Dutchman's Puzzle {ornament tutorial}

I wanted some tiny quilt blocks to hang on the tree, so I pulled out my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and started looking for a block with lots of pieces that I could draft into a small size. Now the edges of my book are bristling with Post-It flags and I've settled on one block to start with, Dutchman's Puzzle. The pieced ornament finishes at just 2 1/2" square.

Want to make your own? I used my Easy Angle Ruler to cut the half square triangles from strips of fabric. You can pull a 1 1/2" strip from one of your other scrappy projects (if you want the backing to match, you'll also need a 4 1/2" square.) Use a solid or a very smalls scale print -- those little triangles finish at 1/2"

From a 1" strip, cut 3 dark HSTs and 9 light HSTs. From a 1 1/2" strip, cut 4 dark HSTs and 1 light HST.

Piece three of the dark and light  HSTs into squares, then press open. (If you don't usually use leaders and enders on your projects, it's a good idea to chain piece these and start and end with a scrap of fabric to keep those little pieces from getting pulled into your feed dogs.)  Add the remaining light 1" HSTs to form larger triangles as shown.

Depending on how you lined up those pre-trimmed dog ears, your triangles may look a little off --

When you sew them to the 1 1/2" dark HSTs, line up the 90 degree angle and it'll work out just fine. Sew the pieced triangles and the larger white triangle to the 4 dark HSTs and arrange into a block as shown. I left the strings to emphasize how tiny these little pieces are -- you'll want to trim yours before assembling the block.

Cut a piece of batting the same size as your finished block (it should measure 2 1/2" square) and center it on the wrong side of your 4 1/2" backing square. I used the binding tutorial from Made by RAE which shows how to fold the backing around the front of the piece. My corners didn't turn out as neatly as I'd like -- I'm thinking about finishing the next one with a zig-zag or buttonhole stitch around the edges.

accidentally ugly sweaters

Teenage Daughter and I got to talking last weekend and decided that if we really set our minds to it, we could make one of the most spectacularly ugly Christmas sweaters ever. Not that we intend to do it...but we could if we wanted to!  Then I read Madame Samm's post from this morning asking if we had ugly sweaters. 

There is no evidence of my most hated sweater ever, the one that I planned to burn until members of the Knitlist convinced me not to because it would smell bad and ruin my fireplace. Not that I had a fireplace at that point in time, but I decided it wasn't worth convincing Hubby to help me burn it in the backyard. That was before my daughter proudly wore the thing to a knitting guild meeting and told everyone that her mommy had made it for her....shoulda burned it!

This one isn't that bad -- it's the face of the little boy who wore it for the two seconds it took me to snap the picture. I never had the heart to put it on him again.

This sweater is the reason I learned to knit. The first attempt was so awful that there's no photographic evidence of it. This one, the second try, has also been disposed of. It looked worse in real life than in this blurry late night photo.

Those were the ones I was looking for when I stumbled across Heath's camouflage sweater. To get the full effect, you've got to imagine those zig-zaggy pooling stripes in motion on an active little boy. This sweater did get worn, out in the back yard where there weren't any witnesses.

Now I'm wondering how many awful knitting projects I've suppressed all memory of over the past nine years. And I'm worrying just a bit about the sweater Alex wants me to knit for her.

Late Night Inspiration!

I was lying awake in the middle of the night, planning which fabrics I still need to cut for Alex's quilt and which of those I can use for an upcoming baby quilt and what else I might want to save them for and inspiration struck.

That Dresden Plate quilt with the red background that I really, really wanted to make, but didn't think I had enough neutrals for because when I saw the pattern and bought the magazine, I was only thinking of civil war reproduction-ish prints?!  I can make it with this stuff!

I was all set to go out and buy the ruler, but Mom had two of them. So now I've got the ruler and the fabric and the magazine...and it really would make sense to cut and sew a few of the plates before buying the background fabric, unless I hit a really really good sale in the meantime.

I can do this. I've done Dresden Plates using the same basic technique, and I made Grandma's Donuts. The applique can't be much harder than it was on those two (except maybe the little plates that go in the intersection of the blocks after they've been assemble, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.)

Patriotic Quilter has a blog post about the slight differences between the templates and the ruler and how they'll change the number of blades in your finished fans. Using the ruler will mean cutting more blades, but the more little pieces the better, right?

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 69 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 30 yards
Added Year to Date: 311 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2013: 241 3/4 yards


Yarn Used this Week: 135 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3125 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 9486 yards
Net Added for 2013: 6361 yards

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times and Finding Fifth. The quilt picture is used with permission of Planted Seed Designs.

Scrapbook of Secrets

I've had Scrapbook of Secrets (Cumberland Creek) by Mollie Cox Bryan on my to-read list for a few months now.



When a young mother commits suicide and the members of the local scrapbooking group see that all of her albums and pictures have been dumped on the sidewalk next to the trash can, they rescue them with the intent of putting together albums for her children. None of them knew Maggie Rae well, and it turns out that all of their assumptions about her were completely false. She was living a secret life and, it turns out, she was murdered.

And then there's the mystery of who stabbed Vera's mother at the grocery store and how the older woman made it all the way home without knowing that there was a knife protruding from her neck.

The writing is really, really good. The characters are all three dimensional women with their own lives and back stories. It reminded me of all of the things that I loved so much about the earlier Elm Creek books.

But I hated the character of Annie. She's unhappy as a stay at home mom. The sticky juice her small children leave behind for her to clean up is about to push her over the edge, and apparently she's not smart enough to figure out that she could eliminate the problem by not letting her two young boys roam the house with cups of juice. Either stop buying it or limit it to meals when they're sitting at the table with adult supervision. Even my kids don't dribble juice all over everything. She also doesn't like her new home in Cumberland Creek and can't believe that "in this day and age" people do anything that she disagrees with. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when the demanded of the other scrap bookers "Haven't all of you ever slept with other men besides your husbands?" Really?!

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {week 48}

Did you hit the Black Friday sales this morning to stock up on quilting supplies? I'm writing this in advance and I think I've decided to stay home. I can get the few things I do need for decent one of Joann's regular sales without standing in the dark and freezing my toes off.  There are a couple of things I want for the kids that I'd go out in pursuit of, but the prices would have to be really fantastic to make it worth the stress.

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:

Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, you're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button

By linking up, you're giving me permission to feature your quilt in a future Let's Make Baby Quilts! post -- with a link back and full credit, of course.

Our "new" New Cook Book

For our wedding, someone gave us a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. We used it, a lot, over the next twenty-two years. I can't remember the last time the cover was attached. The last pages of the index were next to go, followed by the pages  for all of my favorite recipes.

Hubby and I both agreed that it was time to replace it, but the recipes have changed in the different editions and we wanted this one!

A couple of months ago, when we were roaming antique malls in Arizona, we spotted this one:

The publication date was 1991, which got my hopes up. It didn't look quite like we remembered our battered copy, but for four bucks, we figured it was worth a gamble. Turns out it's not the right book. Of course the copyright page in our wedding copy went the way of the cover and index, so we'll never know which one we're looking for (wouldn't that make things just too easy?), but at least it's got the recipes I was hoping for, the ones which aren't the same in my mom's 1970s era edition.

My favorites? Cream Puffs and Chicken Paprikash.

So what's your go-to cookbook? Got a favorite dinner from this one that I should try?

Blog Hop Giveaway results

The winner of  Quilt It with Love: The Project Linus Story: 20+ Quilt Patterns & Stories to Warm Your Heart is Sally, who wrote:

I make baby quilts for grandchildren, friend's children and grandchildren and premature infants in the neo-natal care center (those quilts are quite small!) I'm a follower too!

Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved reading all of the comments and wish I'd had more books to give away!

{Yarn Along} The Strange Birth, Short Life, and Sudden Death of Justice Girl

Remember that knit star I was working on last week? I've been knitting more of them  in the evenings while we watch TV and now I've got a whole pile.

I'm fascinated by old radio shows and the early years of television, so when I saw The Strange Birth, Short Life, and Sudden Death of Justice Girl by Julian David Stone, I knew I was going to want to read it.  I wasn't disappointed.



On the verge of being fired from Hermie's Henhouse for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, Jonny Dirby makes some last minute changes to that night's script, transforming a costumed sidekick with no lines into Justice Girl. His creation  is a runaway success and the next morning, Jonny finds himself rehired by the network with complete control over the new Justice Girl television series. He seizes the opportunity to funnel work to fellow writers who have been blacklisted by the industry. Felicity Kensington, the young woman who find herself thrust from a minor role in a comedy sketch into the starring role in her own series, isn't an actress at all. She's working under an assumed name, secretly trying to find proof of the blacklisted writers and provide their names to her father to use in his political campaign. I enjoyed the book and found myself emphasizing with both Jonny and Felicity, who could have easily come across as a  poor little rich girl.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis. 



Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an electronic ARC.