Early fall novenas, and knitted gnomes and garments that are no longer a mystery!

Hello all, and I hope that you are having a wonderful week! It's a week of novenas on my end, and I have to say that I am enjoying it so, so much. I finished up Our Lady Undoer of Knots on Sunday, and I think I already have the answers to the questions I was praying about (not necessarily the ones I was hoping for in all cases, but answers are answers, yes?). I also started St. Monica on Tuesday. I had forgotten that her feast is in late August, and I absolutely love this one! I pray for conversions of heart back to faith, and it always gives me so much solace. Coming up in the early part of autumn, we have the archangels (Sept. 29th), St. Jerome (patron saint of librarians, Sept. 30th), St. Therese (Oct. 1st), and guardian angels (October 2nd). It's a wealth of riches! I think I'm going to start updating and publishing the novenas tab on the blog again, with what novena I'm currently praying and the link to the relevant prayers. Look for that to start again in September if you'd like to follow along. :-)

Speaking of prayer, both of my kids are slated to go back to school full time in early September. Since they go to Catholic schools, the lower numbers of enrolled kids means that they can accommodate the health mandates more easily. My kids really miss their school environments, and so I'm happy it worked out this way, although I'm worried about how it will go and if it will last. All we can do at this point is pray for the best! My teaching this semester will be mostly, if not all, online, which I'm a little sad about, but we'll get there.

To distract myself, I've been crafting, as per my pandemic usual. ;-) The mystery gnome that I was knitting is no longer a mystery, so meet the new member of the family!

Pattern is Nice to Gnome You

He is currently frolicking with our house plants, and I'm just so pleased with how he came out! This is my first gnome, and apparently there is a whole gnome crafting universe out there, WHO KNEW?! I am totally into this now. This designer specializes in knitted gnomes. Did you ever? And her next gnome MKAL (mystery knit-along) will take place during Advent.

😱

I literally cannot wait! I'm so excited for this!

I also finished the red cotton top that I was knitting for my mother-in-law:

Pattern is Kelda Tee

I kinda wanted to keep it :-0, but I managed to resist. But not before purchasing yarn to make one for myself in another colorway. ;-)

I'm also hard at work on my Advent doily:

Pattern is Wispweave Oval

This one is just SO PRETTY. The pattern is definitely a bit challenging for a beginning doily crocheter like myself, but so far the progress is good, albeit slow. I just love the different textures that this design is forming! I'm thinking I can use it for under our Advent wreath. The border is going to be silver. 😍

Do you have any novena plans coming up this fall? What is your September looking like? I know it doesn't look like it usually does for any of us! I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

The kids gain a small sense of normalcy, and summertime crafting continues...

Hello all and I hope that your week has gone well! Ours here actually gained back a bit of a sense of normalcy with the kids having actual activities to do, yay! Henry has been working at his Catholic high school to earn money towards his tuition, and Anne has had Girl Scout camp, both virtual and one day of in-person. She's also back to her martial arts classes, in-person, and this is all helping her so much, as she was struggling with everything just being online. It's been more running around, ferrying the two of them places, but it has felt SO GOOD for them to have real socializing with their peers, and to see more smiles on their faces this week.

In other good news, twin baby robins have hatched in our backyard! We've been having such a wonderful time watching them grow. No pictures, as Mama Robin is very protective and is never far from the nest. Anytime we're back there, she's giving us the hairy eyeball from a perch atop the power lines. 😂 She and Father Robin also "escort" any other bird or squirrel out of the yard that happen to wander in. :-0 It's provided hours of entertainment out our back window, to be sure.

I've also been continuing my crafting quests, and made great progress this week. My mother-in-law's summer top is coming along beautifully:

I kind of want to keep it for myself, but I'll try and restrain. ;-) I'm on the second of Mike's Steelers socks:

And Dianne asked about how my crochet thread was working out, and so I rembered to post a photo of my very first doily!

Pattern is Simple Beginner's Doily, and is available for free!

I'm very pleased with how this came out! I did use one of the skeins that is size #3 thread (thicker than the others are at size #10), sort of a training wheels approach, if you will. Now I'm going to make one with the thinner thread. But this looks great on our table! Really brightens things up. I've never been particularly into doilies, they seemed lacking in purpose to me or something like that :-0, but I appreciate how they cheer up a surface. I think we could all use a little cheer this summer, yes?
I'm plotting lots of these for gifts, and also some cotton dishtowels and cloths. I'll post pictures as I make things!

In Catholic news, I'm currently finishing up the St. Anne novena, and my Anne makes her first communion next weekend! What I ended up doing last weekend was taking just Henry to Mass, and this weekend I'll take Anne. It's definitely an easing in process with the kids, after them being away from Mass for so long. But we're getting there. I tried to use the car ride to talk to Henry about faith stuff, and I'll do the same with Anne this Saturday. In this way I can single the kids out a bit for individual faith attention. Pray for me! :-0

How is your week going, dear reader? Chat with you soon!

Crafty summertime continues, and getting the kids back to mass...

Hello all!

*group hug*

I hope that your week went well. Things are good here, with the heat dying down, and everyone enmeshed in a new summer routine. It's been so hard on the kids being isolated for these months, and happily, each are starting to have more and more things to do. Henry has a summer reading list for school that he's working through, and he's signed up to do some work study at his Catholic high school next week, plus some service hours in early August. Anne has been attending the summer tutoring that her school is providing, and she has Girl Scout camp next week (mostly virtual, but with 1 day of distanced in-person archery, seems pretty natural in that environment, hee!). We also booked a family road trip in August that we're all excited about. It's still within our state, so not too far, but would provide an opportunity for hiking and some other historic site seeing in a place we've never been to before. We're also looking into a fall foliage getaway in the fall, which I have *always* wanted to do, and never have. It's SO NICE to have things to look forward to again!

I did go back to mass again last weekend. Father was away, and so it was a Communion service led by our deacon. There were more people there, up to just over 40 from 26 the week before, and while it all still feels pretty awkward, I can feel it getting a little better each week. I long for the day that we no longer have to do these things, and that the virus is no longer causing sickness and death, but in the meantime, I'm happy we're able to go back to doing the things that we love in some form. And my new missal is still totally rocking my world. :-0

This weekend, I plan to take the kids back with me. 😬 It's been awhile, and I know I'm going to encounter resistance and some sassiness, but it needs to be done. Please pray for us, and that the children long to receive Jesus in the Eucharist! Anne, in particular, needs to prepare to receive her 1st communion in a few weeks. I may take 1 kid this weekend, and 1 the next, so that we can chat and have some one-on-one time that may make for better catechesis as well as more willingness on their part.

In other news, my crafting fever continues unabated, and it has brought me so much comfort over the course of this lockdown. I think I mentioned that I finished my Journey shawl, but I finally wove in all the ends and blocked it:

SUPER pleased with how it turned out! And I finished a pair of socks for myself in a colorway modeled after BB8:

Pattern is Vanilla Latte Socks, available for free!

Cute, yes? I LOVE handknit socks. Granted, I don't really get to wear them in the summer, but come fall, my feet will be comfy and toasty! In the spirit of gifting, I cast on a pair for Mike in Pittsburgh Steelers colors:

they double as bublebee socks ;-)

I'm hoping that we still get NFL football this fall, but as with all things right now, we'll have to wait and see. My big project for holiday gifting, I have determined, is to make items out of crochet thread. I have never used crochet thread before, and have been bitten by the doily bug. :-0 So I'm thinking yes, doilies, but also coasters, placemats, other types of kitcheny items. I'm participating in a crochet -along for crochet thread, and as you can see, it has me all inexplicably excited. Who gets excited about crochet thread and doilies? Well, now you know. 😂

And so, armed with a coupon code and a gift card, I placed a small order for crochet thread:

Knit Picks Curio #10

OK, you know me by this point, so you are not surprised that I don't do things that I'm excited about in a small way, yes? :-0 I was overwhelmed by all of the gorgeous colors, it's not my fault! Holiday colors, check, but also autumnal colors, because OF COURSE, and then needed neutrals, and then colors that match kitchens...and well, you might as well just order the value pack at that point and call it a day, which is exactly what I did. The value pack was 20% off, and combined with the coupon code and the gift card, I paid $2, SCORE! This was the most fun I had opening a package in a long, long time. I also got some badly needed new sock needles, a tiny stuffed alpaca for Anne, and a few other skeins of sock yarn in wintry tweed colors that I had been eyeing. It was a good, good day.

Maybe I'll do a doily update post next week, because I have so many fun ideas for those, and there are tons of good free patterns out there! I know you're as excited about this post as I am. ;-)

That's how I've been keeping busy this July, how about you? Also, the St. Anne novena starts today if you'd like to join in! Feel free to leave prayer intentions in the comments. Mine is for my Anne's upcoming 1st Communion, please and thank you!

*another hug*