FO Friday - 3/6/2026

Besides being behind with sharing the books I’ve read, I’m also behind in sharing pictures of things that I’ve made. Let me tell you about the stuff I finished before the end of the year…

I’m sure I mentioned my mission in 2025 to make a hat every month to take over to the local shelter for the unhoused. Between October and the end of December, I made the following hats using leftovers from other projects.

First, I made inversions of the pattern called Drips by Bethany Hill.

Then, I made one inspired by a pattern called Drizzle by Amy Kate Sutherland.

I ended up making 11 total and added one in that had been sitting in the gifting box for a couple of beers. Can you tell which one it was?

Then, at the absolute end of the year, I finally completed Proserpina.

I wasn’t enthused with this project from the beginning because there were serious gauge issues. I didn’t mind the actual knitting, but true delight, even my own gauge swatches lied. The silhouette of the sweater with which I ended up is not the one I was envisioning.

Oh well - it’s wearable. I’m just worried that I will not want to wear it because of the bad juju surrounding it It probably will end up sitting in the cedar closet, mocking my knitting skills until I cannot stand it anymore, and I end up donating it. I may have done that a timer or two in the past…

I cannot see any way to “fix” it without frogging at all and just starting over. I do NOT want to do that.

Why couldn’t the issue be easier, as it was for this sweater?

I made this sweater in 2019. I found myself not wearing it because something felt off about it. I can’t find words to describe the feeling. It looked all right, but there was something about it and it wasn’t getting worn. 

One day, a bolt of lightning must’ve hit me. I decided that it was too long. I frogged back the ribbing and then about two or so inches more before I knit the ribbing back and cast off. I think I like it much better.

You can tell it’s shorter now - just look and compare with the mannequin picture above.

And that’s all for now!

MK out.

Book Chat - 3/5/2026

I have been falling down on the job. I have been reading, but I haven’t been telling y’all about it. Following is the list of books I read between August and the end of 2025:

Lightning in a Mason Jar by Catherine Mann

*The Names by Florence Knapp

The Invisible Husband of Frick Island by Colleen Oakley

The American Wife by Christina Lucyk-Berger

The Toy Car: A Short Story by Rose Tremain 

The Chemistry Test by Georgina Frankie

The Likeness by Tana French

Both Things Are True by Kathleen Barber

*The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb

*The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham

*My Friends by Fredrik Backman

*A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I read fifty books last year. The ones listed above with asterisks were very good and I would highly recommend.

I’ve read five books so far this year and I will tell you about them soonish.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 3/2/2026

There was a bit of movie watching in the last couple of weeks. 

In Blue Moon, Lorenz Hart (played by Ethan Hawke) Reminisce about his prior successful career with his former partner, Richard Rogers (played by Andrew Scott).  The action takes place on the night that Oklahoma! (written by Rogers and Hammerstein) opens on Broadway. With many of the films in which Ethan Hawke plays, this movie is dialogue driven. Surprisingly, the dialogue, bogs down the action and only a couple of parts. It was good, just not sure if it was Best Picture good…yet.

Playing real life couple Mike and Claire Sardina, Kate Hudson, and Hugh Jackman star in Song Sung Blue. The couple or a Neil Diamond tribute band called Thunder and Lightning, and we’re popular in the Milwaukee area in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Words on the street if that Jesse Buckley will win for her performance in Hamnet, but dayum! Cate was fabulous. This film is warm and fuzzy, but it depicts real humans. There’s a documentary filmed in 2008 about a couple available on YouTube, also called Song Sung Blue. It’s a bit greater and it made my Pollyanna heart a bit sad. Anyway, the motion picture is good and worth a watch.

I wasn’t sure if I was gonna like Frankenstein. There have been so many adaptations of Mary Shelley’s book and I thought it would just be redundant. I was happy to see that Guillermo del Toro’s treatment was quite  pleasing. In this version, the creation is a sympathetic character, and Dr. Frankenstein is the real monster. Jacob Elordi Was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as a creature, and he did a great job.

Leonardo DiCaprio may have a messy personal life, but he sure can act. In One Battle After Another, he plays a single father running from a bad guy from his vigilante past. The film is quite entertaining, in a Quentin Tarantino kind of way.

I am not the biggest fan of Yorgos Lanthimos’s work, despite the fact that we have a common national heritage. Most of his films are weird. Bugonia is no exception. Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis play cousins who kidnap a pharmaceutical company CEO (played by Emma Stone) because they think she is part of an alien species that is killing off the honey bees. Is it a dark comedy or a horror film? Yes. And a little weird, but in the end, entertaining. Best Picture? Hmmm. Emma Stone as Best Actress? We’ll see.

And that concludes the latest installment.

MK out.

WIP Wednesday 2/18/2026

Remember the quilt I started a few weeks ago? Here’s a little backstory:

I came across Moda’s Strawberry Lemonade fabric collection by Sherri and Chelsi a couple of years ago and I had to make something with it. In a rare show of restraint, I added the 10-inch layer cake to my favorites on the Fat Quarter Shop website, instead of buying it right away and trying to figure out what to do with it later.*

It’s a good thing I did that, because sometime later, I ran across the pattern I mentioned last time, and I changed my tactics. The pattern calls for yardage cut into 5-inch squares. I could’ve bought the layer cake and cut the squares from that, but even that would’ve been too much. I’m kind of lazy. I bought two charm packs of the print and two charm packs of Bella Solids in white and I was ready to go. (Charm packs are a stack of 5-inch squares, in case you didn’t know.)

In the last mention, I put each printed square with a white square and sewed the diagonal lines.

Last week, I started cutting the squares into half-square triangles (HSTs). The project is paused there, currently.

The next step involves ironing and then trimming each new square to  measure 4 1/2 inches square. I’m not looking forward to that, but it has to be done.

The project is “resting,” I decided to start working on the Christmas pillowcases for the family. This year, I’m using Christmas prints.

I was seduced by these pink flamingos, and I thought I’d buy some of the fabric and make a couple of pillowcases for my bed.

And that’s what is being crafted in my studio these days.

*I have several purchases of fabric I bought because I thought I had to have it with no quilt pattern in mind. I’m planning on no longer employing that tactic. I’m trying to be more thoughtful in my purchases. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Meanwhile, I have a layer cake of Maureen McCormick’s Flower Power collection for Moda, but I do have a pattern (to be revealed when I get ready to make that quilt) in mind. That “had to have it purchase” was bought three years ago - before my new edict.

Stay tuned for more “had to have it purchase”discussions.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 2/16/2026

I watched another movie in the last week.

Holy, moly - If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, starring Rose Byrne as Linda, is about a mother who is struggling with balancing all her roles. Byrnes was nominated for Best Actress for this performance. 

This film played like a fever dream. Linda has a child with special needs. She has a demanding job. Her husband is away for work. Her house got flooded and she has to move out while the repairs are being made. But the way it is shot, and the over-the-top acting…

I did not enjoy watching this film. Maybe, I should watch it again on a different day, when I don’t have a headache. Maybe, I’d like it better the next time. I don’t know.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 2/9/2026

I watched a movie! 

Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy and others star in Train Dreams. It’s based on a novella by Denis Johnson and is set predominantly in the early 20th century. The movie follows Robert Grainier (Edgerton) throughout his life. He starts out rather aimlessly, but then he gets married, settles down a bit and finds a job in railroad construction to support his family. The story is beautifully told and the acting is superb. 

Bonus - the film has nominations for four Oscars, including Best Picture.

That’s it.

MK out. 

Movie Monday - 2/2/2026

Y'all! Despite having fourteen films to watch before the Oscars, did I watch any this past week? Why, no I did not.

But I did watch Eleanor the Great, starring June Squibb. June plays a woman who ends up in the wrong group at the local Jewish Community Center. It’s the one for Holocaust survivors, and Eleanor is not a Holocaust survivor. She shares her story, which is really her recently departed best friend’s story. Unintended consequences result. It was very good.

Recent binges:

Emily in Paris Season 5 - Netflix

Members Only Palm Beach* - Netflix

Have a great week!

MK out.

*The way these woman act is so bad that it’s entertaining.