37 days 'til Christmas!

It seems like we never have enough ornaments for our tree.  Last year, I decided to make some and started a Pinterest board with my favorite Christmas ornament tutorials. Anyone want to guess how many I wound up making before Christmas morning?

I'm going to do better this year!

I started with some of these little paper wreaths that I found at Home Frosting. They're only about two inches or so across and getting the pieces to interlock was a struggle, probably because I was using paper from an old book with age-softened pages.

I didn't read the pages first, just scanned for any really awful words that might jump out later. I'm telling myself that no one will actually read the tree, but it'll be just my luck that I missed something.

Got any favorite tutorials you can recommend?

I've got fabric to cut...

Have you seen the brand new AccuQuilt Go! dies, the ones they're calling their Stash Buster Collection? They sent me three of them to play with -- the Hunter Star, the Snowball, and the Bow Ties...and I'm drooling over the rest of the collection.  

Now I want to drop everything and go start cutting scraps -- won't these make great baby quilts?!

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 1 1/2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 67 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 251 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2013: 184.5 yards


Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2950 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 13200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 10250 yards

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times and Finding Fifth.

{Whatcha Reading?} Karma Gone Bad

When I was a teenager, I spent a month in Japan as part of an exchange program. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but as soon as I got there I realized that  I was in way over my head. 

Did I mention that I didn't speak a word of Japanese and knew next to nothing about the culture? 

When I got the chance to read Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo, I was intrigued. One of my best friends moved to India a couple of years ago to be closer to her husband while he was working overseas. My friend didn't last long there.  Aside from a few Travel Chanel and National Geographic specials, I still don't know much of anything about India.

But I'm curious!

Jenny Feldon provides a fascinating glimpse at another culture (my friend had the same complaints about dealing with those  marble floors) and her struggles to cope. She started her trip picturing herself as the perfect expat housewife, but the reality of her life in is far, far different -- and provides for great reading.

You can read about Jenny's current adventures at her blog, Karma (continued...)

Disclosure -- My copy of the book was provided by the publisher.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {week 46}

I'm working from someone else's pattern this week, the Sapphires and Rubies baby quilt, a free tutorial from Needly. I wasn't in the mood to learn a new technique, so I tried making the blocks with quick corners instead of the four at a time flying geese that the pattern calls for...so my top doesn't look quite like it's supposed to. 

What are the odds that the mommy who winds up with it will notice?

Be sure to check back next week -- I'll be giving away a copy of Quilt It with Love: The Project Linus Story: 20+ Quilt Patterns & Stories to Warm Your Heart as part of the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop.

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.

Cheap Pyrex!

These days, I keep half an eye out for vintage Pyrex and Corning Ware. I don't really need any, and when I do find it, the prices are usually higher than I'm willing to pay.  No one told whoever did the pricing at this estate sale that Hubby and I stumbled across a couple of weeks ago.

This taped together set was a dollar. It's my least favorite pattern, and the one I have the most of, but for that price I was sure I needed the two little casserole dishes. If nothing else, they match what I've already got at home.  I didn't want the big dish on the bottom, but if it cleans up, I might use it for potlucks or something where I don't want to risk a piece I'm more attached to. 

And this piece with its pretty metallic pine cones was seventy-five cents. When I bought it, I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it had to be worth that. According to Pyrex Love, it's a Golden Pine Promotional Space Saver Casserole With Cradle. Doesn't it just beg to be filled with something yummy for Thanksgiving dinner?  

The sale was in a huge old house, the sort of rambling mid century modern place that makes me want to pack up my kids and move in. (I love my 1920 farmhouse, but those huge basements!)  Usually if I'm shopping with Hubby, we discuss possible purchases, but with this stuff it was "Honey, you're buying me Pyrex!" 

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Vintage Thingie Thursday, Share Your Cup, We Call it Olde, and Ivy and Elephants.Thriftasaurus, Thrift Share,

For the Boys

I was going to make a baby boy quilt for this hop, then inspiration struck. Hard.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know that I've got three boys. ages seven, nine, and thirteen and if you read about our field trip to the Ape Caves, you might also remember that they're just a bit obsessed with all things sasquatch related.

Which inspired my For the Boys project, a backpack for lugging home library books.

I'm now committed to make two more of these -- one Zombie Outbreak Response Team and one with a Chupacabra on it, requested by the same kid who wanted the possum costume for Halloween.  Does anyone else think he enjoys messing with me? I'll put together a tutorial when I do the second round of backpacks.

I boxed the bottom and the whole thing is padded and lined and double-stitched. I've destroyed so many book bags over the years that if I'm going to make one it's going to be STRONG. My Nancy Drew Bag is still holding up to our weekly library runs, so I borrowed a lot of the same construction techniques.

I think I tend to get so giddy about the cute girly stuff on Pinterest that I forget how much neat boy stuff I've actually made for my sons over the years. There was the jet pack made from spray painted died Coke bottles.  The dead fish hat and shark hat...the felted fireman hat...the dinosaur quilt... not to mention a whole lot of other quilts and sweaters.


Make sure to visit today's other bloggers -- Dachsies with Moxie, Patchouli Moon Studio, It Seams to Be Sew..., Scrappy n Happy, Loves to Quilt , Factotum of Arts, Jackie's Art Quilts, Living with purpose

This post is linked to I Gotta Try That, Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Get Crafting Friday, Pinworthy Projects, and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, and Inspired Friday.

{Yarn Along} The Funeral Dress

I haven't done any knitting this week. The Opal socks need the heel turned. The Croc socks require just barely too much counting to work on when I'm with my family. And I just can't work up much enthusiasm for this pair:

The colors are pretty enough, but those stripes seem too clunky to me. One of the risks you run when you buy sale yarn on impulse, just guessing at what it will do, I guess. But now that I own it, I'm stuck. I can't think of anything I'd rather have these stripes on than socks. So this project is living in my purse, waiting for that moment when I'm completely stuck somewhere and I don't have anything more fun to work on. 

It could happen. 

I love, love, loved The Funeral Dress by Susan Gregg Gilmore. Set in the early 1970s, it's the story of Emmalee Bullard, a young woman with a newborn baby and a troubled life. She lives alone in a mountain shack with her father, struggling to care for her baby in almost impossible circumstances.

When Leona, one of the older seamstresses at the factory where she works offers to take Emmalee and her baby in, she begins to hope for a better future. Then Leona and her husband's truck is run off the road as they drive down the mountain to a church supper. You know those scenes where you just want to scream at the author for doing something so awful to her characters? But if things didn't go wrong, I suppose there wouldn't be much of a story. And there's a lot of story here. The details as Emmalee sews a burial dress for Leona, trying to ignore the throbbing beginnings of mastitis were so vivid that I ached for her. I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and make everything all better.

I've also been reading The Sleeper by Gillian White. There's a lot going on in this book, which opens with Clover, a farmer's wife dreading the Christmas visit of her mother-in-law. Flashbacks tell the story of the mother-in-law's troubled childhood. Then Clover's husband discovers a corpse in the flooded cellar. Every character has problems and secrets and I found myself slogging through, trying to figure it all out and trying to figure out if I actually cared enough to finish or not. There is a payoff at the end that ties most of it together, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble getting there.

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 -- I was provided with copies of both books by the publishers. 

Design Wall Monday

Some things are much, much easier than possums to make -- especially when they're two-dimensional and there's clip art online! 

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

I found 'em!

Are you planning on making Celtic Solstice? I still haven't decided, but I picked up the paint chips and started thinking about fabric. I don't have much orange in my stash, so that might be a problem. If we need the orange for Step One, I may drop out before I even get started. 

I bought a set of Tri Recs a few years back, planning to make a quilt I'd seen on someone's blog. I never did start that quilt, and forgot all about the rulers until I saw Jo's Peaks and Valleys Pattern. You can do a triangle in a square with those rulers?! I didn't know that when I bought them!

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 1 3/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 65 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 4 yards
A"dded Year to Date: 251 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2013: 186 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2950 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 2200 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 13200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 10250 yards

That looks like a lot of yarn, but it's for one sweater for Teenage Daughter. She wants a Weasley Sweater in Slytherin colors, "like the one you made Heath, but with nicer yarn." I don't have many sweater quantities of yarn in my stash, and none of them at Slytherin green, so we found a sale on Wool-Ease and, after finding out that the store only stocks eight skeins of any one color at a time (really?!), ordered it online. They also had colors to match two of those single skeins of sock yarn I was fussing about a while back.

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times and Finding Fifth.

{Whatcha Reading?} Hijack in Abstract

Cherry Tucker is at it again, this time hired to do a composite sketch of a hijacker and to paint a portrait for one of rich but mysterious Max Avtaikin's business associates. Even though Max's high-stakes poker games have been shut down, Cherry continues to suspect that he is up to no good. She's never listened to any of his warnings, so why would she let them keep her away from her new client?

Those nude Greek paintings Cherry was working on in Still Life in Brunswick Stew have been sold and her rival Shawna is embarrassing her family by spreading posters all over town with just the most incriminating bits. Shawna says she'll  stop...if Cherry gives back the picture she wants. The only problem is that Cherry has no clue what Shawna is after -- she wouldn't be caught dead with one of Shawna's tacky paintings.

This series keeps getting more fun. I'll be watching for the next book, which is due out next year. (If you haven't started this series yet, the Kindle edition of Portrait of a Dead Guy is on sale for ninety-nine cents until Sunday.)

Joanna Campbell Slan has a new short story available, Kiki Lowenstein and the Cupcake Caper. (This one takes place before Group, Photo, Grave) When her friend Clancy suddenly becomes impossible to work with, Kiki is determined to find out what's wrong. It's always fun to spend some time in Kiki's world and Clancy is one of my favorite characters in the series, so I was glad to see that this one was about her.

According to the author's website, The Cupcake Caper will be a  free download November 7, 8, &9, along with Tear Down and Die, the first book in her new mystery series.

Disclosure -- the publisher provided me with a review copy of Hijack in Abstract. I bought my copy of Kiki Lowenstein and the Cupcake Caper because I was too impatient to wait for the price change.

Cheddar Bow Tie Update 11/8/13

Even Jo and Nell's challenge wasn't enough to inspire progress on my bow ties this week. I cut and pieced twenty-two more blocks, which brings my total to 284.

Did I mention that I'm trying to use as many fabrics as possible? I'm only doing two bows in each print, which means a lot of extra sorting and cutting -- and, now that I've got more than half of my bows done, keeping track of which fabrics I have and haven't used already.

But it's worth it. I'm loving all of the geese and spiderwebs and other fun little details!

Let's Make Baby Quilts {week 45}

Making any new progress on your baby quilts?

I fnished Cookie, which was really just an excuse to learn a new quilting design. And I started a brand new baby quilt using someone else's pattern. I'm not following the directions, so mine won't look like hers...but that's what keeps life interesting, right?

If you missed it last week, check out this adorable striped baby quilt from What the Bobbin?

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 strange new resident of my kitchen

When we were in Sisters last week, I saw an antique store we'd never been in before. I sort of vaguely remember seeing it during the quilt show in July, but

I'm officially in love with Old Western Antiques and Books. Imagine drawers and drawers full of photographs and epherma, with signs inviting you to pull them out and go through everything at the long wooden tables. There's a gambling wheel behind the cash register that just took my breath away. I don't know why I'm so fascinated by  those things, especially since I don't gamble, but they're pretty. I didn't have my camera with me, but their website has pictures, including the wheel.

The owner and his staff didn't bat an eye at our four children, and one woman gave my teenage son a detailed explanation of trade stimulators and how the one he'd asked me about probably worked. It was over my head, so I couldn't see what it was, and my answer would probably been "it's a gambling thing."

One of these days, I'd like to go back on my own and look through those drawers. We went back later the same afternoon to buy this guy.

The kids had spotted him sitting on a counter and Hubby and I couldn't get him off our minds. I think he's going to wind up on my kitchen wall once we decide how and where to hang him.

I did some research when we got home. The strange new resident of my kitchen was made in the 1950s by Wilton.  I found plenty of them for sale on etsy and ebay and an article. The same company also made a four eyed woman bottle opener, which is even creepier than the one we bought. No way would I hang her on my wall!

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Vintage Thingie Thursday, Share Your Cup, We Call it Olde, and Ivy and Elephants.Thriftasaurus, Thrift Share,

{Yarn Along} The New York Nobody Knows

Look, it's the unchanging pairs of socks!

Sometimes I find myself reading books without understanding quite why. A title sounds interesting, so I pick it up. That's how I wound up reading The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City by William B. Helmreich.

Here's the publisher's description --

As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever.

Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs--an astonishing 6,000 miles. His epic journey lasted four years and took him to every corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Helmreich spoke with hundreds of New Yorkers from every part of the globe and from every walk of life, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former mayors Rudolph Giuliani, David Dinkins, and Edward Koch. Their stories and his are the subject of this captivating and highly original book.

I've never been to New York and never expect to get there, but I know the feeling of driving through a place and wanting to get out to walk and explore, so I was happy to vicariously experience the city through Mr. Helmreich's observations. I found myself skimming through some of the statistics, but the stories about individual people and neighborhoods were fascinating.

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. 

Meet Cookie!

This is the second of the quilts I made so I could try out  free-motion patterns from Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting by Natalia Bonner.

The quilting design, Double Arcs, is similar to the quilting design I used for Annabelle and Steve.  Instead of following the directions from the book, I followed  the directions for Continuous Curve from 31 Days of Walking Foot Quilting and  made two sets of lines.

And look at my backing!

The date on the selvage is 2000 -- is that before Cookie Monster stopped being Cookie Monster and started singing about healthy foods? 

This post is linked to I Gotta Try That, Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Get Crafting Friday, Pinworthy Projects, and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, and Inspired Friday.

Sapphires and Rubies...sorta...

This started out as an attempt to make the Sapphires and Rubies baby quilt from Needyl.  

Because I'm not working with solids and didn't want a seam breaking up the design on my fabric, I decided to make a sort of elongated snowball block instead of the four-at-a-time flying geese that the pattern calls for. Which meant I guessed at some of the measurements. My blocks don't line up like the ones in the pattern, but I can live with that. 

That white star that the background fabric is making? Those are a complete accident that I created when I sawed some blocks together wrong. It won't be in the finished quilt. 

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

{Kindle Freebie} Morehouse Farm Critter Knits

If you knit, or if you think you might learn to knit anytime soon, hop over to Amazon and download Morehouse Farm Critter Knits: 20 Easy Patterns & Designs for Animal Scarves, Hats & Mittens. I'm serious -- even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read it on one of Amazon's free reading apps.



It has the pattern for the Alligator Scarf! And the baby Alligator Scarf, which I wanted to make for the boys, but never did because I couldn't bring myself to buy a separate pattern just to get the smaller size. Well, that and I'd already given them my own scarf....

There's also the Dragon Scarf and the Lobster Mittens and matching Lobster Tail Scarf.... But the star of the show is really that Alligator. I  still can't get over those eyes and nostrils and scales, which aren't hard at all as long as you know how to increase and decrease.

a Halloween treat for Mommy!

I am officially tired of trick-or-treating. This was my fourteenth year of it and there's no end in sight. I'm guessing I'll be wandering dark neighborhoods with my kids for three more years at the very least. By next year, though, I'll have forgotten my aching feet and how much fun it was to realize that we were lost on the wrong street after all of the porch lights went out, and we'll be ready to do it again!

Before we set out for the night, I stopped at the local yarn store for their Trick or Treat sale. It was one of those pick-a-discount after they've rung up your purchase deals, and I doubted that I'd get more than 10% off.

I'd been eyeballing this skein of yarn, especially since I saw Jurga's Old Witch Socks on Ravelry. You can't see them if you're not a member -- they're textured socks in a similar colorway and I love, love, love them. I don't know if I'll buy that exact pattern, since I've got books and books of sock patterns already, but I do want something with that kind of texture. (Now watch me use it for a shawl or something completely unrelated!)

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 63 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 247 1/2 yards
Net Added for 2013: 183 3/4 yards


Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 2950 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 400 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 11000 yards
Net Added for 2013: 8050 yards

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times and Finding Fifth.

Why?

My youngest son is amazingly curious, and he's not satisfied by simple answers. Tell him that the moon's gravity makes the tides happen and he'll want to know how it makes the tides happen because it doesn't make sense to him.  Tell him that mirrors work by reflecting the light back to your eyes and he wants to know how the light knows what you look like.... (And I'm really proud that Teenage Daughter could come up with that explanation off the top of her head while putting on makeup and being pestered by her younger brother.)

How does fire work? Where do farmers get their cows? How much does a cow cost, anyway? Huh?

I can tell him where to buy a cow and about what they cost, but until he asked and I did some research I had absolutely no clue how fire works.  I knew that it needed oxygen and a source of ignition, but I didn't know what was happening to that wood in the fireplace while it burned. Does it make me a horrible mom to admit that I don't really care what that flame is doing as long as it stays where it belongs?

In an effort to keep a step ahead of my kids, or at least not fall too far behind, I've been reading science books.

Why? by Joel Levy is one of the most useful that I've come across. Now that I've read it, I know where the salt in the ocean comes from (it's not the answer I was given in school and passed along to my kids), how the fire works, why the veins in your arm look blue when your blood is red, and why we get old. And a lot of other things that my seven-year-old hasn't asked about yet.

The author starts with simple explanations and then explains things further, getting to what he calls the "ultimate explanation."  And he explains it all in simple enough terms that most of it didn't make my head hurt. It's written for older children, but for a  mommy who's trying to explain things she never learned in school, it's a godsend.

Disclosure -- the publisher provided me with and ARC of WHY? and I'm really glad they did. Most of the review copies I leave aren't nearly this helpful!

Cheddar Bow Tie Update

Jo and Nell issued a challenge to pull out a Quiltville WIP and finish the top before Bonnie's new mystery starts on Thanksgiving, and I pulled out my cheddar bow ties.

This week, I found 12 bow ties that weren't in the original count and pieced 22 more. That brings my total to 262 out of 400. And means that I need to dig out some scraps and start cutting! 

We were away from home for four days this week and I started thinking that I should have pulled out my scrappy Irish Chain instead. That one is a gift so it has a vague sense of deadline to it, and it needs fewer blocks to finish it. Then the crazy voices start whispering to me and I start thinking that maybe I should dig it out and try to finish them both this month...