Let's Make Baby Quilts! {1/31/14}

Do you use applique on your baby quilts? I've been swooning over some of the cutest baby quilts this week. It's amazing what a touch of applique can do!

This adorable patchwork elephant quilt is by Christine from Grapes and Hearts.

Kristin from Sew Mama Sew made this tricycle quilt with the Jelly Roll Jam pattern from Fat Quarter Shop and then created the tricycle applique to personalize it for the baby of a competetive cyclist.

Before I started putting together the baby quilt tutorials, I made this mouse quilt to use up two yards of a cute novelty print. It's not hard at all to enlarge an element of the printinto an applique pattern -- I wrote up some instructions this week if you want to try it yourself.

This week, I'm linking up to Anything Goes at Kathe with an E.

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

Thrift Store Temptations

The line between what I can and can't drag home from the thrift store with me is usually pretty easy to find. These days I'm pretty happy just to browse. There are a couple of things I'm hoping to find, if the price is right, but I don't need anything. 

 But, oh my goodness -- I wanted this! 

These are the best pictures I could get in the front of the thrift store, right next to the cash registers. Picture it standing on end with the drawers going down the left side and the hangars hanging from the bars on the opposite side. Like this one, which lives in my sewing room. The little suitcase goes below the hangers.

The price was just reasonable enough to be tempting. If I didn't already have one of my own, which has been in the family since it was new, I'm not sure I would have been able to resist.  Even though I do have one, this one is different and Teenage Daughter is only getting mine over my dead body. I've been watching for a reasonably priced one for her...but the timing just isn't right.

I'm trying not to think too hard about whether that Cunard Line sticker is real because that'll just make me regret leaving it behind. As gorgeous as it is, I'm sure it will wind up in a good home.

What treasures have you had a hard time walking away from?

This post is linked to Vintage Thingie Thursday, Thriftasaurus, Share Your Cup, Ivy and Elephants, We Call it Olde,  

{Yarn Along} the rest of this should be easy...

The letter is done and the back of the sweater is cast on. I've counted my stitches twice and measured the front and compared it to other sweaters that fit.  Now this project can live next to the couch and grow slowly while I'm watching TV with my husband and kids. No counting rows, no measuring for a long, long time... it's hit the point where it's going to be absolutely mind-numbing knitting for quite a few evenings to come.

I just finished reading Independent Study, the second book in the Testing series of young adult novels. I read the first book a while back and grabbed this one at the library when I saw that it was out, but I don't know if I'll be reading the next one. I like futuristic dystopias. I don't like the way that this book feels like it was written to glorify standardized testing. Cia is one of the first students from her colony chosen for testing in years. What she doesn't realize until it's too late, because the memories of those who survive the testing are wiped, is that the penalty for failing the test is death. (Ever need a real incentive to learn how to do that math problem where you drop a ball off a building and calculate how many times it bounces before it stops?)

These kids are full of information about history and science and politics -- all so they can fill in the right blanks. I was left wondering what happens to the members of the society who aren't brilliant, or maybe don't want to go into STEM fields. It feels like I'm reading propaganda.

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. 

Turn a Novelty Print into an Applique Pattern

Got a couple of yards of a cute novelty print that you don't know what do do with?  I usually buy small cuts of fabric to cut into even smaller bits and pieces for the baby quilts, but sometimes I find myself with actual yardage. There were two or three yards of this cute mouse print in one of my Craigslist purchases and I knew that if I cut it into my usual 2 1/2" squares, it'd be in every single quilt I made until the end of time. I needed a different tactic... 

This will work best with a novelty print that has a simple design in just a couple of colors. Pick one element and enlarge it on your copier until you get an image that's large enough and clear enough to trace. I don't have photos of the first copies I made, but they were dark and blurry. Just go around the edges and do the best you can. Leave out some of the detail if necessary. Once you get a traced image that you like,  go ahead and enlarge that to the size you want your finished applique to be. The mouse with cheese is about an inch high on the fabric. My applique is probably six or eight inches high. 

Trace the elements of your applique design onto fusible web. (Remember to reverse the image first!)  I divided the mouse head into three pieces because I wanted to separately outline the face and ears and left several of the holes out of the cheese so it wouldn't be as complex to applique. The nose is a separate piece of black fabric. 

I fused the pieces into place and outlined each one with buttonhole stitch, then embroidered the tail. Once that was done, I squared up the background fabric and added borders.

These are brand new instructions for an old quilt, one that I made before I started doing the baby quilt tutorials.  If I was making this quilt again today, I'd do something else with that wide outer border. The finished quilt was donated to a fund raiser auction at the center where one of my sons gets speech therapy - and  someone did buy it for a reasonable price, so I'm not stressing over it now. 

As always, if you make this quilt I'd love for you to send me a picture or link up to my weekly Let's Make Baby Quilts! linky party. There's a list of my free baby quilt tutorials over in the sidebar and you  can find out when new ones are added by either following my blog or liking the Let's Make Baby Quilts Facebook page.

Quick and Easy (and temporary!) Light Box Substitute

I don't do enough tracing to justify purchasing a light box, not when I've got perfectly good windows and a perfectly good table with a glass top. And now I've got this --

The table I usually use has a shallow drawer, so I turn my Kindle fire to the highest brightness setting and set the browser to a site with a white background and little text, put it in the drawer, and lay  what I'm tracing onto the glass.  If I'm tracing something detailed, I also set the screen timeout to longer than a couple of minutes. (At least I should. Usually I forget and wind up tapping the screen every time it dims.)

When it was time to chart the letter for Teenage Daughter's sweater, I wondered if the same trick would work with one of my clear storage boxes. It does -- with the added bonus that I don't have to keep the kids away  from the table until I'm done tracing, or sit on the floor next to the table!

This post is linked to Craft-O-Maniac, WFMW, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Think Tank Thursday.

On the Beds

Jo invited the rest of us to share which quilts we have on our beds.  My own bed has a battered down comforter on it. Hubby and I don't pile on the quilts unless it's really cold or the power goes out.  Or someone is doing a fun linky party like this one...but he's trying to sleep in after a really long work week and it wouldn't be right to drag him out of bed so I could put on a quilt and take pictures of it.

Teenage daughter's bed is where the finished quilts all wind up. Right now, she's got Dashes in the Woods and my Nancy Drew quilt (I don't know how she managed to get semi-permanent custody of that one, but it's probably as safe on her bed as it would be anywhere else) and a heavy comforter and a scrunchy throw from Ikea... hope that's keeping her warm enough!

Quinn, believe it or not, has his green Trip Around the World on his bed, Leif has his snails (along with some other larger quilts), and Heath has a quilt that I absolutely cannot remember the name of.  That one was supposed to be in my room along with Nancy Drew, but since it's always on his bed and he seems to like it, maybe its become his.

I'm pleasantly surprised that those boys are actually using the quilts I made them.

How much fabric?

A couple of weeks ago, Peggy asked how I keep track of fabric used in the scrap quilts.  I multiply the length and width of the quilt and then multiply that by 2.25 (front, back, and 25% for the seam allowances.) Then I add up the length of all four sides to figure out how much binding I used. By my math, I figure there's 1500 square inches of fabric in a yard and 600 inches of 2 1/2" binding per yard.

Because I use the same sizes so often for the baby quilts, I've made myself a little chart so I don't have to keep redoing the math.

The method isn't perfect. Those excess bits that get trimmed away and tossed when I'm cutting fabric never get counted. But it does help me compare how much fabric I use from month to month and year to year. Have  I mentioned that I'm easily entertained?

Weekly Stash Report 

Nothing in. Nothing out. I don't think I even turned on my sewing machine this week, but I did manage to knit a letter "S" and I've started digging out my UFOs. I think that counts as progress.

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 1.75 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2013: 1.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 200 yards

I'm linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

Quilting With a Modern Slant

When I decided that I wanted to make quilts, my sewing machine was packed away where I couldn't easily get at it. I spent months hauling home every library book I could find, looking at patterns and reading about different techniques. I'd sewn clothing before, so I was sure that I'd be able to make a quilt. A lot of what I read went straight over my head, but a lot sunk in.

I wish I'd had Quilting with a Modern Slant by Rachel May! This book would have been a great help to me back then. It talks about quilters -- why they quilt and how they quilt. There are tutorials scattered through the book and they're not just beginner stuff. The book tells how to square up a quilt, how to dye fabric, how to piece curves, how to paper piece... even how to design your own fabric line. There are also a few patterns included.

As if that wasn't enough, there are profiles of dozens of quilters including Kaffe Fasett, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler, and  Chawne Kimber (She's the quilter who came up with that F word quilt. I still haven't figured out my reaction to that quilt besides being glad that I never saw it hanging at a quilt show and had to try to explain it to my children, but I do love reading her blog.) and Kaffee Fasett, Anna Maria Horner,  Amy Butler...

I love that this book tells you to use the sewing machine you already have (if you have one) and any fabric.

If you don't consider yourself a "modern quilter" don't let the title scare your off. There's information and inspiration here that will help anyone who makes quilts.

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

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {1/24/14}

Bryana from Pink Fox Piecing took the leap this week and started free motion quilting her own baby quilts --

I love the texture. I always love the texture, but be sure to click through and take a look at the more detailed pictures. She used red thread, which I think is genius. I always worry about how a little spot or stain is going to show up on big expanses of white. I'm betting that between the texture and that red thread, things will work out just fine.

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. 

{Yarn Along} Green Stockinette

You're going to hear a lot about this sweater, because it's going to take absolutely forever to knit this much stockinette.  When I agreed to this, I thought it was going to be an easy stretch of mindless knitting. It's been a long time since I knit a sweater and I thought this project would be a reasonable way to reassure myself that I could still do it.

Problem #1 has been the letter for the front. The pattern tells you how easy it is to print out knitter's graph paper and then print the letter right onto it from your Word Processing software.  I can barely load paper into my printer on a good day, let along printing twice on the same sheet.  Someone has to have charted letters already, right? I searched the forums on Ravelry and found a post saying the charts for all of the letters were in the Charmed Knits book. I got it from the library -- they're not in there. But  that version of the sweater is written for worsted weight, so I don't have to redo the math.

I printed the letter S, enlarged the letter S to the same height at the pattern from the book, got most of it knitted. And then I looked at the pattern on the blog. That letter is ten stitches taller. This one seemed a little small, but I am not ripping this out because I'm not recharting that letter and knitting it over again.

Heath's Weasley Sweater was an uneventful project. Uneventful enough that I have almost no memory of actually knitting the thing, except for taking this picture. I wish I'd reread my posts before  now because I would have done the hem the same way.

The reading has been less stressful than the knitting!

Snowblind by Christopher Golden is an entertaining ghost story. The residents of Coventry are on edge every time it snows. Now, a storm is coming, this one just as awful as the deadly blizzard twelve years earlier. I thought the book got off to a slow start, but once things really got going I didn't want to put it down.

The Accident  by Linwood Barclay starts with an interesting premise. When Glen Garber's wife doesn't come home, he gets in the car and drives the route she would have taken. (I know the feeling -- except unlike him, I knew that I was headed for an accident and that my husband was at least okay enough to dial his phone.)  Glen's wife was apparently drunk and fell asleep behind the wheel after driving up  a highway on-ramp.  He's unable to believe that she would have done that,  facing a lawsuit from the surviving members of the family who hit her car, and quickly discovering that their friends and neighbors are all hiding dark secrets. The plot twists and turns and is definitely interesting, but I did get tired of the characters complaining about the bad economy and what it drove them to.

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 -- Snowblind was provided by the publisher. The Accident came from the library. 

Zippers

I dread zippers, even more than I dread buttonholes. My first project in high school home economics was a tote. Two days after I started using it, the zipper broke. In hindsight, I blame the cheap zipper that the teacher sold us off of a roll, but it was the start of my hate/hate relationship with zippers. 

I went on to make a skirt with a zipper. It was part of the matching skirt and blouse set with the perfectly matched plaid and the bias pockets. (And buttonholes, although there weren't that horribly many of them.) The zipper was the only thing that didn't come out right, and it was the last zipper I did until I made the cat bed and wanted to be able to remove the stuffing so I could wash it. Rereading that post, the process must've been even worse than I remember.

I've been avoiding zippers successfully for years. I'll see a pattern for a neat tote bag and tell myself that zippers can't be that hard. And then I'll go on to something else that I know I can do. Like a quilt with three hundred curved seams. Those don't scare me.

Teenage Daughter found a tutorial for a skirt, and dug out the fifty zippers that I bought at an estate sale for two bucks. So I've been sewing zippers. The first one took five tries. I sewed that thing every possible wrong way except for upside down and my brand new seam ripper is so dull it won't cut thread.

The zipper in the second skirt went in with less hassle. It probably wouldn't get a good grade from my home economics teacher, but it's a wearable skirt. Which I can't show you, because she's going to be writing about it on her own blog.

nothing too complicated

I've been spending a few minutes at a time, sewing 2 1/2" squares into strips of three. Today I pressed them and assembled some nine-patch blocks. Eventually it'll be a quilt  for my daughter. And eventually that bit of knitting will be a second Croc Sock.  Today I'm not stressing over any of it. 

I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times.

a skein of yarn

I was going to title this post something about why I needed a skein of grey yarn, but the truth is that I didn't need it. It made sense to buy it.

Back before Christmas, Teenage Daughter asked me to knit her a Weasley Sweater, in Slytherin colors, with an S. I don't have Slytherin green in worsted weight in the quantities that I need to knit her a sweater. The big box craft store only carries eight skeins of any one color at a time, so we wound up ordering online. The yarn came, life happened, and it was a while before I opened the box and took a good look at the colors.

The green is perfect, but that grey skein on the left doesn't contrast strongly enough. If I'm going to knit an intarsia S, which I'm going to have to chart myself, it's going to stand out! It was either buy a skein of lighter grey or wait to knit the sweater. I'd already bought ten skeins of green, so spending another three bucks so I'd be able to use it made more sense than doing without.

I suppose I could have made a solid color sweater, or something that wasn't a sweater, but I'm not going to.

Weekly Yarn Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 1.75 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2013: 1.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 200 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 200 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

The Vanishing

When a stranger appears on Julia's doorstep and offers employment as a companion to horror writer Amaris Sinclair, it doesn't take her long to accept. But the job isn't without a catch. The world believes that Amaris is dead and Julia will be required to abandon her life completely.  She doesn't have much of a life anymore, though. Her husband, who the media has dubbed "The Midwestern Bernie Madoff," has committed suicide leaving her alone to face his betrayed clients. None of her friends have answered her calls or spoken to her in months. Vanishing and starting a new life sounds very tempting.

The Vanishing reads like an old fashioned gothic romance, and I mean that in the best way possible. I can't wait to get my hands on more books by this author.

Let's Make Baby Quilts {1/17/14}

I got a new top done this week. It's some sample blocks for a larger quilt that I'm hoping to make for myself eventually.

Heather of Peachy Pages made a whole slew of adorable little baby quilts last week -- just take a look!

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. 

the fear of leaving one out...

Last January, I got intrigued by the idea of low volume quilts. I had plenty of pastel baby prints that I didn't know what to do with, so I  cut a bunch of squares and made Annabelle and Amanda.

Teenage Daughter saw them and decided that she wanted a big version for herself -- without the baby bottles or diaper pins. I pulled a bunch of fabrics and bought some more, and cut a bunch of squares and then got distracted by other things. What hangs me up with this kind of project is the fear that I'll leave something out. As soon as I get the top together, I just know I'll stumble across the absolute perfect fabric or fabrics, waiting there in my stash. 

I've got my nine-hundred squares cut, so I think it's time to just say enough is enough and start piecing. I could get the top together in a few days...or I could make a few blocks and then stop because I'm sure that perfect neutral fabric is still lurking in my stash...

the lights stayed on...

The wind died down and, except for a couple of ominous flickers, the power stayed on. Thanks to everyone who reminded me to fill the tub. I do that when it snows or gets icy, but I totally forgot about that Saturday when I was vacuuming the carpet and doing the laundry and dishes. It's so much easier to flush the toilet with water from the tub than to haul buckets from the stream! Maybe I need to make myself a "looks like we might lost power" checklist...

In addition to all of my (happily) unnecessary storm prep, I added borders to a baby top left over from last year and got this little top put together. 

The pattern is Dancing Nines and it's from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I cut 2 1/2" square for my baby quilts, so I adjusted the sashing to go with the pieces I already had. One of these days, I want to make one of these for myself with 2" squares.

I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Free Mystery for Your Kindle!

A Charming Crime by Tonya Kappes is free on Amazon right now. I haven't read this one myself yet, but it sounds fun! Remember that Amazon prices change quickly, so check to see what you're spending before clicking that order button...



Here's the description from Amazon:

Bubble... Bubble...

June Heal has nothing to lose when she relocates her homeopathic cure shop, A Dose of Darla, from the flea market booth in her home town, to a quaint shop in the cozy but unusual little town of Whispering Falls, Kentucky. Or so it seems.

Cures and trouble...

Whispering Falls has a lot of secrets. From talking snow globes to whispering animals not to mention a few sprinkles of fairy dust, June realizes Whispering Falls is more magical than she thought. . .literally.

Magic stirs...

June discovers she was born into a family of psychics, and her homeopathic cures truly are magical. Unfortunately, they are not magical enough to save her from being the number one murder suspect when a member of the community that she had just had a disagreement with shows up face down in the lake with June’s lucky charm in the victim’s grasp.

And troubles double...

Add to that an attraction to her high school best friend, Sheriff Oscar Park and Mr. Prince Charming, her cat, is stealing charms from Belle’s Baubles, June is forced to clear her name in more ways than murder. After all, they don’t have cauldrons in jail.

A Charming Crime is book one of the bestselling Magical Cures Mystery series. Come walk around Whispering Falls for a fun, fantasy mystery with magic and romance. You won't want to leave.

Just in case...

It stormed all day Saturday. I jolted awake at 5:20am to something whacking our bedroom window and spent the rest of the day listening to things bump and thump against the roof and siding. Wouldn't you think that the trees would eventually run out of loose stuff to dump on the house?

Our power goes out with absolute slightest excuse, I was a good housewife and got all of the dishes and laundry and vacuuming done.  When the power goes out, those dishes in  the sink and little bits of stuff on the floor suddenly suddenly become the most annoying thing in the house. I'm still not firmly convinced that having all of the dishes clean accomplishes much in the event of a power outage. I can cook dinner on the gas stove...but as soon as we eat something, I'll be back to a sink full of dishes and no running water. Washing dishes with water from a jug isn't a skill I've managed to master quite yet.

If the power stays on, maybe I can get back to the baby quilts!

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 1.75 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 0 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2013: 1.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Added for 2013: 0 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

It's a camera!

Last spring, I misplaced the charger for my little point and shoot camera. It was last seen here in the house and I figured it would turn up eventually, so I started taking all of my blog pictures with the DSLR and only using the little camera when we were out and about and I really needed a picture of something then and there. I was getting a little silly, rationing my pictures because if the battery wore out before I found the charger, I wouldn't have a little camera to carry around with me.

(Don't choose this opportunity to tell me about that other mom you know who has five kids and several large dogs and homeschools and volunteers and exercises every single day and keeps an immaculate house and never loses anything ever. That won't help me find my camera charger or be a better mother. It'll just make me annoyed with you.)

At some point, the camera itself managed to disappear. I know it's in a tote bag, I just haven't bothered to sort through the ones I'm not using to find it because it can't take pictures at this point anyway. And I couldn't bring myself to spend what it would cost to buy a new charger. I was hoping that Hubby would buy me a new camera for Christmas. (I'd probably have my new camera now, but even when you have insurance and you're not at fault, car accidents are absolute hell on the family budget. There were no Christmas presents for the adults at our house this year.)

But I do have a camera in my purse again! Last week, Hubby asked what the camera case sitting on our headboard was (after I'd finally fessed up to losing my own charger and camera.)  It's Teenage Daughter's old camera, the one she's been letting her brother use since she got the nifty new one...the camera that fell out of an arch when it slipped out of Teenage Daughter's pocket...

See the arrows? That little camera tumbled from the top one down the rock face to the bottom one. It takes a loooong time for a camera to fall that far as both mommy and daughter watch in horror. I hadn't made the climb with the rest of the family, so I was the one to go in search of the mangled pieces.  The batteries fell out. Can you believe that was the only damage? 

The camera still takes decent pictures. And it uses AA batteries, so there's no special charger for me to misplace. I knew that camera was in the house, so why did it take me so long to realize that it was the perfect solution to my own missing one? 

Maybe I'll get a new camera next Christmas. They'll probably have new bells and whistles by then, right?  

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {1/10/14}

Is your quilting year getting off to a good start? I've got a new baby quilt pattern here on the blog this week, Butterfly, and enough scrappy squares cut for next week's baby quilt.

If you haven't seen it yet, the Starring Baby tutorial over at Wedding Dresss Blue is adorable. It's got pieced sashing that adds a lot of pop with what doesn't look like too much extra effort.  

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.

Rag Rugs

When I made my Doily Rag Rug, I was concerned about what would happen if I ever needed to wash it. The strips are joined in a kind of  daisy chain technique and I didn't think it would hold up to any kind of abuse. 

It's been in our kitchen for the past couple of months, taking all kinds of abuse and getting all kinds of stuff tracked across it and spilled onto it. It was finally time to go for broke and see what happened if I threw it in the washer. I held my breath and it emerged out just fine. The shape is still wonky and some of the little ends need to be tucked back between the stitches, but structurally, it's in great shape. 

I love rag rugs. This one came from the same estate sale as my stained potholders. 

There was a whole stack of them in a bedroom closet and I couldn't find any price tags. I carried it around, hoping that it would be cheap, knowing it probably wouldn't be. When I found out it was two bucks, I should have gone back for the others. (The ones made from fabric, not dry cleaning bags -- those could wait for someone with quirkier taste than mine!) But I didn't know how much I was going to love it once I got it home and saw it on our hardwood floor.

This post is linked to Vintage Thingie Thursday.

{Yarn Along} Forget Me Knot

Did I mention that I love this yarn? I'm almost to the heel and the colors are doing more pretty and unexpected things. It's a good thing that I had no intention of making my socks match, because I'm not sure it would be possible to figure out the repeat in this colorway. 

The Croc Socks are out again, too, because they're too neat not to finish. If I'm going to knit from my stash for a while, I'm using the good stuff!  

Forget Me Knot is the first in a new series of quilting mysteries by Mary Marks. Here's the book's description from Amazon -- Martha and her besties Lucy and Birdie are set to expand their Quilty Tuesdays by inviting newcomer Claire Terry into their group. Though at forty Claire’s a tad younger than their average age, her crafty reputation could perk up their patchwork proceedings, especially as they prepare for the fancy quilt show coming to town. But when they arrive at Claire’s home and find her dead inside the front door, and her exquisite, prize-winning quilts soon missing, Martha is not one to leave a mystery unraveled. Especially if she wants to stop a killer from establishing a deadly pattern…

It was a fun read, with just enough quilting details to provide me that vicarious crafting fix that's what first drew me to this type of cozy mystery. The story is focused mainly on the murder mystery and stolen quilts. 

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

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. 



 

Butterfly

Butterfly is quilted and bound...

I designed this baby quilt to use the new AccuQuilt Bowties die (or you could use the 2 1/2" and 1 1/2" strip cutters....or cut 2 1/2" and 1 1/2" squares with a ruler and rotary cutter. Isn't it wonderful how flexible quilting can be?) You can find my tips for cutting with the Bowties die in this post.

To make each little butterfly, layer a 1 1/2" black square on a 2 1/2" print or background square and sew from corner to corner. Trim 1/4" from the stitching line as shown. (When I'm making traditional bow tie blocks, I leave the extra fabric in the seam, but leaving them in this case means that you'd be sewing through eight layers of fabric where the triangles meet. I tried -- it doesn't work!)

Make two print and two background squares for each butterfly and assemble as shown.

I made thirty-six butterfly blocks and set them on point in six rows of six. You'll need twenty-five plain 4 1/2" background squares. For the setting triangles, cut five 7" squares and cut twice on the diagonal to make four triangles. For the corners, cut two 3 3/4" triangles and cut each along the diagonal to make two triangles. If you need more explanation, check out this lesson from McCall's Quilting.

As always, if you make this quilt I'd love for you to send me a picture or link up to my weekly Let's Make Baby Quilts! linky party. There's a list of my free baby quilt tutorials over in the sidebar and you  can find out when new ones are added by either following my blog or liking the Let's Make Baby Quilts Facebook page.

New Year, New Projects

I don't know what I'm doing right now. I've been waiting and waiting for life to settle back down into our normal routine. For the past few days, I've been plotting out what I wanted to do as soon as I got time to sit down at the sewing machine....

And as soon as I got time to sew, I suddenly lost enthusiasm for all of my projects. Does this happen to any of you? 

I blame the migraine that kept me up most of Saturday night. By Sunday morning, the pain and nausea were gone, but I'm still not feeling a hundred percent myself.

So what do you do when none of your projects seem worth working on and you know it's just your mood (and maybe the fact that your sewing corner is buried under everything you stashed there during the month of December)? Pull out a magazine you bought last summer because you loved the quilt on the cover and make a test block!

I'm not sure if this is going to lead to a full size quilt for me or just enough blocks for a cute little baby quilt. It's not my style at all...but I love the idea of those cameras. I'll make some more (or not) and decide from there.

The pattern is Click! and it's in the August 2013 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.  I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Look at all of those zeroes!

We talk a lot about stocking up on supplies as insurance against the lean times. Well, now's the time for me to dip into my stash and see what I can do with what I've got. Makes me very glad I'm not a one-project-at-a-time, buy-it-when-I-actually-need-it kind of gal!

I haven't bought any fabric since the end of November. If I'd known then what I know now, I might have stocked up on a bolt of white muslin and looked for some bloody shark fabric, but that's okay. I've got my stash of white sheets to dip into and  if I get that top done that's going to need the sharks, I'll be able to come up with a backing.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
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Added this Week: 0 yards
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Net Added for 2013: 0 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Added for 2013: 0 yards

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times.

Freezer I'll Shoot

Reading is a two part process at my house. First I've got to get my hands on the book I want to read, then I've got to find time to read it. About half the time, my books are due back at the library before I've even had a chance to look at them, but I wasn't going to let that happen with Freezer I'll Shoot . I've enjoyed the other Vintage Kitchen Mysteries too much for that.


In this one, Jaymie is focusing more on her fledgling career as a cookbook author. She's preparing an article on ice houses and vintage ice cream recipes when she finds a body in her back yard, stabbed with the same vintage ice pick she had just photographed on the wall of her neighbor's restaurant. Suddenly she needs to come up with a new topic for her column and to find a killer. 
The book includes a recipe for a sandwich cake, something I've been dying to try since I read about the idea in a Donna Parker book as a kid. 
And, speaking of vintage kitchen stuff, I bought these at an estate sale back in November and took pictures but never posted about them. 

I've got weird ideas about not buying things that I could make myself, but I really like these potholders and I don't crochet and there's a point where they're so old and inexpensive that I change my mind. Because I can't make old. And, yes, I'm aware that they look filthy. I'm going to wash them so that they're clean stains.

This one is a probably lost cause, but I couldn't resist that kitchen print or the advertisement on the front... 

I got the impression that these were in use, or at least still in the kitchen drawers, until their original owner passed away. And I think that's neat, maybe even neater than my wooden spoons.