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Posts by Karen Kaminski:

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have next week ENTIRELY OFF, which is my first real break in three months of being the only writer at work. Lisa Congden posted this last week and I can relate:

2. This is my pile of projects I think I can get to next week: Three fancy blouses and a sweater. Can you tell I’m craving some color?

3. While I sew, maybe I’ll listen to this podcast Austin Kleon talked about. This quote got me:

“I’m trying to keep my heart alive,” Silverblatt continues. “I’m trying to keep my joy alive. And if I stand up and roar, I’m trying to keep my soul alive… That’s what we have all done, when we get to do what we want to do with our lives: We keep our joy, we keep our hearts, we keep our soul.”

4. I won’t be posting next week, to have a real break and to give myself a little space. This will be the first Thanksgiving without Mom; I can stockpile all the pretty projects I want but there will still be hard moments. “Breathe deep and let November be November.” Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

 

Thursday Poem

By in poems

Lisa Congden quoted part of this on her Instagram yesterday so I had to look the whole thing up. “Looking out for sorrow,/slowing down for happiness,/making all the right turns”–Mary Oliver is just the best

 

Coming Home
by Mary Oliver

When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place–
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

Wednesday Reading

By in essays

The Atlantic—with a lovely new brand refresh–has an essay by Tom Junod about his friendship with Fred Rogers. He talks about his essay inspiring the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and what Mr. Rogers would make of society today. It’s just..nice; thoughtful and sad and but still hopeful.

This was my favorite memory he shared about Fred:

Once, when I called to tell him the story of five people stopping their cars to help an ancient and enormous snapping turtle across a highway exit ramp in Atlanta, he asked if I was going to write about it. I said no, and asked him why he thought it might make a good story. And this was his response: “Because whenever people come together to help either another person or another creature, something has happened, and everyone wants to know about it—because we all long to know that there’s a graciousness at the heart of creation.”

 

Tuesday Project Roundup: Hiking Tights

By in sewing, Tuesday Project Roundup 1 Comment

I’ve had a pair of cold-weather hiking tights on my list to make since I figured out I could make my own active wear in the spring. I placed a big order from The Fabric Fairy in July and included a cut of fleece-backed Polartec PowerStretch and sewed it up this past weekend.

These are the Super G Tights again (this is pair #10, if you count a couple test pairs?) and I decided to go for a TNT (tried and true) pattern even though I had my doubts about those layered pockets and the thickness of the fleece. To mitigate the layers I’d have to sew through, I lined the waistband and the pockets in some plain Lycra:

My serger did ok, though, and my Bernina didn’t even blink (god I love that machine). And these are so cozy with the fleece inside. I think I’ll need another layer over them when we get to deep winter but for now, they’re just right.

The Tiniest of Poems

By in poems

Matthew Ogle has restarted his Pome newsletter and this came through a couple of days ago:

 

Daylight Savings

Like money the light
doesn’t go

as far these days

Kevin Young (2010)

Hercule Poirot, Therapist

By in quotes

I was reading Death on the Nile and found this passage:

Jam maker, therapist, world’s greatest detective–what can’t Poirot do?

Make Nine #7: Cozy

By in 2019 Make Nine, sewing, Tuesday Project Roundup

This may be the last of the 2019 Make Nine that gets made this year. I like having a plan but I’ve figured out that I treat sewing like shopping and enjoy making something on a whim or to hop on a trend.  (And I make a lot more than nine things every year, anyway.)

With that said, this year’s plan got me some really nice basics, like another Sloane Sweatshirt from Named Clothing:

This is in a merino wool sweatshirting I bought at the end of 2017 from The Fabric Store in New Zealand. I’d heard about the quality of their wool and the hype is real: this is machine washable, not itchy, thick and spongy, and just gorgeous. It’s also gone*, but I hope they get more in at some point.

The Sloane pattern is beautifully drafted and sewed up in a Sunday morning. Love those long French darts and warm basic tops you can wear with snake pants.**

 

 

*My dad made me feel better about buying fabric I didn’t use right away: He called it “limited edition” and said that I had to buy it at the time or I would miss out.

**From J. Crew; the first J. Crew I’ve bought in about two years.

“The bare bones of it”

By in children's literature, nature

The canyon is mostly bare of leaves but not yet snow-covered; we went up for a walk yesterday and I thought of this passage I found in The Wind in the Willows (at the start of the chapter when Mole ventures into the Wild Wood):

Copses, dells, quarries, and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while, till they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering—even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.

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