Be Braver! -- Durian

Last spring, I posted about how Hubby and the kids and I shop at the local Asian markets and wind up daring each other to try things.  Over the years, we've become steadily more adventurous. 

After last week, though, I'm not sure we have anyplace else to go. (Without getting into scary animals and parts of animals that I don't think are meant to be eaten. I drew that line even before my boys found frog legs at a buffet and tried to convince me that they were good.) 

Hubby called and told me to bring home an interesting fruit we hadn't tried before. So, after consulting with my three boys, I did.  

If you're not familiar with Durian, it's got a nasty reputation for its smell and flavor. The nice young man in the produce department told us that it wasn't nearly as bad as the Food Channel had led us to believe, that it tasted "like banana pudding and garlic powder had a baby."

And no, I can't tell you why bringing one home to try sounded like a good idea. Probably because I knew it was going to happen sooner or later and wanted to get it over with. One of my sons, the one who should definitely be old enough to know not to poke the sharp fruit, was bleeding by the time we got to the checkout line.

It was two days before we worked up the nerve to cut the thing open.

I took my bite before anyone else had a chance to make a face or tell me how awful it was. I think the banana pudding and garlic description came pretty close. Hubby says that it smells and tastes like natural gas. There's a definite touch of sulfur. And the taste lingers in your mouth for a very long time.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {2/27/15}

I absolutely love this little quilt that Kathy from Kathy's Quilting Blog shared last week. It's so pretty and sparkly -- and that snowy background makes it look even prettier! 

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,  as long as it's about baby quilts. 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.

Regia Sylt Surf Socks

 I love this yarn, Regia Sylt Surf. The colors are pretty, it's nice to knit with, and I love the way that the stripe are differing widths instead of perfectly uniform.

For more finishes, check out  Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and Freedom Fridays.

Very Old Baby Pictures

Remember that baby picture I fell in love with at the antique store? I'm still tempted to go back and see if she's still hanging there above the doorway...and maybe actually look at the price tag this time.

But this one, of my Great Grandma Walter and her twin,  is better because this one is family. Real ancestors always beat instant ancestors brought home from antique stores.

{Yarn Along} Slower Knitting

I haven't been able to carve out much time to work on my owl socks, mainly because I'm having so much fun piecing bottles for the Nail Polish Quilt.  I still love this project, and it'll be here once the quilt is done. 

I have found time for reading. Quit a bit of it, since it's easier to put down a book than stop knitting mid-cable twist.

Through NetGalley, I was given the chance to read an advance look at Those Girls, the upcoming thriller from Chevy Stevens. In an effort to stay safe and together, three teenage sisters plunge out of the frying pan and into the fire and it gets worse from there.Wow! This is the darkest of her books, a brutal roller coaster of a read. If the kids hadn't needed dinner, I would've read it straight through in one sitting.  If you're looking for a dark thriller, I recommend this one. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Skeletal by Katherine Hayton just confused me. Ten years after her death, Daina Harrow's bones are unearthed and the circumstances of her death are revealed through a coroner's inquest, with Daina explaining details for the reader. I enjoyed the read, but even after it was all tied up at the end, I couldn't entirely figure out what was going on.

The Boardwalk Antiques Shop contains stories by Julie Wright, Melanie Jacobson, and Heather B. Moore, all tied together by the antique shop of the title. Every piece in the Boardwalk Antique Shop comes with a detailed history, and the stories of the men and woman who buy them are even better. These three romances left me smiling -- especially the last one, where a couple does battle over a treadle sewing machine that really should belong to the both of them.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times.


Disclosure - The publishers provided me with review copies. 

{Kindle Freebie} The Murder Pit

Last spring, I recommended this cozy mystery by Jeff Shelby. Today, I saw that it's being offered as a Kindle freebie, so I'm reposting my original review. I don't know how long that offer is good for, so remember to check the price before you order.

When I decided to read The Murder Pit by Jeff Shelby, it was because the heroine, Daisy Savage, finds a corpse in the coal chute of her hundred-year-old home. Old houses with bodies hidden in the walls, as long as they're the fictional kind, always intrigue me. I didn't realize until I got into the book that Daisy is a homeschooling mom of four. She's not a detective, even if she did do a unit study on forensics with her kids a while back, but she's being snubbed by the members of their local homeschooling co-op because no one wants their kids in her classes. Everyone in town knows that she dated the victim before marrying her husband and most of her neighbors seem to think there was a lot more to that one date and that she must've had something to do with his presence in her house.

Goblin Gardeners

We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?

      -- from Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti

This is one of the transfers I found at Knitten Kitten a while back-- it was so old that the ink was no good. I had to trace it, but it's a little goblin (or something) hauling a carrot on his shoulder.

And he came with friends!

Because my girl can never have enough nail polish....

I thought this was going to be a long term project, but once I started cutting prints for the bottles, I kept finding good ones. Without even trying, I had the 48 bottles I needed for my original plan...and there was still fabric I hadn't sorted through.

So the quilt is going to be bigger than originally planned.

This post is linked to Patchwork Times and Needle and Thread Thursday.

I did need that after all!

Last spring, I bought yardage for a specific quilt. I was going to work on that one while Hubby healed from his surgery.  The challenge was going to help distract me from all of the other stuff that was going on.

It was a great plan, until I actually read the pattern. The block construction was tricky and I couldn't work out how to cut pieces for just a trial block. I'm not naming that quilt here, because I still plan to tackle it someday. Lots of other quilters have made it successfully. The pattern wasn't the problem. It was me and the mood I was in.

I regretted that fabric purchase, even though I knew I'd  wind up using it for something else sooner or later. It added to my fabric bought for the year and just bugged me.

Turns out that fabric is exactly what I needed for Teenage Daughter's nail polish quilt. Two different greys, black, white... It's allowing me to make that quilt from stash.

My reaction to fabric and yarn is usually that I can use it for something sooner or later. It sure feels good when that's actually true!

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 34 yards
Net Added for 2014: 31 1/2 yards

Yarn Used this Week:   0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 1600 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2014: 1600 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Because I Needed a Ballerina

When I was looking at my Great-Grandma's applique and embroidery sampler quilt last month, a ballerina block caught my eye. I'd never noticed that one before, not after years of snuggling under it as a kid, or when Grandma and I pulled it out three years ago so I could take pictures. 

Her tutu was so delicate and pretty that I decided I needed a ballerina for my Garden Party Quilt. The ones I'd already stumbled across were children, but then I stumbled across this pattern at Average Jane Crafter. She's perfect.  Different from the one on Great-Grandma's quilt, but with all of the details I loved about that one. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {2/20/15}

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,  as long as it's about baby quilts. 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.

Mellow Stripe

I drooled over this yarn (Red Heart Heart & Sole Mellow Stripe) for months before I finally bought it.  Now, I'm more excited about my plans for the leftovers than I am about my finished socks. They're pretty and I'll wear them, but I'm loving the idea of using those long colored sections as heels and toes on solid yellow socks.  I'll have to knit a pair from the solid yellow yarn first, so I'll have leftovers to work with.

But I can do that!

For more finishes, check out  Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and Freedom Fridays.

A Dollhouse for the Dollhouse

It's a dollhouse.  A little dollhouse scaled so that it fits in the actual dollhouse... 

And it's got furniture...

As an adult, I don't love that the house is flimsy plastic and the furniture is cast metal. As a kid, I thought it was the greatest thing ever (especially the claw foot tub which seems to have vanished over the years), but today I'm drooling over tutorials for making the furniture with real wood.

 I don't know if I can develop the skills to do something like that, or if I'll ever carve out the time to try, but it's sure fun drooling over the tutorials and other people's projects.

{Yarn Along} Eight Minutes

The more progress I make on the owl socks, the less intense they seem. But I still need something easy to work on while I'm watching TV at night with my husband.  I'm hoping to find something that's just a hair more challenging than plain stockinette, but I haven't made time to do that quite yet. I need to hustle, because at this rate, my self-striping stash will be gone before long. 

Shelly Buckner gives birth to her son, furious with her husband for not coming to the hospital. What she doesn't know is that Eric was in an auto accident on his way to her side and lies dead in another room of same hospital. Eight minutes later, he is revived...and three years after that, their son Toby gains an imaginary friend. John Robberson was a pilot. He tells Toby lots of details about his plane, things that the three-year-old can't know. And he wants Toby to go see someone named Kay, an idea that fills little Toby with hysterical dread.

Eight Minutes by Lori Reisenbichler is a spooky read. As Shelly tries to find out what's happening to their son, her husband becomes more angry and distant, unhappy that she's embarrassing him in front of his friends and colleagues. He insists that she drop the whole idea of reincarnation and hitchhiking spirits.  I can't tell you what I liked so much about this book without giving away the plot, but I definitely recommend this one if you're looking for something creepy and a bit different.



Hayden Mundy Moore, the world's only chocolate whisperer is smart and competent and daring. So when one of her good friends is found dead at a retreat, she's determined to find out if the chef accidentally overdosed on her own highly caffeinated chocolates, or if there's a killer roaming the chocolate scented grounds of the exclusive resort. Criminal Confections by Colette London is the first book in the new Chocolate Whisperer mystery series. Hayden is a lot of fun to read about. I'm hoping that her next mystery takes her to one of the exotic locales that's mentioned in the book.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times.


Disclosure - The publishers provided me with review copies. 

Drudgery

Most of the designs in my vintage embroidery stash make chores look fun, like the kitten with the  canister vacuum.  This gal looks like she's having much less fun. (Maybe she'd rather be at her sewing machine, like she is in the other image from this set that I stitched last year?) 

As soon as I saw this one, I got the impression that she wasn't having much fun. I think it's the way she's so bent over (but look at that perfect posture!) and her sleeves are all scrunched up. I'm sure this dress is the most faded one from her closet.  Or maybe she doesn't hate mopping. Maybe she's serene and in the moment.

Yup, I'm still making up stories to go with just about every block that I stitch.

Something New

Last August, I stumbled across the nail polish quilt pattern  from Fat Quarter Shop and knew that I was going to have to make one for my daughter. She's as passionate about her nail polish as I am about my yarn and fabric. You can see her creations on her blog, A Girl and Her Chicken Named Betty. One of my favorites is still the Nancy Drew Mani she did when I made my Nancy Drew quilt. 

She needs a nail polish quilt, but the one bottle version isn't going to do it. So I'm using the scaled down version from Bee in My Bonnet.

And making the bottles all the same shape isn't  going to do it either. Real nail polish comes in all sorts of fun colors and shapes, which is going to make it much easier to find polish-worthy fabrics in my scrap bags.

I've been tracing images with my hot iron transfer pencil and I was furious when I saw what I'd done with the lady and her powder puff. That was a lot of tracing -- why couldn't I see the problem with the letters before I wasted a chunk of fabric and my hard work? I would've lopped them off. Or maybe redone just the letters and ironed it on in two pieces.  They say you can get more than one impression, but I haven't tried it with the penciled images.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and to A Quilting Reader's Garden.

The Siren Call of Books and Transfers

This may never, ever happen again. I have used all of the yarn that I purchased in 2014. Christmas yarn doesn't count, because it's Christmas yarn, I didn't buy it, and it was less than two months ago. But the stuff I bought myself? All used up, except for partial skeins left over from sock knitting. The squid still needs seams and half a tentacle, but the yarn is in the project.

I'm kind of proud of myself. I used up a lot of  old stash yarn and, sooner or later, I'm going to find something I really want and do some shopping and I'm not going to feel one bit guilty. Because building up my yarn stash meant that I could spend most of last year knitting from it.

What's really getting to me is the siren call of the books. Especially the ones with pretty socks and shawls. I did, just barely, resist the 40% off sale at Knit Picks.

And then I glanced at the Aunt Martha's patterns at Walmart, convinced myself that I had the one I loved at home, didn't have it at home, and made the rounds of five different stores trying to find it again. In the process, I found seven more patterns that I hadn't come across in my year of stalking the hot iron transfers at Walmart.  But I still haven't found the mermaids, so I'll keep checking every time I buy groceries.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 2 1/2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 34 yards
Net Added for 2014: 31 1/2 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 400 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 1600 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2014: 1600 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

The Mystery Hat

Isn't that a cute hat? Teenage Daughter tells me that I made it  for her, but I have absolutely no memory of the hat or the yarn.

I've gone through my Ravelry projects (although I've knit plenty of things that aren't there) and every one of my blog posts that mentions hats. I found lots of things I didn't remember knitting, but seeing a picture always jars my memory.

Alex says that she didn't knit it. We almost never buy knit hats. (What would be the fun in that?)

Have you ever completely forgotten a project, even after it surfaced again?

Sock Yarn Shawls II

I'm not knitting as many shawls as I used to, but that doesn't stop me from planning and drooling and bookmarking patterns. If you haven't made the leap to shawl knitting yet, I may just have found the book that'll make you do it, Sock-Yarn Shawls II by Jen Lucas.





There's plenty to love about knitting lace with fingering-weight yarns -- and there's lots to love about this book in particular. The patterns have charts and written instructions. They're organized by how much yardage they take, which will help if you're looking for that perfect way to use a special yarn.  The introduction to each pattern describes how the shawl is constructed. (I'm not doing anything that requires me to cast on hundreds of stitches unless it's absolutely gorgeous or I'm suffering from temporary insanity!)

Wanna see the shawls that caught my eye?

Daylily 

Harvest 

Lycopod

I love reading about the history of quilts and quilting. World War I Quilts by Sue Reich provides a treasure trove of images and newspaper snippets. There are lots of signature and fundraising quilts, some neat red work sampler and crazy quilts, and  more different styles of Red Cross quilts than I would have imagined existed. This book provides a neat window into what quilters of the early 20th century were doing.

Disclosure - the publishers provided me with ARCs. Photos from Sock Yarn Shawls 2 are used by permission of Martingale and their photographer Brent Kane.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {2/13/15}

Would you believe I finished a baby quilt this week? I used fabrics that someone else had pulled together for a project (I suspect it's a line, because there are different colorways of the same prints) and conveniently left together in a thrift store scrap bag. You can read all of the details of this little quilt here.  Using an easy pattern and the  leftovers from an existing quilt is a great way to whip up a baby quilt in no time at all. 

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,  as long as it's about baby quilts. 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.

Meet Karen!

The lighting isn't great this morning and I can't get my pretty quilted swirls to show up, but you get the idea -- 

This is the Boho Patchwork Vintage Star Quilt from Sweet Dreams By Sarah, using 4" squares instead of the layer cake pieces that the pattern calls for. It wasn't much work to adjust the rest of the math and make it baby quilt sized. I haven't taken a tape measure to it yet, but it's around 40" square.

The fabric is from a thrift store (or it might have been a yard sale) scrap bag. Because these were strips left over from someone else's project, they were already together and coordinated, just waiting for someone to make something else. And now that I know that I like the way they look, I'm going to use the rest for something a bit more ambitious.

For more finishes, check out  Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and Freedom Fridays.

If it Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

When I first started quilting, I bought a June Tailor Quilter's Cut'n Press II.  I've been using it ever since, and it shows.  I've thought about replacing it, have had one in my shopping cart with my Joann's coupon in hand, but there's always something more enticing to spend my hobby money on, and what I've got works.

Just because it's embarrassing in tutorial photos doesn't mean I have to replace it, right?  I can take the pictures against something else. Like the worn out cutting side.

This week, while we were on Teenage Daughter's latest thrift store mission, I found half  of one. Just the pressing side. (To make it odder, there were two of them, both just the detached pressing side.)

I hesitated, because it was only half there and it was a little bit dirty. There's a water stain that you can barely see on the lower left hand edge. Then I convinced myself that at the rate I'm going, I'm never going to buy a new one and that it's better than what I've been using.

That was before I saw them together. Yuck. How can something that only comes into contact with clean fabric get so filthy?!

I wasn't going to post the picture, then I realized that most of the before shots from Jo's ironing board challenge were just as bad.   I may Frankenstein the new pressing half to the cutting mat for my old one (which is just as desperately in need of replacement.) Or just use it the way it is..... or I might actually dig out one of my other cutting mats and try using something that still has lines on it! (And I may check the thrift store next week to see if the other one is still there, because for $1.95 each, I could probably use a backup. You know this one isn't going to stay clean.)

Do you use your quilting tools until they're past their prime?