Let's Make Baby Quilts! {1/13/17}

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.

Another Vinyl Zipper Bag

Inspired by lots of pretty examples on Pinterest, my search for the perfect project bag continues...

This one should have been easier than my first vinyl project bag, especially since I wasn't dealing with homemade bias tape. Instead, I made every math error possible and wound up re-sizing the vinyl windows so I wouldn't have to cut new pieces of the novelty print. Vinyl from Walmart is cheaper and more expendable than pretty stuff from the quilt shop.

I do like the bag I wound up with. It's a nice way to enjoy the pretty fabric without using up too much of it. And it lets me see what's inside.

{Yarn Along} Winter and I Aren't Getting Along

Winter Night yarn doesn't have the same spectacular effect as the yarn from the same line did in my Fall Night or Summer Night socks. The pretty designs are there if you look hard enough, but so far I'm not too impressed. 

In The Elusive Elixir, the third Accidental Alchemist mystery, Zoe Faust travels to Paris in search of a second living gargoyle. Her mission becomes complicated when she's recognized by someone from her past, an old woman who refuses to believe that Zoe is the granddaughter of the woman she once knew.   I love this series, with its likable characters and interesting settings. This time we learn a bit more about Zoe's past as she becomes closer to unraveling the secrets of backward alchemy, a dangerous art that may prevent her gargoyle friend from returning permanently to his original stone form. Gigi Pandian's books are perfect fans of quirky cozy mysteries.



The River At Night by Erica Ferencik is a straight forward thriller. Four women set out on their annual vacation. This year's adventure is a rafting trip through a remote wilderness area. Their guide has made the trip a handful of times and they'll be among the first paying customers to venture into the area. The setting is ominous and the locals unwelcoming, making it clear that the women are where they really don't belong.  A couple of days into the trip, the friends find themselves stranded without their guide or supplies and without any real survival skills to draw on. Unlike most of the thrillers I've read lately, none of the characters are harboring deep dark secrets. You learn more details about their lives as the book progresses, but there's no big reveal. The book is an interesting way to spend some time, but not a "must read."

Disclosure -- I was provided with advance review copies by the publishers. All opinions are my own. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along 

A Year With No Library Fines? I'm Going to Try!

At this moment in time, I know where every last library book is. In my house and life, that's a minor miracle. The books almost always get back on time, but it sometimes involves a whole lot of searching and stressing.

Now that I know where everything is, I'm going to see if we can make it through the year with no fines.  A while back, I posted about my strategies for avoiding library fines.  They work well, as long as I don't stick a book in an unexpected place or completely lose track of what the date is.

Until this week, I'd been playing hide-and-seek with a quilting book since mid-summer. They'll usually let me renew a book for a fourth time if I explain that I'm still looking for it and ask nicely. This time, I got a librarian who gave me a huge lecture and warned me that she was putting a note in my account that I'd had the book for way too long. All she had to do was say no. I knew I was on thin ice and would have been absolutely fine with that.

Another three weeks passed with no sign of the book. I renewed the other titles that were due on the same day, over the phone because we hadn't received the replacement router yet. I told the lady I was talking to that I knew I couldn't renew that one and would pay the fines the next time we were in. And without missing a beat she renewed it for me again.

The next day, it turned up in my knitting corner, exactly where I'd looked a dozen times. It's back at the library now and I'm determined to keep better track of things.

Be My Neighbor -- Sailing, Sailing...

The boat, floating on its little pieced waves, is one of my favorite blocks in the whole quilt.. 

I'm still going with the "grab what's closest and vaguely appropriate" method of fabric selection, so when it was time to choose fabric for the flag and I spotted those bones it became immediately clear that these neighbors are pirates.

This house, another of my favorite blocks from the quilt, looks less like a Jack O' Lantern in real life. I didn't see the jaggedy teeth at all until I was importing the pictures.

A Little Bit of Sewing Every Day

A couple of years ago I set myself a goal of sewing for at least fifteen minutes a day, every single day, unless it was going to disrupt the rest of the family. I managed to stick with it for long enough to see some real progress and then something happened. Maybe it was that second round of blood clots, which really threw me for a loop.

Since then, I've spent a lot of hours knitting and embroidering, but not much time in front of my machine. When I did have time to sew, the table was piled with things I put there so the kids wouldn't touch them or I wouldn't lose them.

New Goal: Keep the sewing machine clear and sew for at least thirty minutes a day if there's time to do it without abandoning my husband and kids. Most days there is time, so I'm not going to inconvenience them on days when there really isn't.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 1/4 yard
Fabric used year to date: 1/4 yard
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 0
Net used for 2017: 1/4 yard

Yarn used this Week:  300  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 300 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net used for 2017: 300 yards

Indigo Gold Socks

Why do things get buried and forgotten in your stash? In the case of this yarn, I'd bought it years ago for a project that wasn't socks and even after I'd decided that I was never going to complete the original idea, I'd stopped thinking of it as sock yarn. It was right there in plain sight and I never thought to cast on with it.

Which is fine, because at this point it's long discontinued and I've really enjoyed knitting with it over the past couple of weeks. There's enough Elann Esprit left in my stash for another five pairs of socks, then I guess I can splurge on some Cascade Fixation, which is almost identical. 

For the first sock, on the left, the colors played together perfectly. The second skein had a knot which threw things off. I tinkered a bit with slipped stitches to try to get my perfect strips back, but it didn't work and I wasn't going to rip back a couple of days of knitting on the chance that it might work out better if I knit from the opposite end of the skein. (There wasn't enough yarn to start over after the knot.)

The pooling isn't bad at all, but I kept cursing that knot. Wouldn't they be even more gorgeous if they both matched?

Let's Make Baby Quilts {1/6/17}

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.

Turquoise Spools - A New Project Bag

When I pulled this hunk of fabric out of the scrap bag, it screamed at me. And it was right. These spools are way too cute to be anything but a new project bag. They'd get lost in a scrap quilt. Even though it's my favorite thing to do with fabric, sometimes cutting prints up into unrecognizable itty-bitty pieces isn't the best answer.

There's no measuring with a project like this one, just ironing the fabric and laying it out to see what the largest two rectangles I could cut will look like and if they have bag-ish proportions. There wasn't much left over when I was done, but I won't let those narrow strings go to waste.

I'd assumed that the lining was going to be solid black or brown, then I saw a scrap of cotton left over from one of Teenage Daughter's dress making adventures. She's been warned that any fabric left in my sewing area is fair game. (I'm also fairly sure that she was done with it.)

What I need right now are some big bags suitable for lugging library books, but this was more fun at the time.

{Yarn Along} Love, Die, Neighbor

My hands were getting cranky about the cotton/elastic blend so I decided to cast on with my Arne & Carlos Winter Night, which I knew would be easy knitting. As soon as I had that done, my hands decided they didn't mind the Esprit anymore. That works -- once I'm through this ribbing I've already got the toe of the next sock done!



Love, Die, Neighbor by Joanna Campbell Slan

I've really missed Mert. She was one of my favorite characters in the early books of the Kiki Lowenstein series and although I enjoy reading about Kiki's new friends, it's not the the same without her. As soon as I saw the description of this latest book, I clicked the order button. This is a prequel, set years before the first book in the series. I'd forgotten how much Kiki has grown and changed since the first book and this is a glimpse at how she was years before that. You can see the beginnings of the fantastic wife and mother that she becomes in later years.  The mystery is great, but it's the characters I'm most excited about. I hope we'll get to see more of Kiki as a young mother!

Disclosure -- I bought the book myself. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along 

A New Little Obsession

I'm not sure where I stumbled across these little room kits last month. It was probably Youtube. They're 1/24 scale, half the size of regular dollhouse rooms.  They contain everything but the glue and tools and the wooden pieces are pre-cut. I can the cut paper myself, right? And decipher the instructions, which are in Chinese but have lots of pictures and diagrams.

I've found videos that show both of these kits being assembled and I'm confident that I can get at least the walls and furniture together. It's all of those adorable little accessories that make me wonder what I've gotten myself into.

Which kit should I start with?

Scrappy Sixteen-Patch Update

I need to dig around and find more fabrics that aren't blue. There's purple here, and maroon, and black and pink...but the blue prints are overshadowing absolutely everything else...at least in the picture. It looks more balanced in real life.

I've also got a brand new project for the new year.

Brand New Year, Same Old Goals?

My big plan for 2016 was to reclaim my sewing room. That didn't even begin to happen. I've got goals and plans for 2017. Mostly, they're same as my goals and plans were for 2015 and 2016.

Maybe first on the list should be getting my UFOs in order. I'm at that stage where, except for a couple of current projects, I have only a vague idea what I was working on.

Be My Neighbor
Scrappy 16-Patch
Redwork Vignettes
Anatomy Embroidery
Baby Blue Lozenges
Baby Blue Trip Around the World
Baby Blue Laura
Jo's Stair Steps
Rosey
365 Sampler
Hocuspocusville
Garden Party Quilt
Nail Polish Quilt
Heath's Ocean Quilt
Low Volume Nine Patch
Pink Birds Baby Quilt
Petals Baby Quilt
Spools
Lozenges
Alice
Buttonhole Cat
Dingbats!
Rose Dream
North Pacific
Basket Quilt
Hobo Quilt
Lego Quilt
Scrappy Irish Chain
Little Trips Around the World
Santa Fe String Star
Summers by the Lake
Sandstone Stack the Deck
chicken wool kit
Blue Dresden Plates
Turtles
Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 0 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 0 yards
Net added for 2016: 0 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Added for 2016: 0 yards

2016 Year End Totals

I don't want to talk about whether or not 2016 was a good year. I thought it was better than 2014 (among others), but apparently just letting that idea cross my mind jinxed me and now we're dealing with "new ways to have fun" that will probably take us well into January. So I'm done with the score keeping and comparing, at least when it comes to good and bad luck. 

It's probably better to think of bad moments instead of bad days or months or weeks or years... (That idea comes from this post by Sandra Dodd. A lot of the things she has to say about parenting also apply to just living life as a human being.) 

Now let's get on to the happy and productive things that happened in my sewing room this year! 

I mostly conquered my fear/hatred of zippers by making a bunch of different bags... 

I made another seventeen pairs of socks...

Three of these pairs were "competetive sock knitting" which meant following the pattern exactly as written while trying to either meet a deadline or beat other knitters. Trying to learn a new cast on, especially one with beads, on a deadline was scary and fun and I'm sure I'll be signing up for both Sock Madness and Super Sock Scarefest again in 2017.

There was also a shawl, and 1000 yards of old green acrylic that I knit into squares for a Minecraft inspired afghan that got abandoned along the way.

I did a little bit of quilting...

There were two other baby quilt tops that didn't get quilted because when I tried the Janome threw a hissy fit. I started some new quilting projects that I'm still excited about.

I can't wait for the Row by Row Experience to start up again next summer. The plan is to head up into Washington to visit some shops we haven't seen before.

Final Stash Report of 2017

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 30 1/4 yards (+4 sheets)
Net added for 2016: 24 yards

Yarn used this Week:  0  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 7950 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 9518 yards
Net added for 2016: 1568 yards

Those numbers are NOT bad. For years I've been thinking I should try for a year where I used more stash than I bought. Don't look at how much fabric I used, that's just sad. Look at how little I purchased! It would have been even better if I hadn't bought five yards of brown print for a quilt and then chickened out once I took a closer look at the pattern.  I'm happy with the yarn added because what I did buy was good yarn at great prices and I've been burning through my yarn stash like crazy. (If I'd finished that afghan and the pair of socks I thought I'd have done by the end of the year, it would have come out almost even.) 

What can't you wait to do again in 2017? Are you starting new projects or finishing off the UFOs? Buying new stash or playing with what you've already got?

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {12/30/16)

I apparently can't read a calendar. Last week wasn't the last Friday of 2016, this week is. I'm sure everyone but me managed to figure that out!

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.

A Bit of Practical Sewing

Would you believe that the first thing I used from Ila's wonderful package of goodies was an old-fashion iron on patch for my jeans? (That's also what I thought would be the absolute last thing in the box I'd ever use!) The hole was big, so I took a piece of denim from a pair that was too  far gone to save and put the patch behind that, then stitched around the frayed edge several times.

It's the first time I've patched my own jeans, but they fit and I really didn't want to shop for a replacement pair.  And it's not like I'm headed anywhere classier than Walmart.

Too Good to Cast on With?

This yarn (Elann Esprit) has been sitting in my stash for years. I originally bought it for a completely different non-sock pattern that's never going to happen, and I've been happily knitting away with the best of my sock yarn for quite a while now, so it wound up on the needles.

Don't you just love it when yarn is just as pretty in the knit project as it is in the skein? That's such a rare treat!

I'm making slow progress because the yarn is a cotton/elastic blend and I have to watch the tension more than I would with a regular sock yarn, but the results are definitely worth it.




The Twilight Wife by A. J. Banner
A woman who survived a diving accident is taken back to her island home by the husband she doesn't remember... The plot sounded good, but I was well into the book before I started to feel much for Kyra but annoyance. Obviously there's something going on that she doesn't know about, because otherwise it wouldn't be the plot of a book, but she jumps to sinister conclusions about some of the smallest things. (Or maybe I don't have a particularly suspicious mind and wouldn't see the signs that something was wrong in my life?)  Once the plot did finally start to gain momentum I was anxious to find out what was really going on and how Kyra would deal with it, and I didn't see that ending coming.

Disclosure -- I was provided with an advance review copy by the publisher. All opinions are my own. This post is linked to Patchwork Times Frontier Dreams Stitch Along Wednesday and Yarn Along 

{Thrift Shop Temptations} More Stuff I'd Never Seen Before

I ducked into the thrift shop while Christmas shopping because one of the boys had added a book to his list that I was sure I'd seen there earlier. What kind of sense does it make to spend eight bucks on a brand new paperback when I can get the same book for seventy-nine cents? (And when the child in question understands that used book = more money for other presents.)

It was a quick trip, but I did stumble across this. 

I had to turn it sideways to figure out that the flowers are made up of painted nail heads. This is one of those things that Great-Grandma totally would have made back in the day. Makes me wonder if she never saw the pattern....and that made me want it. I left it for someone else who has more of a love of vintage projects and a better idea for getting rid of all of that dust.

These were more tempting. I see Aunt Martha's transfers now and then, but rarely so much Vogart. Most of them were run-of-the-mill embroidery patterns, but I'd never seen those peacocks or ladies before and I do plan on learning to crochet and they were cheap. So those two are mine now.

It was a good day for things I've never seen before.  For someone who has this particular vintage record player these would have been a good find...if the picture strips of every last one weren't missing. I'd never seen one of these before, but if you're as curious as I was, you can find youtube videos showing them in action.

Have you found anything interesting lately, or were you too busy with the holidays?

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {12/23/16}

It's the last Friday of 2017...do you have anything else to show off before we start the new year?

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.

This Week, We're Learning About Electricity...

Specifically, we're learning what happens when you leave town for a couple of days and come home to find that the winter weather knocked the power out and when the repair crew fixed it they left you with no power to half of the house and 220 coming out of the 110 outlets in the rest of the house.

It's not good.

Five days later, we're still trying to sort things out. The new modem came and I just got the internet connection back, but I'm out of scheduled posts, so I'll set up the linky party for Friday and try to be back to my regular schedule after Christmas.

We got lucky. If we'd been home when it happened, we would've probably lost both laptops and my sewing machine (not to mention  the Kindles...and the portable gaming systems... and the phones...)

I did not have time for this!