A Colorful Thread: February 2021
Weaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life.
Best of Stitched in Color {February}
On My Mind
Experimenting:: with paint colors. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again - choosing paint colors for my home makes me soooo nervous. There have been many times that I totally regretted my choice of paint color while it was still drying on the walls. And yet, I don’t want to play it safe with white and gray. After all, I love color!
So this time I am using canvases to test different paint colors in different parts of the room and under different lighting conditions. And leaning hard on curated color palettes (thank you Farrow & Ball for limiting the possibilities!). And trying digital paint-your-room tools.
I chose Sudbury Yellow by Farrow & Ball (mixed in a Sikkens brand paint) for the living room. I like it!
Reading:: Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. Need a dose of optimism? This book is super easy to read, quite upbeat and sure to get you thinking. My entire book club (a whopping three people, haha) loved it. It’s not really a history book, but rather a philosophical book about the nature and potential of humankind from a promising young thinker.
Sponsor of the Week
Tales of Cloth
Ready for a new, slow-stitching project? The Small Change quilt pattern is a downloadable pdf with 3 hexie quilt patterns in one! Inspired by the popular hexie designs of the 1930s, the Small Change quilts include all the fun and beauty of hexagon blocks, without the job of sewing the blocks together!
Start with ease as these patterns use 1” hexagons or 2” diamonds, shapes you might already have or could print and cut yourself.
Get cozy and enjoy!
Following:: @FoxFig via Instagram. I love these adorable, scrappy trees so much that I’m tempted to start a Christmas quilt in February. In February!?!? Surely that’s magic. Enjoy the beautiful colors, photographs, patchworks and knitting by Melissa at Fox & Fig.
p.s. project is Patchwork Forest tutorial by Diary of a Quilter. I think Melissa’s hand quilting really makes it sing!
Anticipating:: setting up my new sewing room. We’re busy at work on our new home, with the move in date set for March 6th. My new sewing room won’t be much larger than the previous one, but it does have a big upgrade - a nice design wall! This gray wall is the location of my future design wall.
The door and the closet behind it, won’t be accessible once the design wall is in place. Thus we are moving the door to another room, so that the closet can be accessed and used. Yep, that’s how important a design wall is to me!
Since we got the keys on February 15, my husband has been working at our new house every day. He’s installed light fixtures, a few additional kitchen cabinets, new appliances, started on flooring and made other small changes. DIY home renovation is a whole new level of tricky when the hardware shops are closed! The pandemic shutdown continues in The Netherlands with non-essential retail stores, restaurants, etc. still closed. Fortunately you can order from the hardware store and pick up at a determined later time. It’s slows progress, but thankfully there’s still progress!
In other news, Elora started at her new primary school. Her class is a mixed group of 4-6 year olds at a bilingual Dutch/English primary school across the street from our new home. We had the opportunity to meet her teacher briefly the day before Elora started. On her first morning, Elora bravely walked-ran into the school without mom or dad, since as per corona regulations no parents may enter the school. She didn’t cry a bit and truly loves it. I’m so glad! We will see, after she’s had some time to settle in, how the teacher feels things are going. But, glad to say that she’s off to a good start!
Elora still attends the special language preschool 2 days per week. Her speaking skills in Dutch and English continue to grow at a steady rate. She is about one year behind typical children in language production, but on par with language comprehension in both of her languages. I wonder which one will truly be her “first language”. When she plays by herself, she speaks Dutch!
Thank you for reading along, friends. By the way, your suggestions are welcome for my Expat Chronicles series. I love writing about our experiences in The Netherlands, but lately I have trouble zeroing in on a good topic. Please feel free to share your questions or topic suggestions!
Blessings,
Rachel Hauser
