Pretty Camera

Thank you so much for all of your sweet notes and congratulations!! As if this could be any happier, all of the shared rejoicing by our friends here and far away is an added blessing.

Before this little blog gets inundated with wedding ideas and plans (or completely neglected), I'll share a few finished projects from over the past few weeks.

This one, a cover for my canon camera strap, was on my list for a long time and finally got stitched up - it was a really easy craft, using the strap itself as a pattern and cute fabric from Katie. It was a little hard to take pictures of though, being attached to the camera! This also meant I got to check off something on my '18 before 19' list - 'Make stationery case and camera strap cover.' Something else on the list also got checked off recently - can you guess what it was?

love,
Cait

the starry song that April sings

Lovelies, friends, bloggers,

I have an announcement to make, of the most glorious kind



because






I am getting married!!
Joel and I are engaged! Affianced! Espoused! To be wed!

I am dazed and joyful, and my heart is both stilled and dancing with happiness.
Joel proposed in a seaplane above Dubai, and I was completely surprised.
(My dad is an airline pilot, and I think this is the perfect 'transition' from one era to another, as it were. And it just makes a romantic and incredible story!)
It was quiet, and beautiful, and the little details are hidden away in my heart.

It was perfect.


I am overwhelmed with the blessed thought that I get to be his wife. That we're going to be married!
Oh, how God has been gracious to us.


love,
Cait

(photo from before the special flight)

heavenly cake.

A few weeks ago I decided to try this triple layer chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, and that's when I decided anyone in the world who loves chocolate, or cake, or peanut butter, needs to make it. Oh, you will die. And it is so. easy.
This rich and chocolatey recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, phenomenal cake mistress.
There is moist, dark, flavorful, chocolate cake.
And thick, creamy, peanut butter cream cheese frosting and filling.
And gloriously dark ganache on top.
(Which I spread because it didn't drip over the sides very attractively)

Everyone could only eat a tiny sliver, but I seem to have an immunity to richness in cakes. I savor and savor but can still eat a whole piece. But, a rich cake can be stretched farther than anything, and it keeps very well if you can't finish it. As you can see, I didn't even get around to taking a picture til we'd been eating this for a week.
It takes a lot of ingredients, but they are fairly normal so you have no excuse for not trying it with a recipe as simple as this one.

Delicious. Make this cake.

Lebanon: cute kids and ancient buildings

Lebanon was beautiful. It was good to see old friends again (and to see children whose birthdays I remember!), joke about culture, remember stories, laugh at the kids faces and antics (that is a snail that Judson is kissing), see the rough beauty and ancient ruins in Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, and southern villages. A soap factory, a hippodrome, harbors, ice cream, a circus troop, gorgeous little Jemmilie.

but I'm especially glad to be home again.
love,
cait

things that inspire me.

. Wives who desperately love their husbands

. Women who pursue excellence

. Mothers who give selflessly

. The courage to say that not everything is art, and that saying something is art doesn’t make it so

. Beauty

. The American Constitution and the rare politicians who believe in it

. Fearless submission

. Poetry with heartrending substance (e.g. 1914, and Verses of Virtue)

. Gentle leadership and men of courage (e.g. Daddy, Stonewall Jackson, Joel)

. People who make beauty or possess true beauty

. Paper. And delicious fabric and velvet ribbon.

We're off to Lebanon for a week, so see you soon :)

hundreds of squares

I did work on the quilt quite a bit this week, and have done all that is possible before more memorable fabric crosses my path :) I can recognize each little square in this, from something I or my grandmother made, vintage and antique fabric from her house, or gifts. But because it isn't made with just any fabric and because the squares are so small, it will take forever to finish! The sight of the brightly mismatched rows haphazardly stitched and pressed together is worth it.

I love this photo below - the perfectly pressed underside of the small-squared quilt on top of the larger one. Here you can see how small the squares really are! With seams they are an inch wide; a tiny mosaic.

Do you have a special quilt that has been passed down, or made by someone you know?
love,

Cait
P.S. Joel took me to see Alice in Wonderland yesterday! I loved it (but mostly being with him).

P.P.S. Thank you for your lovely comments lately! (Just to clarify, I don't make my own stationery - just the travel case! Stationery making does sound fun though - we should all try it :) I'm thrilled that some of this is giving you ideas though - that's exactly why I share because I've gotten so many project ideas from other blogs!

write you a letter

I've been meaning to make a stationery case for a long time (it's been on my list ever since seeing them on etsy and thinking 'no way am I paying that, I could make it!'), and finally sat down to business. It was a one-evening project, with a rough sketch and no pattern. It's imperfect but I love all the fabrics and it will work beautifully for traveling. Much better than envelopes and papers getting lost and bent in suitcase pockets!
Some of the fabrics were a gift from Katie, and one is from Joel and one from his mom. I love them all; the purples and warm florals. There is a main pocket for stationery, with a smaller for envelopes. On the other side there are spaces for pens and another little pocket. It fastens with a snap and there is a bit of cardboard sewn into the back cover for stiffness and a possible writing surface. We're traveling to Lebanon next week to visit friends, so this will get some use =)

Baby Pilots

There are lots of babies coming to our church this month, which we are super excited about. Right now there are adorable maternity shirts and bellies, and in the next few weeks, multiple newborns to hold. This means there have also been many baby showers, and I had fun wrapping the presents a few weeks ago. We love using my dad's old flight maps for wrapping paper, and I used baker's twine (love baker's twine! I ordered mine from belladrummer, who also is the best scrapbooker ever and very sweet.) and paper bags to decorate and label them.

Both of these were for baby boys, so the pilot paper was fitting (but I think it's cute all the time).

love,
Cait

october2009-march2010

This dear journal was scribbled up to the last page, and a new one had to be found. I wanted another spiral bound (so it could be folded back), preferably without lines. I came across a Kraft notebook, in Hyper Panda of all places (our local supermarket - is that a creative name or what?). The cover looks like a brown paper bag so I won't even have to decorate it much. Not only was it Kraft, but it is natural recycled paper, and it is graph paper.

Did you hear that? Natural graph paper ladies. I am such a nerd when it comes to pretty paper! Unfortunately, my favorite pens bleed through said natural brownish paper, so I'll have to figure something out. The cover has finally been fixed up with part of my favorite sonnet set ever (The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke) typed out in Dymo tape, and a little birdcage sticker from Joel, because I love birdcages and wanted to put it where I'd see it often. The last line of the verse especially is my favorite.


love,
Cait
p.s. I've been quilting and crafting a bunch in the past week, so artsy posts are returning! My goal is to work on the quilts every day this week.

sleepless life and happiness

Mrs. Yong is a woman, wife, and mother that is an admirable and beloved role model for me. She has two sweet and fun children, Miah and Ellie (Jeremiah and Eliana), and gave birth to baby Bethan a month ago. We went to see her in the hospital (though I didn't take this photo) and I've gotten to hold little Bethan several times since. Isn't it painfully beautiful to hold a newborn?
This Friday I stood with Mrs. Yong and Mrs. Brikho, a new mother, as they spoke of newborns and night feeding and sleep, and heard Mrs. Yong say 'it's so much easier once I've given up my right to sleep.'

This was so striking, but isn't it true? I've been thinking about that a lot this week, and wondering what it would be like for every area of life to be lived without a feeling of entitlement (and wanting and praying for that). Perhaps hard things don't have to hurt so much if you aren't caring what you get or don't get out of it, or how it inconveniences you and displaces your own desires. That sounds like selflessness, cheerfully, which is what I want to live out, in my own home and now.

love,
cait