Sunday, June 30, 2013

5 summer reads

Hello summer with all your sunshiny-goodness,
I'm loving the thought of going out, taking a book to read, and a patchy old quilt. I'll lay it on the freshly cut grass and flip to a yummy chapter in one of those summery books. Oh yes. That's where I'll be this summer. I've created a little list of five of my favorite summer picks. All of them are old friends and I love to invite them over during the summer months. I hope you will treat yourself to a pleasant glass of Iced Tea with them while they're in town.

  1. Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace. She is a wonderful author.. All her stuff is so Summery! The Betsy~Tacy books are also a wonderful series to pair with some lemonade and fudge. (You Mustn't Forget The Fudge!) 
  2. Meet Me In St. Louis by Sally Benson. This book is one of my favorites for all seasons but it's especially good for Summer. 
  3. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. First in the series. It will make you want to be in Avonlea for the Summer but it's worth it! Oh yes.
  4. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. What Ecstasies! This is a wonder. Toady, Ratty, Moley, Badger, Otter, Little Porkley... Oh Kenneth Grahame..."You really are a clever Toad.."
  5. Leave it to Psmith by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. This is the bees knees. So hilarious and light. The amazing mind of P. G. Wodehouse is wonderful. The Jeeves and Wooster books are great fun too! I'm sure you can't go wrong with P. G. Wodehouse.     
I hope I have left you with a good list of books you've not yet read, and even if you have, I hope you will want to read them again! they're all such cheery stories.
happy reading!
aimee

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Start of Summer...

Doesn't that just sound like a book title? It is such a charming phrase.
The start of our summer has been raining non stop for about a week!
 
 It is a wonderful thing! It smells quite like heaven outside and quite like baking inside. *grin* I only hope our carrot seeds haven't floated away!
Here's a little of what I've been up to over here at The Three Spinsters...

Tea, Bible and journaling in the morning...
Reading... (after chores, of course.) :]
Haven't read an adventure novel in a while.. much less a western... Thoroughly enjoyed it.
This book belonged to my Great Aunt Lorraine who I never got to meet. It has her name written on the inside.♥ The book was printed in the 1920's I believe. It is so much fun to read a book that has been around and in my own family almost a hundred years!
 Also... Getting ready to plunge head-long into a knitting frenzy!
 Gen is teaching me how to knit, and I simply adore it already! 
So, when Knit Picks had a sale on these gorgeous interchangeable circular needles.. I decided to quit beating about the bush and buy the whole set! Yay!
 It came with a few lengths of cables, end caps, and these pin things to tighten the needles onto the cables (Aren't I scientific with my terminology?), a bag to hold everything and needles from a size 4 - 11.
Aren't they beautiful? They're called Sunstruck. OH! Doesn't that just make you think of Summer and sailing and pink lemonade and swimming and picnics? I also got some stitch markers that are PURPLE! Yay again!

  The Jane Austen Knits magazine and this yarn I received from my Aunt as a 'thank you'. Wasn't that sweet! I'd like to make something from the magazine with it. So that was what gave me the nudge to learn to knit. 
 
 And once I'd been sucked into the knitting vortex... (Don't deny it's a real thing, you knitters.)  :)
I bought this pattern book because it has such lovely patterns in it!
This one is called Baudelaire.
 Can't remember what this one's called but I love it!
And it's an EASY pattern. Yay.
 Other than knitting.. Aimee and I had our first ballet recital in 5 years! It was so much fun!
 We made these for some of the girls in our class.
I made the hair clips and Aimee made the prints. The quote is:
"There is a bit of Insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good." - Edwin Denby
 And some embroidery...
 Clouds are my favorite! They are so beautiful and interesting! Of course, I live in the desert which doesn't see clouds ALL the time, so I can afford to like clouds. :)
And they're fun to embroider to boot, which makes them even more awesome!

I hope you are enjoying the start of your summer!
Please tell me what you've been doing!!
♥ Marguerite