Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/27/20}

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/20/20}

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Finding the Yellow Brick Road

I started this socks at the beginning of September, back in 2018. They've been on my needles and in my project tracker ever since. Now and then I'd pick them up and struggle through another few rounds and remember how tedious they were, then I'd shove them back into their projects bag.

As of last night, they are DONE! And they fit, which is an extra bonus. (There's no reason they shouldn't have fit, but with as much trouble as these gave me I didn't have high hopes.)

The problem wasn't with the pattern, which is clear and well written enough. It wasn't with the techniques (although that decreasing five stitches into one at the base of each cable was fiddly and hard until something finally clicked for me halfway through the second sock and it made sense.) It might have been the yarn which, although it was a perfect colorway for this project, wasn't the highest quality stuff.

Most of it was my state of mind. I couldn't tell you exactly what made me avoid these socks.  Somewhere things went from pleasantly fiddly to downright hard.

I can't tell you how glad I am to have these finally done! There's another pair on my needles that have been just as obnoxious, but these were the more intimidating ones.

{I've Been Reading} Darling Rose Gold

I picked up Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel because it sounded similar to the real life story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. It does start with the same idea, a young woman who has spent her whole life convinced by her mother that she is deathly ill. In the book, Patty Watts has gone to jail  for her crimes and is about to be released. Her now healthy daughter has agreed to take her in.

Rose Gold has a completely different life now and she's been waiting to show her mother just how much she's changed. Patty is determined that her daughter remember who is in charge, and still angry that Rose's testimony put her behind bars. Oh, and Rose has a two month old baby caught in the power struggle between the two women.

The book alternates between Patty in her first days out of prison and Rose as she starts her own independent life. They both have plans and it's fascinating to watch the whole thing unfold, although a couple of times I wanted to shake the book and yell at the characters. Munchausen by proxy intrigues me and I loved seeing it play out in a thriller.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an ARC. This post contains affiliate links. 

Sorting Floss

Want to guess how many colors I'm missing? 

I don't. Whatever I don't have, it's going to be the one floss number I need to finish a project. Last year I started Stitch Maynia with a full set of DMC and a lot of duplicate skeins. Since then, I've been pulling floss for projects and then raiding those projects for other projects...who knows what I've got now.

The plan is to get it all sorted out and in order before Maynia starts on May first. While I'm doing that, I can pull leftover floss and patterns from project bags and free them up for new starts.

I'm guessing I'll be short twenty-five colors....I'll let you know what it turns out to be!

From Threadbare Sheets to Reusable Grocery Bags

Unpopular opinion -- I'm not a fan of the ban on plastic grocery bags. I'm all for reusing you own bags, but I think this new law is going to create a whole slew of new problems. And because I'm aggravated about that, I put off actually sewing some bags.

I've you've been reading my blog for more than a decade, this fabric might look familiar. It's identical to the thrifted sheet that I used to back Simple Pleasures back in 2009. Not long after I made the quilt, Alex found a set of queen sized sheets at the thrift shop. I called dibs on the fabric if she ever got bored with the sheets.

She never did get bored with them, but after a decade the fabric was pilled and unpleasant and she called and asked if I wanted the fitted sheet to make bags or something. I brought it home and it sat because I wasn't in a bag making mood.

Last night, I finally broke down and started the project. These aren't fancy bags. I didn't measure anything. I removed the elastic and corner seams and then tore the fabric in wide strips. The threadbare part in the very center of the sheet was folded over four times to make the handles. They're lined and sturdy and not the ugliest bags ever.

And I'm kind of sentimental about the fabric.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/13/20}

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} Horror Novels on the Kindle App

One of the first ebook authors I read, nearly twenty years ago, was Jeff Strand. The book was Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and I was reading it on the couch on a stormy afternoon while the kids napped. Something hit the window from outside and I jumped. There's something especially fun about reading horror novels by the light of a screen.



When I was browsing through Kindle Unlimited titles, I was happy to realize that he's still writing and has put out a bunch of books in the years that have passed. Last week I read  The Haunted Forest over the course of a few evenings. A massive forest full of monsters has appeared in the New Mexico desert and H. F. Enterprises is offering tours in heavily fortified trams. It's supposed to be safe...  but this is a horror novel so of course it isn't. The book is like a fun monster movie and I really enjoyed it.



I read Ghostland by Duncan Ralston by the light of day, mostly because I couldn't put it down. It's opening day at the most haunted theme park in the world. Haunted structures have been brought in and reassembled and the spirits that haunt them are on display, contained by technology that keeps them in an entertaining loop and unable to harm the guest. Until a computer virus kicks in and things start to go very wrong. This one reminded me (in the best possible ways) of Thirteen Ghosts. Click on the footnotes to get the background of the attractions that Ben and Lilian are passing through - it's definitely worth the extra time. And check out the website that goes along with the book. I can't wait for the sequels.

Pyramid of Skulls

I didn't know that Pyramid of Skulls was a famous painting by Cezanne, I just stumbled across the pattern when I was looking for still life cross stitch on Etsy and was drawn to the slightly creepy subject matter. And I'm so glad I did, because this is one off my favorite finishes and I'm about to start scouring thrift shops for an over the top ornate frame to display it in. 

Pattern: Pyramid of Skulls by The Art of Cross Stitch on Etsy 

Pretend that you can't see the two missing stitches. I checked and double checked and those appeared when I took pictures for the blog post. I'll have filled them in by the time you read this. At times, this project felt a bit too much like an eye exam, especially the pale skull in the center. It had Fs and Es and Ps and got a little rough on my eyes and nerves.

But it is DONE and it is GORGEOUS and I absolutely love this piece.

Jill Gordon's Needlepoint

I checked out  Jill Gordon's Needlepoint from the library and it rode around in the back of my minivan for weeks before I brought it into the house. 

As soon as I saw all of this gorgeous eye candy, I was on Amazon ordering a copy to add to my sewing room bookshelf because even though I don't do needlepoint I can drool...and it's charted in a way that makes me sure I can stitch these as counted cross stitch if I can figure out the right floss colors.

I can't get over the pictures of the finished projects -- and if that's not enough, there are the watercolors that inspired the projects, and closeups so detailed you can make out the threads of the canvas behind the stitches.

Do you see the cushions in front of the window? Those are part of the needlepoint! 

The book also has fish and other pretty images, but it's the gardens that made me swoon. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/6/20}

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{On My Needles} The Logic of Cables

These socks are one of the oldest WIPs in my project tracker. The cables are fiddly and the yarn is just thin enough to make it an extra challenge. I'm also not good at decreasing five stitches down to one to close each cabled loop, but something finally clicked and I'm seeing what the chart wants me to do without checking the symbol key each time. 

There's a logic to how cables twist and turn and in theory I sort of get how it works, but in practice I've always been a bit hesitant. Maybe the stars are aligned just right, but suddenly this feels easy.

Please don't let me have jinxed myself by just typing that....

{I've Been Reading} Frugal Lissa Finds a Body

Frugal Lissa Finds a Body by Ritter Ames

This was a fun read.  Lissa Eller stretches her family's budget by living frugally and sharing her tips with the world on her blog. She's helping an elderly neighbor when she discovers a body in the woman's garage. It's not the first time Lissa has seen the man -- at karaoke the previous night she had a disagreement with him in front of witnesses.

With her photographer husband out of the country, Lissa has her hands full running the household and caring for their two young sons, who are a handful. She's also trying to solve the murder because she's worried that she might look like a suspect and she wants to find out what led to the victim contacting her in the first place.  The book is filled with parenting moments, which was a plus for me. Lissa tends towards the free range style of parenting and I don't think I've seen that in a cozy before so it was a fun change of pace.  I was sad to see that the second book in the series isn't available quite yet because I would've immediately  plunged into it to see what happens next in her life.

Disclosure -- This post contains affiliate links.

Staying Home and Stitching

I need to get to the grocery store and laundromat, but other than that this seems like a good week to mostly stay home and stitch. 

To Do This Week 

finish sorting floss

striped zipper bag

knit the Finding the Yellow Brick Road socks through the heel turn

Confetti Stitching Tips

I've fallen into a happy rhythm where the confetti stitching is just working.  It's as fiddly and time consuming as always, but I can see my progress and the more bits of blank aida that get covered up -- even if it's only with a few stitches at at time -- the more I fall in love with this project. 

A few people have asked me for tips on how I do this type of stitching, so here they are...

• Grid your fabric.
• Make sure that you have all of the colors you need and, if possible, keep them in order. It really helps!
• Stitch landmarks (the edges of buildings, tree branches, they eye sockets of skulls....whatever part of the project is easy to figure out) first and use them to keep track of where on the chart and fabric you're working
• Be patient! Projects with lots of colors take longer, but they're definitely worth the extra effort.