Feeling Giddy

Between my newly finished Cheddar Bowties and my newly finished Drab Postage Stamps (the reveal for that one is tomorrow's post), I've had plenty to be giddy about lately. And now I'm giddy again, but this quilt top is definitely squeal worthy: 

All of those browns and reds are from my stash. There's something wonderful about seeing a pattern that you love, realizing that you can make it with fabric you already have, and getting it done. It's even better when you get it done quickly. Can I call four months quickly?

I'm hoping to have this one quilted and bound by the end of the week.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Watching the Calendar and Making Plans

I've been looking at the calendar and looking at my projects, trying to figure out what I'd like to have done by the end of the year. I'm not putting any pressure on myself, just seeing what's here and what's close to finished and what I feel like working on and planning from there.

Except for the squid. Teenage Daughter wants that done and she seems to want it now. It only needs two more tentacles (those things with all of the bobbles were arms) and some seaming, but my last skein of purple yarn is hiding.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 2 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 39 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards
Net Added for 2014: 63 yards

Yarn Used this Week:  0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 7075 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards
Net Used for 2014: 2865 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Got Any Halloween Candy Left?

This year, I saw all kinds of suggestions for dealing with Halloween candy, from selling it to local dentists to eating a piece a day  for a few days and donating what was left to (my favorite) freezing some of it to use in those dessert recipes that  call for chopped up candy bars.

My own plan, which I got too busy to follow up on, was to do a bunch of the experiments from Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt. We're going to have to buy a Cadbury egg to see what happens when we fry it.

My two younger boys love doing experiments, especially that one where you fill a jar with muddy water and wait for it to settle into layers. I don't think they've ever left the jar alone long enough for it to work the way its supposed to, but filling the jar and shaking it up makes them happy.

This book is full of simple experiments that don't require much preparation. The author even offers alternatives to a microwave (for the two or three of us families living without one like we are!)

I was thrilled to find out that there's a second book, Candy Experiments 2. That one has a strong focus on science fair projects as opposed to science demonstrations, which are what you'll find in the first book. (The boys and I are after science demonstrations.)  Both books explain what's causing the reaction you get. I don't  expect my boys to get deep scientific understanding from either book, but they'll be perfect for those days when they wants to make something happen.

Disclosure -- I found Candy Experiments on my own. The publisher provided me with an ARC of Candy Experiments 2. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {12/5/14}

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 Gordon!

This baby quilt started out as an unfinished quilt from a yard sale, the same one where I bought the quilt we haul down to the river and spread on the rocks. The frog print was really cute and it was only a quarter and it looked like it would be a great start to a baby quilt... 

I probably should have looked a little closer. Those weren't solid strips of the novelty print. Instead, it was cut into six inch squares and pieced into strips. With a decorative zig zag stitch.

Why would anyone do that?  I wonder if she didn't know the settings on her sewing machine, or if that odd serpentine zig zag was a deliberate choice.

I cut it back into squares and did what I could with the frog print and the navy blue print and the bit of blue sheet that was left over from Teenage Daughter's latest dressmaking project.  It's not what I was picturing in my head, but it'll do.

{Yarn Along} Abandoned Socks

I started the Croc Socks in August 2013 and I have not been loving them. I do like the yarn and I like the look of the pattern, but I'm not enjoying the process. Especially since I put the second sock down halfway through the heel flap and can't quite remember the changes I made to the pattern  for the first sock. I'm really too far along to rip it out and start over with something else...

The Noviembre socks have been on the needles since 2008. According to an old post, they were going fine until I was doing dishes and had a mishap with a broken Pyrex bowl. There's no reason not to finish them now...except maybe for the part where the pattern is in Spanish and I hope I come up with the same translation again!

Maybe if I force myself to spend fifteen minutes at a time, I can actually get these done.



A garage sale mystery? Of course I was going to read Tagged for Death by Sherry Harris. When Sarah Winston finds a blood soaked shirt in one of her bags of garage sale leftovers, a shirt that obviously belongs to her ex-husband, she isn't sure what to think. The shirt points to something awful, especially since the young woman he left her for is missing, but she can't believe that he's guilty of murder.

The background turned out to be more about civilian life on and around a military base than about garage sales, but the plot and characters were interesting enough that I'll be watching for the second book in the series to come out next summer.




The writing team of Sparkle Abbey is back with a sixth book in the Pampered Pets mystery series, The Girl with the Dachshund Tattoo. This time it's Mel's turn to solve the mystery, and she's plunged right into one when she finds a body at the Laguna Beach Dachshund Dash. Betty, Mel's quirky (and that's putting it mildly) assistant, is back with a larger part in this book. The gun she's been carrying since their last brush with danger has gone missing, making her the main suspect in the murders. I loved the chance to read more about Betty.



Cookie Chanel, owner of a vintage clothing store, comes home from an estate sale with more than new inventory for the shop. The ghost of Charlotte Meadows is tagging along with her former belongings, and she expects Cookie to solve her murder. If You've Got It, Haunt It by Rose Pressey is a cute read with useful tips for finding vintage clothes and less-than-useful tips for getting rid of ghosts scattered through the chapters.

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



Disclosure -- the publishers provided me with ARCs

Cheddar Bow Ties -- My favorite kind of quilt!

I thought last week was the big reveal for Jo's Quiltville Challenge. Turns out that I had another week to get my binding on, so here it is again, all bound and ready to snuggle under! 

This is my absolute favorite kind of scrap quilt, the one where you get to use everything from the scrap bag as long as it's halfway decent quality. (And sometimes if it's less decent, if the color or print is exciting enough.)

I've got lobsters....

and geese and seahorses and the hind end of a Dalmation....

Halloween words and tea pots and teacups....

And spiderwebs and plaids and a zillion different kinds of flowers. It's like an I Spy for grownups!

I, J...L, M, N, O, P, Q....T (and some flying geese and broken dishes and a pinwheel, too!)

This is one of those rare times that my design wall photo is actually of something on a wall. The directions for the last of the Little Letters blocks are up at  Temecula Quilt Company, which was just the little shove I needed to get back to work on my quilt. I'd set it aside after my letter "I" came out all wrong. Not sure what I did to the first one, but the second one is all nice and square. 

I want a pieced border to add to the antique sampler look, but I'm not sure if what I'm picturing in my head will work or not. 

The fabric I'm using is a black on dark grey that looks solid unless you're right on top of it. I'd bought a whole bolt when Joann's was closing one of their local stores to reopen in another location and it's been waiting for the right project. This isn't going to make a huge dent, but I'm glad I had it to use, and I don't mind having yards and yards left over. 

Sunday was a good day for piecing. A dozen or so Little Letters blocks and a bunch more of the red blocks for Chocolate Covered Cherries... Not what I'd planned on piecing, but that project derailed as soon as I took a good look at the pattern.

This post is linked to Patchwork Times. 

The Fifteenth Pair

If you'd told me that I'd hit the point where I didn't think a finished pair of socks deserved its own post, I wouldn't have believed you. But I think I've hit that point. There's no story to the yarn, nothing interesting about the process.... 

They're just a pair of socks. 

I really do like this pair, but the foot is just a hair too short, so they're going to Teenage Daughter. The yarn is Patons Kroy Denim Jacquard. Same needles and non-pattern as the other fourteen pairs I've knit this year....

Weekly Stash Report 

Instead of venturing out early on Black Friday, I stayed home with my fabric stash and did some cutting and sewing. Nothing in, something out. Not a bad week at all for fabric numbers!

Fabric Used this Week: 9 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 37 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards
Net Added for 2014: 65 yards

Yarn Used this Week:  0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 7075 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards
Net Used for 2014: 2865 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

My Second Attempt at Furniture

Look what I made! It's for the dollhouse. I probably should have put a quarter or something there for scale to make it more obvious, but I was too busy figuring out how to position it in a box so that I could get a picture of my nifty little table without everything else I'm working on in the way. 

My first attempt at furniture went badly, for a lot of different reasons. I'm much happier with this one, but all I did was stain (sort of) the precut pieces and glue them together.

While Hubby was recovering his surgery last spring, I spent a lot of time browsing Pinterest and a bunch of different miniature blogs. I kept coming across references to House of Miniatures kits and how wonderful they were and how people kept finding them for dirt cheap.  I found a bunch of affordable ones in an ad on Craigslist, but they were too far from home to seriously consider.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found another ad for an antique mall that had (according to the ad) lots of dollhouse kits and furniture. Teenage Daughter was invited to a sleepover in that neck of the woods, so we made a detour and got lost and I found out that "antique mall" really meant dusty storefront where you have to squeeze in between industrial shelving and dig through plastic bins.

But looks what I got, for close enough to dirt cheap. I would up paying around three bucks a kit.

The little table was easy enough, but these may be over my head. Look at those working drawers and hinges and all of the little details!

My hope is that if I can manage these with their precut pieces, I'll have the gluing and finishing part figured out and better luck next time I try making furniture from scratch.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/28/14}

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 Ansel!

I wanted to name this quilt after a photographer, and Ansel Adams was the first one to come to mind. Actually, the only other one who came to mind was Matthew Brady, and his subject matter was pretty grim, so Ansel it is!

The pattern is Click! and it's in the August 2013 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I bought the magazine because I loved the quilt, then decided that even though I wanted to make it, it probably wasn't a quilt I needed to have in my house forever.

As written, the pattern alternates light and dark cameras. I made all of mine dark and added sashing to separate them. The camera prints are raided from my other projects. The backing is a polka dot print that Mary Ellen sent me earlier this year. All of the grey for the lenses and camera buttons is leftover bits from the backing of Dashes in the Woods, because I never throw good fabric away. It may take a while before I figure out where it belongs, but there's almost always something I can do with it.

For more finishes, check out Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?,  and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, Make it Monday and Inspired Friday.

{Yarn Along} The Perfect Mother

More self-striping sock yarn, this time Knitpicks Simple Stripes in Vineyard. I think this will be my 16th pair for 2014. 

The Perfect Mother by Nina Darnton begins with a late night phone call that shatters Jennifer Lewis's perfect existence. Her daughter, a college student studying abroad, has been arrested for murder. As quickly as she can, Jennifer makes arrangements for her her two younger children and books a plane ticket, determined to help her daughter unravel what is obviously some kind of terrible mistake.

Except most of what Jennifer believed about Emma's life in Spain turns out to be false. And it starts to seem like what the reader knows about Jennifer and her daughter and their relationship might be a little too perfect to be true. Jennifer doesn't understand the foreign legal system that she's dealing with and is starting to fear that she doesn't understand her own daughter. I enjoyed the book until the very end, which didn't quite work for me.



Every year, there's a string of murders in the small town of Apple, Massachusetts. It's been happening for decades and the murderer has never been caught. Stumbling across grisly murder scenes is just as predictable as the changing seasons. Jackson Gill and his best friends find this year's first body and hope that they won't be next.  Bloody Bloody Apple by Howard Odentz is rich with atmosphere and suspense.


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



Disclosure -- the publishers provided me with ARCs

So Close!

Jo from Jo's Country Junction has challenged the rest of us to finish up some of our Bonnie Hunter projects before the challenge starts. I'm going to sit out this mystery, but it was just the motivation I needed to pull out one of my favorite WIPs. 

I've got everything done but the binding. It's a little smaller than I'd originally planned, but I've fallen in love with another pattern that uses 2" bow tie blocks and finishing this one means I can get started on that one. 

Gingham Dog

I've been wanting to try this cute little gingham dog that I found over at Moda Lissa a while back. It's just a handful of 2 1/2" squares, but it's sure cute!  

I'm thinking I can use the leftovers from my drab postage stamps to do a little 32" square postage stamp quilt to back it with.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

The Most Productive Week I've Had in Ages

It came as a complete and total shock to realize how much I can get done when I've got two or three hours to spend at the sewing machine.

This is Saturday morning -- a pin-basted quilt and freshly wound bobbins, in a color that I'd probably never ever need for any other quilt I plan on making. But the thread, supposedly good stuff, came in a sampler with the purchase of my sewing machine and I'm happily using it.

Wednesday, I was up in Salem quilting a bigger quilt on Mom's longarm. Thursday I was quilting a baby quilt here on my Janome....

Please don't remind me how quickly the holidays are looming -- I've got some projects to play with before I realize that I should be counting down!

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 11 1/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 28 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards
Net Added for 2014: 74 yards

Yarn Used this Week:  400 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 7075 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards
Net Used for 2014: 2865 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Washtubs & Bubbles

This week, it's been bath time embroidery. 

I don't know if this guy will wind up in the  finished quilt or not, but he was too silly to resist.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/21/14}

For the first time in months, I've got a baby quilt of my own to show off. Meet Levi! All of the details can be found here.

Last week, Dee Dee linked up to pictures of her 48th, 49th and 50th baby quilts for the year. Woohoo!

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 Levi!

Most of my baby quilts start with the question "What if?"

This time, I was wondering what would happen if I took that pieced border that I'm loving so much from Jo's Chocolate covered Cherries pattern and made a two color baby quilt. I used 2 1/2" cut squares instead of the 2" squares the pattern calls for and left out the alternate blocks.

I couldn't be happier with the results!

The solid blue is from a sheet that we bought for Teenage Daughter's Halloween costume after she'd stolen one sheet from my stash and decided that one was too purply. This one was almost the right shade....but not as good as another stash sheet that I'd set aside to back her brother's quilt.  The backing is one of the lovely baby prints that Mary Ellen sent me earlier this year.

For more finishes, check out Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?,  and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, Make it Monday and Inspired Friday.