It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. -Henry David Thoreau

Dionne wrote a fun post today about the City of You. She wrote about all of the wonderful things that can be found in the imaginary City of Dionne. I thought it would be fun to carry this on over here and write a little bit about the City of Kaye.

In the City of Kaye there are book shops, fabric stores, and coffee shops galore. Everyday is bright and sunny and warm with just a touch of frost in the air. There is one citywide holiday every week where everything is closed and people have to stop working and spend time with their loved ones; this is how I would get Alex to spend holidays with me.



There would be beautiful trees, flowers, and birds everywhere, and the air would be filled with wonder and magic. Everyone would smile and say hi to each other, and life would just be pleasant in general. I wouldn’t be mayor in the City of Kaye, but I’d own a store that sold rare books, antiques and vintage housewares, and things handmade by me.

Yup, that sounds pretty good to me!

I managed to finish up the quilt for baby Lucy on Friday. Hand sewing the binding on was not the funnest thing I’ve ever done! It took all day, but I did manage to stop by the new Anthropologie store in Yorkville on my way home from the fabric store. John and Tasha came over to our place on Saturday bringing baby Lucy with them; she’s just so cute! They said that they loved the quilt and Tasha said that she thought I should sell my stuff (which is also what my Grandma said when she saw the monkey I made my Mum). I would love to try selling some of the things I make, but I don’t think they can really compete with a lot of what you can find on Etsy; everyone on Etsy just seems much more talented than me.

Anywho, about the quilt: all of the colourful prints come from Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern collection and the sashing is an ivory cotton with white flowers that I picked up at Fabricland. It measures about 2” x 3” and is backed with a pink, orange and white floral flannel.



My Mum came on Sunday and took Alex and me to The Ex. While I love The Ex it does seem to be getting more and more commercialized every year. I didn’t even see the quilt exhibit this year (maybe it was hiding somewhere) and there just seems to be more outlet stores than ever (which I do enjoy, but in moderation). I did get some new clothes, including a jacket, for cheap so I can’t really complain.

When my Mum came down she brought me two sewing machines from my Grandmother so that I would have something to use until mine was fixed. Unfortunately it came to light that mine cannot be fixed and so I’ll be keeping one of my Grandmother’s. I’ve decided to keep the free arm machine because it will make certain tasks easier; I’ll get used to the new machine, but I really wish my Singer would come back. Again though, I don’t have the manual but I’ve been able to figure out everything so far except how to use the built-in buttonholer. My Mum’s hoping that she can find the manual by rummaging around at my Grandmother’s.

Because I’ve got the new machine I was able to finish the new pillow covers for the living room sofas today. I just need to sew the buttons on and they’ll be completely done! This is where the buttonholer would have come in handy as I had to sew 16 buttonholes by hand today and it took forever! I’ll share pictures once the buttons are on.

I’m really excited to be going back to school in less than two weeks, but I’m also really nervous too. I keep thinking “why did I do this to myself?” and “wow, I really have lost my mind!”. Alex keeps trying to scare me and make me even more nervous by telling me how much harder it is than undergrad and that all I’ll ever be doing is work and that we’ll never see each other. I think he thinks he’s being funny, but I don’t think so. I’m worried that people won’t like me and that I won’t make any new friends and that it will be too much work for me to handle, especially since I’ll also be having a job while going to school. I hope it’s not as bad as it seems.