It's like giving a mouse a cookie.

Let your daughter see you working on a quilt (or knitting a Mystery Stole, or a sock, or anything else remotely related to pretty fiber stuff) and she'll want to know if it's hard and what materials you're using and if she can make one herself.

Then she'll go running for the basket of fabric Great-Grandma gave her for her birthday and start pulling things out and planning colors and stealing your magazine so she can try making one basket.

The cord from her sewing machine won't reach from the kitchen table to the outlet, so she'll need to use your machine. And iron. And rotary cutter.

Cutting strips to the exact right size is hard, so you'll wind up cutting them for her.

The bobbin thread will run out, so you'll wind another one even though you just filled the thing and had to rethread the machine six times to get the tension to come out right, because the machine is a spoiled little thing that must have things exactly its way.

She'll get the baskets done (four, not just the one she originally planned) and need the setting triangles. Then she'll need the first border. She doesn't have any cuts of fabric big enough for the second set of triangles, so she'll want to raid your stash....

And when you convince her that'll have to wait until tomorrow, she'll start piecing scraps together and making a tote bag. Her brother will think that's a pretty cool idea and talk her into making one for him and then you'll have to wind another bobbin...

Every time I turn around, the machine is whirring and the iron is hissing steam and SHE IS IN MY WAY! I tried to talk Bill into taking her out to the barn and teaching her to use power tools, but he didn't go for it. Maybe I can give her a socket set and point her in the direction of one of the parts rigs out back...

When I can actually get at my own stuff, I've been cutting up scraps into three inch squares that I'm going to piece into shaded nine-patch blocks. If my math is right, I'm going to need about seven hundred of them. Which is a scary-lot, but I can't find my fusible web and don't really want to applique flowers today anyhow.

There are pictures of some of the new Knitpicks yarn! I want it.