Fall Romanticism

Okay, how is it already the end of September? I'm suddenly terrified that fall is going to go by too quickly even though it hasn't properly begun yet. We had a few days of cool weather and now it's back in the low eighties, but still. I'm counting it.

I've been a bit obsessed lately with making a nice fall atmosphere in the house-- at the first hint of cool weather I rose the windows, and I've been baking lots of pumpkin spice-related things and keeping candles lit that remind me of fall. We've been taking lots of evening walks in the park near our house and soon I'm going to go on a flower binge and buy lots of mums for the flowerbox and it will be lovely.

Every year I go all drippy and romantic about fall, but I can't help it! It's perfect. What are you guys doing to create a fall atmosphere?


F21 cardigan from years ago
Target tank
F21 skirt
Hue tights
thrifted vintage boots
The Little Fox necklace

What I'm Making: Granny Square Pillow

Finally I put all those granny squares to good use!

This pillow was easy peasy to put together. I made a bunch of summer garden granny squares (32), added a cream border and connected them into two panels. Then I connected the panels and stuffed it with a pillow form. I bought a pillow form from Michael's this time because I was in a hurry to finish, but obviously the smartest thing is to pop over to a thrift shop and find an old couch pillow, which is what I'll do next time. These squares were originally intended for a future-throw, but they're made of wool and I realized duh, I have dogs and need to use something washable. Thus: pillow.

Also look: new sofa! I like it about a thousand times better than our old one, which was way too bulky for the new place. I'm really happy with how the pillow looks in the room-- eventually I'll make a throw for the couch, but until then I'm happy that it was easy enough to bring the look of granny squares to a room without spending ages on a project.

Room Progress

A new use for the coat rack!

Pullip dolls & textbooks.


Thrifted Lucy book & Janis Joplin quote painting.

It's still quite bare but this is what I have so far. The green chair is the same one from our last apartment that I temporarily recovered, but the original fabric is so far gone that it really needs to be professionally reupholstered (it has lots of bare spots and the seat is hardly padded at all). For now I've just thrown a blanket over it-- ta-dah! It's a Streit Slumber Chair that belonged to my grandpa-- it's adjustable with a funny little bar in the back, so you can either recline all the way or sit straight up. The ottoman opens up for storage. Everyone else seems to hate this thing but I really love it, despite it being so old and beaten up.

I was so happy to finally unpack my dolls! I haven't seen them in over a year. I have several more but they won't have a home until I buy a new bookcase. They're Pullips, if interested-- I used to be obsessed with them!

Peppermint Dream

I bought this dress from Modcloth a few weeks ago and have already worn it about four times. We went to dinner with friends Saturday night and I realized that I was wearing the exact same thing I wore the last time we went to that restaurant-- which is silly because it's not like any of the servers would notice-- but it becomes one of those things that I'm hyper-aware of when I wear certain outfits a lot. I just love the colors, though! I wish I had more things with this color scheme. Mustard and gray/pink/mint. Love.

I wish I had some sort of grand plans for Labor Day that I could post about, but it looks like it's going to rain later so I think I'll just stay in and read. I'm so glad it's finally September-- fall is just around the corner and we're still on a Quest for Bicycles, because I really want as many excuses as possible to be outside once the weather cools down.

Oh, also! I posted these on twitter and facebook because they're just so pretty, and normally my cupcake-decorating skills leave something to be desired, but look!

Vegan almond joy cupcakes. Chocolate cake and ganache with coconut buttercream and toasted coconut and almonds on top. The recipe is from here. (Note: the cake recipe is now my absolute go to recipe for vegan chocolate cake. It's so moist and I'm about 90% sure it will blow your mind.)

Morning Music Dress from Modcloth
UO cardigan
Seychelles heels
moth necklace, My Selvaged Life

The Snuggles Project

I've wanted to do some charity knitting for a while, and with the recent hurricane and influx of news stories about homeless animals I thought it would be a great time to participate in The Snuggles Project. I discovered this organization via Ravelry-- it encourages people to knit or crochet (very quick, easy) blankets and donate them to a local shelter to comfort homeless dogs and cats. Most shelters hardly have enough money for the basics, so animals usually have to live in bare cages without any sort of bed or blanket. The point of a Snuggle is to offer a little comfort to a shelter animal while it's waiting to be adopted. A dog/cat security blanket, if you will! From the website:

The Snuggles Project is well-known as a multi-beneficial project. The first, and most important, benefit is to the animals. After being given a Snuggle, a frightened and/or difficult to handle animal is able become calm. This calming effect gives the animal and the caregiver time to learn how to handle the situation.We believe that this calming effect has saved the lives of many newly sheltered animals.

Making a donation is easy, just go to this list and find a participating shelter in your city. If you're in the Wilmington/New Hanover County area and want to help with my donation, the New Hanover Humane Society accepts Snuggles and I'm hoping to have enough to donate by October (I'm not sure how many, but I'd like to have more than ten). You can email me (pansylanelove@gmail) if interested and we'll donate them together.

Caron Simply Soft, size 10 needles

I'll be knitting these throughout September and posting about it periodically, so if you'd like to participate in a knit-a-long just email me photos as you progress! I'm always getting comments from people who don't knit/crochet but would love to learn, and this is honestly the perfect starting project for you guys. The patterns are really simple and shelter animals won't care if you make mistakes!*

Resources/Guidelines

• Knit/Crochet pattern library. You can go as simple or complex as you want. I'm doing a very easy P2, K2 pattern with a 10st border, just to keep from getting bored. For beginners I would recommend casting on about 60st and knitting every stitch. It's excellent practice and by the end you'll have it down!

• Washable acrylic or cotton worsted weight yarn held double. I'm using Caron Simply Soft because I had a few skeins of it leftover from when I first learned to knit. Beginners can use Caron or Red Heart-- it's super cheap and available everywhere.

• 14" x 14" for cats and small animals

• 24" x 24" for cats and small to medium dogs

• 36" x 36" for medium to large dogs

* If you're a beginner and interested in learning for this project, email me if you have questions or get stuck and I'll do my best to help. Also, make sure to check thrift shops if you're just starting out-- all of my straight aluminum needles were thrifted in a bundle for $1!

For more information about the Snuggles Project,
visit www.snugglesproject.org or
contact Hugs for Homeless Animals (www.h4ha.org)