to write more fiction, despite the challenges it poses.

Other writing activity:

• I applied—and was accepted—for a week at an artist colony (and it was amazing).
• I applied—and was rejected—for a writing grant.
• I entered—and have not yet heard from—a writing contest (not counted in submission #s)

I also continued to co-edit the Literary Reflections department at Literary Mama, wrote 90 blog posts (my lowest number since the first two years of the blog), started a monthly-ish newsletter, and created a new website. I attended a poetry festival in Augusta and an alumni weekend at my MFA alma mater, each of which was as good as a writing conference and much more affordable.

On the financial front, my writing balance is in the black! It's not much, in terms of trying to survive (or even buy the occasional cup of chai), but my income from publications and teaching workshops exceeded my expenses of buying books and office supplies and paying submission fees and alumni weekend registration, Duotrope and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance membership fees, and cloud storage costs. I've reached my goal of not spending more money on writing than I earn. Now I just need to earn enough to live on.

Travel I Did Its!

I took the boys on a road trip to Colorado and back home (via Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota). This was the first time I went on a road trip as the only adult (though I had some driving help from M), and I think I did pretty great (we never ran out of gas and we never succumbed to a hotel room, camping the whole way there and back). We even survived a rare Utah Hurricane which threatened to float our tent away. And my kids had fun!

Crafty I Did Its!

Making things by hand has taken a bit of a backseat to writing this past year, but I still appreciate the satisfaction of creating a tangible and usable object—a different and often more immediate satisfaction than writing. A few things I made:

• Holiday placemats
• A quilt (top) for E 
• A quilt for Z
• An Egyptian skirt 
• Duvets for boys
• Pussyhats (recycled and fleece)

Art I Did Its!

I taught myself to watercolor by painting every day for 100 days over the spring and summer (and continuing not quite as religiously since then), following some online tutorials and attending a couple of painting classes at my friend's studio. Watercolor painting is something I've wanted to learn for years and this project not only got me started painting, but also taught me the value of doing something every single day—you actually get better!

Nature I Did Its!

I  taught a couple of nature journaling workshops and have been volunteering at a local nature center, helping lead groups of fourth graders through the woods and trails. I've also put my newly acquired watercolor skills to work in my nature journals. I compiled my birding Life List and went on several bird-watching expeditions, each of which added a few more birds to said list. C, E, Z, and I again did our Christmas Bird Count route. In general, I paid a lot more attention to birds.

Phew! That's a lot for one year! Can't wait to see what 2018 has in store, and I'm a little worried about how I'll keep track of it all if I'm not blogging next year.

Snow Day

When I saw the weather forecast for Tuesday, I was pretty sure the school(s) would call a snow day. Instead of railing against yet another break in my already shaky December schedule, I decided to embrace it the way I used to when I had an outside-of-the-house job and a snow day could mean a day off for everyone. While grocery shopping Monday, I laid in supplies of cookie ingredients and construction paper. I made plans for puzzles, games, movies, and projects. I visualized every snow day for the last 11 years happening all in one day. While things didn't quite transpire the way I'd envisioned, we had a pretty good—and productive—day.

While the kids would once have raced outside to play in the snow first thing, they are now of an age where they would rather sleep in late (M) or get on the computer first thing. I decided to ignore E and Z's screening and get busy on a project of my own, the supplies for which I bought last holiday season: festive placemats for everyday use during the Christmas season.

Even though our table is well-loved, I like to try to protect what's left of its finish with placemats or tablecloths. I also like to have a nice, attractive table to sit at (this condition does not last long, with homework, bills, mail, crumbs, and various other messes piling up as quickly as I can clear it). I've been so pleased with the bright, festive, machine-washable placemats I made last year that I decided to replicate them, down to the rickrack, in festive reds and greens. So far, I'm quite pleased.

When I finished my project, I rousted two boys off their screens and outside onto their skis, which was a much easier effort than I expected (could it be that they actually like this new activity and might even go out and do it voluntarily some day? Dare I hope?). The anticipated rain had not yet begun, and we had an inch or so of fresh fluff on top of Sunday's snow—not quite enough to shield our skis from gravel in the driveway, so we went off-road into our neighbor's field and then around one loop of our trail in the woods. Z, after laboriously climbing one narrow hill through the trees turned around and skied down it, then repeated the whole process two more times. Fun!

Back inside, we worked on some holiday projects—E made a paper chain to go around part of the living room (to extend one he had begun last week) and Z and I made Scandinavian-style woven paper hearts. Unfortunately I picked a design with five strips, rather than two or three, so the weaving was hard-going, but Z and I each managed to finish one each. The cool thing about both of these projects? They were the boys' ideas, no coercion necessary!

In the afternoon, we settled in for a movie during which I worked on making Christmas ornaments.

We didn't get out a puzzle or play games or go sledding, and I didn't get around to mixing cookie dough until the evening, while I was reheating a dinner of leftovers (that's my idea of cooking—mix cookie dough rather than dinner). But I did get a batch of saffron St. Lucia Day buns made for Wednesday's breakfast (and I managed to not burn them for the first time ever). All-in-all, a pretty good snow day.

Best of the Blog ~ Kid Art Embroidery

Over the last few weeks of blogging, I thought I'd revisit a few of my favorite posts. Since it's the holiday season—and who doesn't start a new craft project two weeks before Christmas?—I thought I'd harken back to one of my very favorite crafts—embroidering my kids' drawings. I've had so much fun over the years working with my kids' art and transforming it into decorative household objects.

I love these projects because kid art is so great, and tracing over it with floss and needle allows you to spend a lot of time noticing the details and character in their work. And, honestly, it's nice to sit and focus on something sweet and simple that has nothing to do with the horribleness of the world. It's good therapy—and cheap therapy. I encourage you to try it.

Don't worry if you lack sewing skills—if you can thread a needle and tie a knot, you can embroider. To get started, see: 

Kid Art Embroidery How-To

I'll admit, there's a limited range of finished projects you can make with the art once you've embroidered it (for a while I thought of doing a quilt with embroidered squares alternating with printed fabric, but that never happened). Some things you can make with your embroideries:

Wall Hangings (rotated seasonally):

Autumn Wall Hanging
Santa Wall Hanging
Pirate Wall Hanging

Table runners and placemats:

Halloween Table Runner
Thanksgiving Table Runner
Christmas Table Runner
Christmas Placemats

Pillows

 Owl and Pussycat Pillow

(Sadly, this pillow has gotten completely destroyed by use—the embroidery floss worn off, the white linen shredded; I don't recommend a pillow project in a household of—er—active people).

One of my favorite things about blogging and reading blogs has been getting inspired to try new things and learn new skills. Kid art embroidery is just one of those things I might never have discovered if it weren't for bloggers out there sharing their work.

A Quilt (Top) for E

Ever since I finished Z's quilt (top) back in February, the squares for E's quilt have been sitting forlornly on my sewing table, gathering dust and waiting for someone to come and do something with them. Around mid-October, I finally got the inspiration to put them together (probably fueled by something else I wasn't inspired to do, like clean the house or write a book), and so I cleared and dusted my sewing area, threaded my machine, and put a few squares together.



Then the late October mega-windstorm came, wiping out both our internet and the daily solitude that's a prerequisite to writing (did I mention the kids got a whole week off school with that one?), and I got cracking, putting together most of the squares. The momentum continued, and in less than a month, I had the whole top assembled, which is something of a record, even if you include the years since I started cutting pieces.



The original motif was to have been frogs, and I started with some fabrics from my stash and some my mom sent me. Over time the theme expanded to include salamanders, lizards, turtles, alligators, butterflies, crickets, beetles, fish, and parrots. I guess we can call it "Non-Mammal Vertebrates Plus Insects." I suppose it would have been more age-appropriate had I finished it back in 2014, but who doesn't love frogs, really? They're timeless. And he doesn't have to take it to college with him if he doesn't want to.

 In the meantime, I got Z's quilt back from the long-arm quilter months ago.



We chose a quilting pattern called "West Wind," which is highly appropriate, and not only for the nature theme of the quilt. For the backing, my quilter recommended this tan and brown flannel with a pattern like tree rings and to my surprise, I liked it. The front is so busy, that a neutral backing made sense. After much hemming and hawing, I've decided to use the same fabric for the binding, not only because I have a lot of it (nice and long so I won't have to do much piecing), but also because I thought it would be lovely to have a soft flannel edge to one's quilt.



I was hoping to give both to the boys for Christmas, but I finished E's to late to get it quilted. I'll have to wrap up the top for him with a promise of finishing it in the new year—a family tradition I carry on from when my mom used to wrap up fabric and a pattern or yarn and needles, the promise of a gift later on.

Z's Quilt Top ~ The Naturalist

And just like that, we have a quilt top. Well, not really JUST like that. It did take a couple of years, but not NEARLY as long as M's quilt took, so it felt really fast. And the actual hands-on time was quite small…there just happened to be a lot of in-between time in between the hands-on time.



I'm calling this quilt "The Naturalist," because Z's very interested in wildlife and plants and things of that nature (well, when he's not interested in his iPad, which sucks of more and more of his time every day, I'm afraid). I already had some wildlife and nature-type prints and decided to pair them (plus a few additional purchases) with mini plaids, of which I had a ton leftover from M's baby quilt:



(Can you believe I made that thing when I was pregnant…so many fussy little pieces, all paper-pieced together. I don't even want to think about how much I spent on fabric, to make it look like a scrap quilt!! And I didn't even finish it until he was two and pretty much too big for it.)

My dilemma with Z's quilt: how to make a quilt using wildlife and nature prints and plaid and have it not end up looking like a huntin' camp quilt? My solution: use prints of non-edible wildlife (owls and eagles and frogs and bugs) and other natural objects (rocks and leaves and clouds and blueberries and feathers) plus some very non-huntin' camp colors (sky blue, purple, salmon, gold, bright green).

I think I succeeded; it doesn't look very huntin' camp to me. It is a little busy, though. Okay, it's extremely busy, but I think I like it that way. It may not be conducive to quiet dreams, but it provides a lot of fodder for daydreams and imagination.

I still need to get batting and backing and take it in to be quilted, which is outside my skill set for anything bigger than a baby quilt. Not sure when I'll get to that. That's one thing I do miss about my old 9-5 life, not having to think twice about spending money on something like finishing off a quilt. And now it's time to start on a quilt for E—I already have the pieces cut out (frogs and lizards and turtles and jungle birds), which is a bummer, because last night, when he saw Z's finished quilt, he said, "can you make me one with kitties and bunnies?" Hate to say "no" to a request like that from an 11-year-old boy, but I'm not starting again from scratch!

2016 Knits

In 2015, I set to knit one object per month. While I didn't quite reach that goal, I did get nine things knit up. I did not set a similar goal for last year, lknowing I'd be wandering in the wilderness for two months (and not having the knitting-while-hiking skills I hear the Scandinavians possess), but it turns out I ended up knitting more things in 2016 than I did in 2015—eleven!

Okay, so they were all very small things—a cowl, two baby hats, two pairs of mitts, six potholders (four shown; the other two I gave away as gifts without taking their pictures first). Plus that hat in the bottom left of the picture, which is not done yet, but is much further along than shown. But, they were fun things, cute things, gifts even! And, for all except the potholders and purple mitts, I used up some stash, which is always a good thing.

My knitting plans for 2017: finish that cashmere hat, knit a reindeer hat for Z (like the one in Home Alone—gotta get that done before he's too old to want it); find something to do with all the scratchy wool that's left in my stash (felted slippers, perhaps?); converse slippers for M; I also have an idea for an afghan I'm pondering on—maybe that will be a job for next winter.

What's on your needles these days?