needle & thREAD with Kristin
/You met Kristin here and got to know her a little better here. Now, the bride joins us for needle & thREAD and shares some thoughts on life right now and the sweet quilt top she made with the fat quarters we gave her for Christmas.
I had plans to work on this quilt {my first quilt!} on Sunday, but Karoline batted her baby blues and tenderly persuaded me to spend most of my day playing a game called "Strategy". Last week, she taught me the rules and we played for hours in the basement. Later I found out from Stephen that her rules are very different from the real rules. Nick also enlightened me that the game is actually called "Stratego". Surprised? I wasn't. Karoline walks, often dances, to the beat of her own song {usually a compilation of Taylor Swift and something she made up}. I will have to admit that after my conversation with Stephen, I decided that I prefer Karoline's game. I've always wanted to spend a day in her brain. She finds joy in the tiniest things that I have long forgotten. She's always joyful and laughing about something. I hope that never changes.
The quilt is still unfinished, like many of my sewing projects. I'm determined to finish this one. I want it to be the piece that I tell my own joyful 6-year-old, "I made this quilt the first year Daddy and were married. It's very special."
As for books, I'm finally reading This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald and toting around my Jennifer Paganelli book, Happy Home: Twenty Sewing and Crafting Projects to Pretty Up Your Home {my Christmas gift from none other than Elizabeth Foss & Co.}. It goes everywhere with me. I like to read through instructions and tutorials in my free time and then adapt to the bumps in the road.. there are always bumps in the road with my sewing projects.
As for This Side of Paradise, I’m not very far into it but I am a really big F. Scott Fitzgerald fan. I cried throughout The Great Gatsby when I was required to read it for my 11th grade Literature class. I was Nick Carraway – wrapped up in all of the drama and a yearning for a glamorous life at sixteen. I thought hanging out with popular people and being in the center was what life was all about. The Great Gatsby put it all into perspective for me and as Nick started to realize the evils around him, I started to see my own. I climbed out of the box I trapped myself in with materialism and the notion of "right" vs. "wrong" people to associate with. Senior year, I stopped judging and learned the joy of forgiveness. It didn't matter what happened freshmen year or what colleges my classmates applied for. I made new friends and rekindled the old ones that I had become blind to. I truly found peace that year.
High school is 4 years of your life... and then there's college.. and then there's real life. The 29th was my one month anniversary of marriage {gift number 57 #1000gifts} and in so many ways, I feel like I've been alive and awake for this one, solitary month.
I reread The Great Gatsby last year before the wedding planning picked up. It brought me back to reality and reminded me to plan the wedding based on our love and not the wedding industry’s idea of love. Sometimes we live by these silly rules and risk ourselves missing out on important big moments.
I think we should all be more like Karoline and make up our own rules. They are better to play by.
{all photos, except this one, kindness of Michael Foss}
What are you sewing and reading this week? I really do want to hear all about it!
