A Little Mystery Solved

When Moda came out with the Nancy Drew fabric a couple of years back, I wondered why some of the books had red spines. My collection was full of yellow spined books and blue tweed (my favorite) and I'd seen the white dust jackets....but red? Was that a real thing?

A recent trip to the thrift shop solved the mystery --

It's a library binding and that's got to be one of the ugliest book covers I've ever seen. But it is red. I always thought one of the best parts of the series, along with the titles, was the cover art.

The thing I do love about this book is that it's the original text from 1941 instead of the revised edition. The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion is one of the books where they completely changed the plot when they updated it -- this time from a missing heiress to something about exploding oranges being smuggled into the Kennedy Space Center. I'm happy to have the original to read, even if the book itself is ugly as sin.

Time to Retire My Favorite Tote Bag?

I hate to even think it, but my favorite bag ever is starting to lose its shine. When I first made my Nancy Drew tote, it stood up on its own.

These days it slumps and shows its age.

I can't complain -- this bag has been with me just about every time I left the house for  the past three years. That's a hundred and fifty some trips to the library (which means it's hauled a couple thousand books for me and the kids) and countless trips to the park and lots of vacations...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to toss my favorite bag. But I'm thinking it might be time to start planning a replacement for the Best Bag Ever. I love the size of this one and the strap is the perfect length to wear over my shoulder or across my chest.  But I'd like the next bag to zip across the top and for it to have an inside pocket to keep my phone from falling to the bottom. I can't find my phone under everything even when it's ringing.

I can take the lessons I learned from this bag and make another one that's the perfect size and has the perfect strap length and doesn't spill everything onto the floor of the car when I knock it over....but the new bag won't have that book spine fabric.

That's what's going to stop me. I've got lots of wonderful fabric, but I can't think of any prints in my stash that I'd happily carry every day for the next three years.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 4 3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 11 yards (+2 sheets)
Net used for 2016: 6 1/4 yards

Yarn used this Week: 800 yards
Yarn used year to Date: 3550 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 5526 yards
Net added for 2016: 1976 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

The Blogger's Quilt Festival starts tomorrow over at Amy's Creative Side.  I can't wait -- the quilts are always absolutely amazing!
 

About ten minutes after I saw Moda's line of Nancy Drew fabric, I was stealing a  felt tip pen from one of my kids and sketching out a design.  I had this vision of the book covers scattered across the top of a traditional patchwork quilt...

I could see it clearly in  my head and I had my fingers tightly crossed that the folks at the Moda Bake Shop could picture it too and would approve my proposal. Luckily, they did -- my vision looks a lot better in fabric than it did in that first drawing.

I bought more yardage as soon as the fabric was available in the local quilt shop and it's turned up in several of my projects. I used those gorgeous book spines for a  tote bag, which I carry almost every time I leave the house. Some extra nine patch blocks went into a baby quilt. I made a camera strap and a sleeve for Teenage Daughter's Kindle and I've still got the last of it carefully tucked away. It's not too precious to cut, but it's waiting for a perfect excuse to pull it out. 

You can find my original post about Nancy's Mysterious Quilt (including the link to the pattern) here, and all of my posts about the quilt and the books and everything else here.  

More Nancy Drew!

 

A  few months ago, there was a blog hop on the Nancy Drew Sleuth blog. I got distracted and didn't submit my quilt, but I did enter the giveaway. About two seconds later, I forgot about it.... until I found an email message buried in my in-box, telling me I'd won the coin purse. The one I'd really hoped I'd win.

 

I can't tell you how frustrated I was.  I don't even have a good excuse for missing the email. So much time had passed that I was sure they'd chosen a new winner, but I sent my mailing address and an apology just in case.

 

And look what I got in the mail!

 

 

 

It has artwork from The Mystery of the Fire Dragon on one side and The Bungalow Mystery on the other and it's just the perfect size for my little  camera (if I ever bothered to put it in a bag). There's even a pocket inside that could hold an extra battery or memory card.  

 

And now I'm even more convinced that I want one of the clutches, or some of the jewelry they're selling in the Sleuth Shop.

another reason to love old books

I've told you before about how the smell of old books makes me giddy.  My oldest son and I had a long discussion last week about what old books are supposed to smell like, as opposed to what mildewy books smell like. Sadly, the mildewed example was an original text Nancy Drew that I would have really wanted if it was in halfway decent condition.

Except for my growing stash of vintage children's mysteries, I'm not buying a lot of books for myself lately. My Kindle has won, assuming that the price of the Kindle edition is actually less than the price of the paperback. It's a happy combination of having the book I want right now and not having to keep track of it once I do have it.

I still have real ink and paper books, and I adore the special ones. Even though I've found a much nicer copy of the same edition, I'm still keeping that Bobbsey Twins book that came from the small girls room.

And I'll be keeping this Nancy Drew that  I picked up at the thrift store on the same day as I had to pass up the mildewed one. I've got a nicer copy with a dust jacket, but look at what's written inside the front cover --

Beverly Jean Iverson
Devils Lake, North Dakota U. S. A.

Christmas "1945"   a  Christmas "no one" will ever forget, for it is the year of "Victory and Peace" of the second world war Thank You

I assume that it was Beverly's book, but I wonder who wrote the inscription.  Was it Beverly, or one of the adults in her life?   (And yes, I did Google her name -- I found one woman who would have been about the right age, but Iverson was her married name and she lived at the wrong end of the country, and one who was born a few years too late.)

There's something about this book that just makes me want to hug it tight and protect it.  Do you save books with strangers' inscriptions in them?

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Ivy & Elephants & Vintage Thingie Thursday.

my mysterious nail art

When I was trying to come up with a post for each day of the blog hop, Teenage Daughter offered to design me some Nancy Drew nail art. That girl is always up for a challenge -- she's done Green Eggs and Ham nails, along with Rudolph and his friends, the sailor boy from the box of pilot bread, and the Ferocious Beast.   

 

So I've got fingers painted in different shades of blue because the colors of the books in my collection vary and the design from the old book spines on my fingers...

 

And Nancy and her flashlight on my thumb.

 

I can't believe she does this all freehand, and usually on her own nails. If you want to see more of her work, or the details of the polishes she used, you can read all about it on her blog.

Have you checked out today's blog hop posts yet?

Dancing thru-threads, Traveling Quilter, Jane’s Quilting, More Stars in Comanche, Moose Stash Quilting, Quilt Doodle Designs, Cate’s Linens, Sew Incredibly Crazy, Grandmama’s Stories,
Judy At That Other Blog

I've always been a bookworm

I think this is my favorite picture from my childhood -- it's either this one or the one of me as a baby floating in my inflatable tug boat with the squeaky smoke stack. Don't you just love that carpet? I think it rivals that flooring I found under the carpet in the boys's room last summer!

 

This bookcase has been in our family for years. Mom kept her Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books in it when she was a kid. Later, it got used for encyclopedias. I'm not sure which room of our house this was taken in -- maybe the living room?  When we moved to another house, the bookcase was in my bedroom closet and once again held those same Nancy Drew books. And now it's in my sewing room...

 

 

 

There are a lot more books in the collection than when it was Mom's, quite a few added since Moda came out with the Nancy Drew fabric. Somewhere in our house is a whole box of Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew books that I packed away so they'd be safe from my kids. When I finally remember where I put them, they're going on the shelves, too. I posted about my vintage Nancy Drew collection last year, when I made the big quilt.

 

The Nancy Drew Sleuth blog has lots of information about the different editions -- covers, dust jackets, endpapers....everything you could ever want to know! And she's having a great giveaway right now.

Have you checked out today's blog hop posts? Simple Sew, Sewing By Moonlight, Beaquilter, Pat Sloan’s Place, A Stitch In Time, Judith Handmade Treasures, Gingersnaps Fabrics and Quilts, Judy At That Other Blog, Fabric-ating, Melinda Quilts Etc

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Ivy & Elephants and Vintage Thingie Thursday.

Nancy Drew is a Clue -- and I've got so much to show you!

I've been waiting for this blog hop for months -- and today's the day! If you're a regular reader of my blog, you've seen a few of these projects before. But there's a brand new one at the bottom of the post, and a giveaway for my followers. Did I mention that I'm excited?!

For as long as I can remember, I've been crazy for the Nancy Drew books. As soon as I saw that Moda had a line of Nancy Drew fabric coming out, I knew I had to make a quilt with it. I didn't go to bed that night until I had my pattern idea written up and submitted to Moda. Then I was on pins and needles until I heard back from them.

I stayed on pins and needles until Nancy's Mysterious Quilt was quilted and bound and looked just like it had in my head at 2am when I was trying to quickly draw out the pattern with felt tip pens I'd stolen from my kids.

The back up plan for this quilt was to buy the panel of book covers and make a two color Irish Chain to applique them onto. As hard as the fabric is getting to find, I still think that's a decent option.

 

While I was waiting for Moda to publish the pattern so I could actually show it to all of you, I kept myself busy making a protective sleeve for my vintage Nancy Drew books. It also fits my Kindle Fire -- and I wrote up a tutorial, if you want to make your own.

 

I had extra blocks from the big quilt, so I made the baby version.

And now for my blog hop project!

When I was working on the big quilt, I knew that I wanted to save some of the book spine print for a tote bag. I did wind up buying yardage later, because the spines on the layer cake weren't complete and I wanted full books on my bag.

 

The blue fabric is from one of my thrift store scrap bags. I love the way it looks like the blue tweed book covers. And the red lining -- that's a sheet I bought at Goodwill last week. I wanted it for the background of some quilt blocks I've got planned, but it was the perfect color for this project. Maybe I've got enough left for the blocks, or maybe that quilt will be smaller. I'm flexible!

I love the way this bag came out! Thanks to the boxed bottom, it stands up by itself and it's big enough and sturdy enough to hold a ton of books.(There was going to be a tutorial, but I had problems with the measurements. If anyone wants a sort-of-how-to post without exact instructions, let me know and I'd be happy to write it up. I've got measurements, but not a lot of progress pictures because things kept changing as I went along.)

I did straight lines of quilting between the book spines and meandered the rest. All in black thread, because it reminds me of the black details on the blue tweed spines.

I've still got a little fabric left, and a few more ideas. I made myself a camera strap cover and used some of the blue on blue silhouette print to make a Kindle cover with an applique typewriter for Teenage Daughter after she tried to swipe the Nancy Drew one from me. (I would've given it to her if she actually liked Nancy Drew, but she doesn't, so I made one that was more her style. Then she picked the Nancy Drew fabric for the background -- I'll never figure that girl out!)

And now for the giveaway! I've got a blue tweed copy of The Haunted Bridge to send to one of my readers. Why that particular Nancy Drew book? It's the one I could get my hands on. I'm not an expert on dating these books. This one has a blue tweed cover, no dust jacket, and is in pretty good shape considering its age.  That's about all I can tell you.

To enter, be a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post before 11:59 PST March 18, 2012. I'll notify the winner then.

Don't forget to visit the rest of today's Nancy Drew bloggers -- Life in the Scrapatch, Debby Kratovil Quilts, Selina Quilts, Meadowbrook, Hilltop House Creative Works, My Sister Made Me Do It, Whims and Fancies, Pieced Brain, & Just Let Me Quilt!

Nancy Drew camera strap cover

The neck strap that came with the camera I got for Christmas has got to be one of the most uncomfortable things ever -- and I wasn't even hot or sunburned!  Tromping through the desert, which we all know is in my near future, is going to require something quilted. And cute, because I'm a quilter and we don't make ugly things on purpose.

I thought I was going to do something pieced, then I took a look at that yardage I bought at Greenbaum's a couple of weeks ago. It's got cute little pictures on it, which is just perfect for a camera strap. And it's Nancy Drew!

In hindsight, I wish I'd looked at some tutorials before I made this one. I didn't realize that some camera straps come with pockets for the lens cover. I might need to make myself a second camera strap. Anyone want this one if/when I do?

Only six more sleeps 'til the Nancy Drew blog hop starts.... I can't wait to show off my new project! If you're getting impatient too, you might want to check out Nancy's Mysterious Quilt, or my Nancy Drew Kindle sleeve, or the baby quilt.

I'm linking this post to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Freedom Friday,  Link a Finish Friday.

Nancy Drew for Baby Too!

When I was working on Nancy's Mysterious Quilt, I had a temporary lapse in my math skills and made too many nine patch blocks and cut too many background squares. Having extra blocks bugs me. It feels like such a waste of fabric...and wasting fabric this good? Can't do that!

Then I realized that I had just enough blocks to make a nine patch baby quilt.... it looked a little too simple, so I added Nancy's shadow (instructions for how I made the shadow are in my Nancy Drew Kindle Sleeve Tutorial)

That was the quilt I wanted to make!

But I wasn't sure how to applique Nancy into place. On the Kindle sleeve, I used fusible web and stitched a line on the inner edge, but that isn't meant to be washed. This is a baby quilt and meant for heavy use. I wanted that silhouette to be secure. I wasn't about to try zig zag stitching around that outline. I didn't want black thread showing on the back of my quilt...or white on the front...and I don't try to balance tension with different top and bottom threads...

 

 

So I cheated. I meandered the whole quilt with white thread and used a permanent fabric marker to color the stitches on the shadow black. It looks just the way I wanted it to, and I don't have to worry about Nancy coming off in the wash.

This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday, Freedom Fridays, and the online quilt show at Hobbies on a Budget.

What else was I going to do with them?

I made a few too many blocks for the Nancy Drew quilt, so...

And because that chain pattern seemed just a little too simple and I didn't have any book covers left... 

 

To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times. I'm also linking to Applique Thursday at A Quilting Reader's Garden.  Mystery author Joanna Campbell Slan is giving away a mystery a day to my readers from Decemeber 7 through the 18th -- come back and enter each day for a chance to win.

vintage Nancy Drew books

My favorite thing about Moda's new Get a Clue With Nancy Drew fabric is the bookspines, closely followed by the end papers. Those images stirred up all kinds of happy chilhood memories and made me want to dig out my own collection and start reading...which is what I almost immediately did! It kept me busy while I was waiting to get my hands on the fabric.  

 

I've had Nancy Drew books as far back as I can remember. There are two old editions that belonged to my mother when she was a girl, The Secret of the Old Clock and The Bunglalow Mystery.  

 

I have a few blue tweed copies that we picked up at bookstores for me when I was little, and lots and lots of the ones with the matte yellow covers. And a handful of the ones with the shiny yellow covers that I started picking up after Alex was born. Have I mentioned that my girl would not read Nancy Drew?  She was too busy reading everything else, so I suppose I can't complain too much. And she did read Trixie Belden.

Did you know that the books with the blue covers were revised for the yellow covered printings? I can understand the publishers removing offensive stereotypes, but they also made the books shorter by eliminating five chapters, and, in a feew cases, completely changed the plots.

Over the years, I've been trying to put together a collection of the original editions. I pick them up whenever I find an inexpensive one at a used book store or estate sale. And, since I got the fabric and made the quilt, I admit I've been haunting the local antique shops. But they're getting harder to find than they used to be, and there seems to be another collector a few steps ahead of me.

To celebrate my new quilt, and in an attempt to suck all of my readers into my Nancy Drew obsession, I'm giving away copies of four of the six titles featured on the quilt top to give away. For more information about the quilt and the giveaway, and to enter, read this post.
 
The Nancy Drew Sleuth is a fantastic site with a ton of information about the different formats and when they were published. This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday,  and Vintage Thingie Thursday.

the asylum porch

My Nancy Drew quilt had to have the perfect backdrop. I thought about trying to get a picture in front of the Victorian mansion where hubby and I were married, but someone told me I'd probably get yelled at. I didn't really think they'd yell at me -- not for taking pictures of their wrought iron from the sidewalk, but the logistics of doing that with four kids in tow were a bit daunting. 

 

Then I thought of the brick walls at the old city hall building, which was the library back when I was reading the Nancy Drew books...

 

And then I remembered this place --  

 

 

Would you believe that this is inside a furniture store? I should've taken pictures of the gas station and the aiplane and the double decker bus...the place just has to be seen to be believed. And the owner happily gave me permission to take a picture of my quilt in front of their old moss covered mansion.

 

Which it turns out is something else...

 

THE PORCH IS FROM OREGON STATE INSANE ASYLUM, SALEM, OR. IT WAS BUILT IN 1883. THE STREET LEADING TO THE ASYLUM WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED ASYLUM AVE & WAS LATER CHANGED TO CENTER ST.

 

THE MOVIE ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST WAS FILMED AT THE ASYLUM IN 1975. THE MOVIE WON 5 ACADEMY AWAYS AND STARRED JACK NICHOLSON.

 

THE FRONT DOORS ARE FROM A HOME IN SAN FRANCISCO, WHICH SURVIVED THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE.

 

 

That's where the fun coincidences start. The first house Bill and I bought was off of Center Street, but we never knew that it was once called Asylum Ave. That would've made giving directions to the house more interesting!

 

And there's a Cuckoo's nest connection, too. If you've seen the movie and remember the scene where guys were sitting on lawn chairs and watching the news on televisions in the appliance store window -- that was my family's store and we would have been living in the apartment upstairs at the time it was filmed. Not that  I knew -- I would've been two years old at the time. I didn't  find out about it until I was an adult.  There's more information about the movie and original hospital building here.

 

You can find the free pattern for the quilt at the Moda Bake Shop, and enter to win vintage Nancy Drew books on this post.

Nancy's Mysterious Quilt

I've been absolutely dying to show you this quilt! The pattern is a free download from the Moda Bake Shop. You'll find my Nancy Drew giveaway at the bottom of this post.

 

I grew up on Nancy Drew books, always wishing I could find a secret passageway or an old diary...something spooky and mysterious. But there's not a lot of spooky and mysterious to be found when you live in a newly built house.

 

These days, I've got an old barn and and old attic, and a whole collection of antique trunks. But not many mysteries, unless I'm trying to figure out which of the kids did what.

 

When I first saw the previews for Moda's Get a Clue With Nancy Drew fabric, I got giddy. Those book covers...and the spines...and the end papers...  I knew I wanted to make a quilt with it!

 

And while I was waiting for the fabric to arrive, and then for the chance to show you the finished project, I tried to piece a black widow spider and made a cover for my 1930s and 40s era Nancy Drew books which also fits a Kindle. There's a tutorial for that here.

 

And now I'm working on another project for the Nancy Drew blog hop in January... I think I need to buy more of this fabric.  Signups for the blog hop are still open -- head over to Carol's blog for the details.

 

Is it conjuring up as many happy memories for you as it is for me?  I've been having an absolute blast, re-reading a bunch of Nancy Drew books and discovering some series from the same era that I missed when I was a kid -- Cherry Ames and Vicki Barr and Judy Bolton and the Dana Girls... 

 

 

 Did you love the Nancy Drew books as much as I did?  Does this fabric make you feel like re-reading them? I've managed to find copies of four of the six titles featured on the quilt top to give away. According to The Nancy Drew Library, these are vintage Twin Thriller book club editions. Each book contains two complete Nancy Drew mysteries, the same text as appeared in the yellow cover books on the quilt.

 

One of my followers will receive both books - to enter, just be a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm December 10.

 

Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you where I found the moss covered mansion (which is actually part of an asylum) to take the pictures! 

Nancy Drew book or kindle sleeve tutorial

If I'm going to keep carrying eighty year old mystery novels around in my purse (and I am, for the foreseeable future at least) I needed something to protect them from everything else I haul around on a daily basis. I don't care for book covers, so I made myself a book sleeve.

Not quite as obsessed with rereading the Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames books as I am right now? It also fits a Kindle.

Start by tracing Nancy Drew's shadow from one of the books (or Google Nancy Drew silhouette images) onto fusible web.  The one I used is from my 1930s edition of The Secret of the Old Clock. Enlarge so that she's just under 5" high.  Don't forget to reverse the image so that she's facing the right direction on your book sleeve.

Fuse onto black fabric and cut out. An Xacto knife is helpful for the heels and magnifying glass. And the scarf, if you're using one of Nancy's older incarnations.

Cut two 8" x 19" pieces of blue fabric and one matching piece of batting. Layer the pieces with the batting on bottom, then two blue pieces with the right sides facing.  Sew around outer edge with 1/4" seam allowance, leaving a 4" opening along one long side. Turn right side out.

With black thread, sew a straight line down the middle of the piece.  I didn't fuse Nancy into place until I'd done the freemotion embroidery on the front and back, so that I could decide which one I liked better.

Free motion quilt lines and loops to imitate the book spine. 

Fuse Nancy's shadow into place, then free motion quilt a line just inside the silhouette.

Fold in half with right sides together and sew a 1/4" seam down both long sides. Turn ride side out. The sleeve will snugly fit one of the vintage Nancy Drew books, or loosely fit a Kindle or Kindle Fire.

Now my vintage mysteries will be protected from everything in my tote bag...or almost everything. If you make one of your own, I'd love to see pictures.

This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT Family and Elm Street Quilts.

on my needles - still that same baby hat

The Nancy Drew kick continues -- I'm reading The Ghost of Blackwood Hall (that's the one with the fake seances), and just finished The Secret in the Old Attic (that's the one with the pointing skeleton and the black widow spider.) I think these are my two favorite books from the series.

Before the trip, I started a NICU hat with some baby yarn that has been sitting in my stash since 2004. That date implies that it was supposed to be a sweater for Quinn, who was two months old on that shopping trip. I'm glad that yarn doesn't come with expiration dates and can always be re purposed for something else.

Today I won't be knitting or reading. I've got a quilt to finish!



And check out On the Needles over at Patchwork Times.

Get a Clue with Nancy Drew

It doesn't take much to get me geeking out about vintage Nancy Drew books. But these aren't books. These are fabric!

It's one of the prints from Moda's upcoming collection, Get a Clue With Nancy Drew, and it's got my heart going pitty-pat like you wouldn't believe. I can't tell you how giddy I am that Moda is letting me make them a quilt with this stuff.

There's a panel with six of the book covers. The colors are just incredible.

Of course I had to stop at the library and pick up one to compare to the fabric. Because my own copy of Ghost of Blackwood Hall is one of the blue bound ones.

The images in this print come from the book covers. I can recognize The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes and (I think) The Mystery of the Fire Dragon. Does that mean I read these books too many times as a kid?

Even the selvages are cute.

Did I mention that I'm excited about this fabric?