I Spy Snakes

Apparently, boys never outgrow the need to go outside and check for snakes. I told you about the piece of metal flashing they put out on the lawn to attract them. That's not working this year.

Now, the snake spot of choice is the burn pile. I got called out because there was a pile of them coiled so tightly together they supposedly looked like a three-headed snake. All but one we gone by the time I came with the camera.

They aren't in this picture, but there were at least seven littler snakes making their ways through the tangle of dried up blackberry vines and occasionally poking their heads out. It was as cute as snakes can possibly be.

My husband has been forbidden to burn any of this until we're sure the snakes have moved on. Or until he figures out how to get the snakes out.

Stitching Something New

When I found this kit at the thrift shop, I told myself that I'd wait until Spring to start her.  The weather is warming up and I spent Monday afternoon gridding my fabric. 

It's a big project, but it's not full coverage and there's absolutely NO backstitching. That means this will go faster than A Little Girl's Fancy, right?

{Thrift Shop Temptations} Giant Plastic Bunnies

I like this family of vintage blow mold Easter rabbits. They weren't cheap, not by a long shot, but I can see someone else justifying the price. Compared to what some of the ebay sellers are asking, maybe these were a steal that I wasn't enthusiastic enough to fully appreciate. 

Please remind me that I don't need a family of giant plastic bunnies.

This was less tempting...

Stapled to the back of the card is a plastic bag of wood shavings left over from the creation of the Chuck Wagon. Or of Maudie Ann...I'm not sure. I'm a huge fan of this carousel itself, and of carousels in general, but I don't need leftover scraps.They were a cute fundraising idea, but I'm not sure they've got resale value.

My biggest temptations of the day were some rag doll patterns (which came home with me) and this bowl of wooden fruit.

A combination of trying not to buy things I don't really need and not having a good place to display it helped me resist the temptation, but aren't they neat?

Oaklet Shawl

There's a very satisfied feeling that comes with using up yarn you'd almost written off a impossible to work with. This would have made a gorgeous pair of socks, if the loose single ply wasn't completely unsuited for that. 

Pattern: Oaklet Shawl

Yarn: Knitpicks Chroma Fingering 

I love the way the wide stripes fell and, except for the multiple knots in this particular skein, the yarn is nice for shawl knitting. I had three skeins in my stash, this one, the skein I used for Close to You, and a green skein that will probably become another small shawl.

Everyone is Going to Hobby Lobby

For a few weeks now, I've been seeing Hobby Lobby clearance hauls on Youtube. I'd looked at our local store, but there was nothing I needed. Then the needlework finds started to pop up on Facebook stitching groups.  I stopped at the Albany store on my birthday, but nothing was marked down. Later that afternoon, we stopped at the Salem store. 

I found what I was hoping for...

Those kittens in the top row? I almost bought them with a 40% off coupon back in December and now I'm very glad I didn't. Those kits were all 75% off. The stamped quilt in the lower right hand corner was $3.25.  And there were soooo many other kits that I didn't pick because I was trying to exercise some self discipline (and I didn't absolutely adore them -- if they'd made my heart go pitty pat they would be in the above picture because if the needlework kits are 75% off and I've got birthday money to spend, it's not the time to be overly careful about purchases.)

I found cheap scissors to tuck into my project bags and cute dish towels with blank spaces to embroider. I'm still deciding whether to stitch on those or just use them the way they are. That red alligator print thing is a magnetic pattern holder.

The canvas tote bag wasn't on clearance but I had a coupon and I absolutely love it.

From what I'm seeing on the stitching groups, different stores are marking things down at different times. No one, including the employees I asked, seems to know if they're doing away with the cross stitch or making room for new stuff.

Breaks

I'm frustrated. 

You can't see it in the picture, but there's a pair of ends tucked inside the blue stripe just before the heel begins. There are also the two pairs of ends that you can see. That makes three knots in the yarn in barely as many inches of sock.

I've used more than a dozen skeins of this yarn and rarely had one with a single knot. Mid-heel isn't a good spot to be cutting the yarn and starting over, but I don't have enough extra yardage in the skein to do much else (assuming that there aren't more knots lying in wait) and it would disrupt the pattern repeat if I did go back to the first break and start over there.

There are also two breaks in the yarn for the shawl, but I knew that when I cast on. What frustrates me there is that I didn't think about spit splicing them until after the fact. Instead of worrying about how I'm going to weave those ends into the loose stockinette and having it look nice, I had the perfect solution right in front of me and completely missed the opportunity.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/30/18}

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.

I'm Going to Learn This if it Kills Me...

The needle was so rusty that it had become one with the fabric, but I'm current on my tetanus shot and got it free without puncturing myself...and then found a newer, safer needle to start the project with. 

The stitching is going quickly. I don't know if that looped stem stitch in the flowers is right, but it covers the space and doesn't look too bad. The straight stitch on the cattails is right, but I'll do it differently if there's a next time.

{I've Been Reading...and Watching Documentaries} Educated

It seems like I may be the only one out there who isn't raving about Educated by Tara Westover. It took me a month to get through the book and, as intrigued as I was by the cover copy with its description of a young woman growing up in a survivalist family, I had a hard time getting into the book itself.  There are so many horrific injuries that go untreated. There is so much abuse among the siblings. At one point, Tara's mother tells her its time to move out of the house because the woman believes her daughter is four years older than she actually is.  It was all too much for me to take in and, after Tara rejected several offers of help, I started to lose patience with her. (And then I felt bad about that, because this is a woman's actual life and not a work of fiction.)

Over the past couple of years, I've read a lot of what I just learned is called "misery lit." Sometimes it's the writing that makes me keep turning pages.  Sometimes, the writing isn't great but the story is so fascinating that I want to read it anyway. This book fell somewhere in the middle.

What I did get immediately caught up in was Wild Wild Country, the new Netflix series about Rajneeshpuram. I was about ten years old when the Bhagwan and his followers came to Oregon and I remember hearing about them and then eventually knew that they were gone. Years later, I read something about the bioterror attack on the salad bar, but I had no idea.  Six hours of documentary footage later, I went and checked out a library book because I've got so many unanswered questions. If you do watch this one, beware of that TV-MA rating. Most of the show is pretty benign except for some occasional language -- and then there's the footage that was filmed by a journalist who smuggled a camera into a meditation session.  And some much less disturbing footage of nude sunbathing.  It's only a small fraction of the whole thing.

Anyone else reading misery lit or watching documentaries about freaky cults? Got any recommendations for me?


Disclosure -- I was provided with an advance review copy by the publisher. All opinions are my own.

Close to You

Just look at the colors transitioning through that garter stitch! And look at the edging! For what started as a skein of "what was I thinking?" yarn, this stuff made a gorgeous little shawl. The pattern is called Close to You and it's a free download over on Ravelry.  It's almost entirely garter stitch and there are only two lines out of every twelve where you have to count just a little bit. Days and days of knitting time without looking at a pattern, which is what I needed for this project.  

Pattern: Close to You (free Ravelry Download) 

Yarn: Knitpicks Chroma Fingering (Sandstone)  

I've almost never ordered a Knitpicks yarn I didn't like. Chroma Fingering is one of those rare exceptions (but to be fair my skeins have been sitting in my stash for years and the current version may be completely different.)  I ordered it during one of the big yarn sales a few years back and originally thought I'd use it for socks, but when I cast on for a pair the yarn unspun with every stitch. It's a loosely spun single ply and my skein ranged from thick and fluffy to thin and tight. (Some of  the reviews over on Ravelry say it's not appropriate for socks, but there are also lots of pairs in the finished project photos.)

It's much better for knitting shawls with, although I still felt I was babying  the yarn quite a bit to keep it from untwisting or splitting....but as soon as I finished this shawl I cast on a different one with a purple skein of Chroma, so I can't hate it too much. 

I went into this project knowing that I was playing yarn chicken and wound up spacing out the picots on the binding to make sure that I wouldn't run out. It was a middle of the row decision, but one that I'm happy with.

This one was a great stash diving project. I used up yarn that I'd given up on and made a project I'm thrilled with.

{Thrift Shop Temptations} Red White & Blue

I have early childhood memories of driving up to the Portland thrift shops with my mom and grandma. We stopped going when I got older, then I was pregnant with my first and we started the tradition again in a quest for cheap maternity clothes... I got a kick out of taking my kids up there when they were the age I was in my earliest memories of those stores. And now my oldest is an adult. We've been thrifting for a long time! 

It's a two hour drive from our current home to the thrift shops of my childhood so I was only making it up there once a year, if that. Now I belong to a stitching group that meets up in Portland once a month and if I'm going to be making the drive anyway.... 

Red White & Blue is my favorite thrift store and the one that I remember most vividly from my childhood. (Except for Finders Keepers, which was cavernous and wonderful and terrifying and sadly closed a few months back.)

These days, I'm not looking for baby clothes or board books. I'd be happy if I found some vintage needlework kits, but I'm mostly thrifting for the entertainment value, to see the things you're not going to find anywhere else.

Like these two....

They're about half life size and sooo different from the inflatable Santas you see in everyone's yard  these days. I wonder if they'll find a new home.

This double knit crazy quilt made me squeal a bit.  It's even uglier than the one Grandma made and I would've brought it home except for the price. Double knit polyester quilts are the perfect thing to snuggle under in drafty old farmhouses during the coldest months of the year. 

I wanted this bowl, but convinced myself that I had absolutely no need for it. Then I was putting the pictures together for this post and realized that, with those holes, it could be a yarn bowl. Maybe I'll stumble across another one someday.

It's old stitching that someone cared enough to put in what looks like a very new frame. So why's it in the thrift shop now?

I thought for a spit second that this kit was the quilt on the package, but it was just the bibs. I would've bought the quilt and finished stitching it, just because Raggedy Ann and Andy.

If you've been thrifting for a long time, do you still go to the same stores?

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/23/18}

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.

Old Shale Shawl

I am really having fun with these Caron Cakes, once I find a pattern that will work with the long color repeats. This one was always intended to be a feather and fan shawl, but my first try was garter stitch based and the fabric was too dense. I'll try that idea again with a lighter yarn. 

 Yarn: Caron Big Cakes, Nightberry

Pattern: Old Shale 

I didn't wind up using a pattern that I can link to, but it's a traditional stitch and very easy, assuming you either keep track of your counting better than I do or use stitch markers.

Cast on 60 stitches, or any multiple of twenty stitches, placing a stitch marker after each twenty stitches

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Knit one, (knit two together) three times, (yarn over knit one) six times, (knit two together) three times, knit one...which will put you at a stitch marker. Repeat until the end of the row. 
Row 4: Knit

Repeat until the shawl is as long as you want. One skein of Caron Big Cakes gave me a shawl that's about 15" x 60."

A Little Girl's Fancy

The backstitching makes a huge difference, especially outlining the chair and the details of the dresses. I've got some more white curtain to stitch before I can finish with the upper portion of the chair, but hopefully that won't take long. 

And that space that's been blank in front of the window for so long is finally getting filled in with the third doll...or is it a little girl? I'd assumed it was a doll because of her size, but maybe she's the little girl from the title. 

Socks for Easter?

I like these colors in the skein, but the wide stripes are just too pastel, too much like plastic eggs and Peeps. I managed to ignore that until I had the heel turned, but now I'm thinking I should unravel them and start over with a simple lace that will break up the stripes. Either that, or a zig zag pattern of some kind. 

It's not a big deal. This has been my year for starting knit projects and then changing my mind after hours of work.  Ripping out stitches used to be an absolute last resort, but lately I'm seeing better ways to do things and I'm more willing to reknit projects to make them work.

{Estate Sale Temptations} They Have Wheels?

Garage sale season is  getting into gear and last weekend my husband and I went to a sale that was downright scary. "Eight bedroom residence with forty-plus years of accumulation" turned out to be a former church that I'm pretty sure was a cult or halfway house of some sort and if Hubby hadn't been with me, I would have bolted straight for the door. We wound up going  through all of the rooms (because how could you not?) and I spent the rest of the day feeling so weirded out by the whole thing that I seriously thought it had killed my love for estate sales. I've been in weird and unsettling houses before, but that place took the cake. 

Yesterday the sun was shining and I checked the ads and found some possibilities. We almost skipped the adoption fundraiser, but it was near the convenience store where we grab our caffeine for the day. 

Oh, my gosh...  

If you've been reading my blog for long, you know that I love old trunks. I've got two that are family pieces and Adult Daughter has one she picked up for a song and took with her when she moved. We've been looking for a third for our oldest son, but they tend to be either falling apart, or really expensive, or both.

This one was thirty bucks.  It shows its age, but it's sturdy and doesn't reek of anything, and the interior is remarkably clean.

While we were looking, and old guy came up and asked if I'd checked to see if it had all four wheels. I'd tipped it up to see if the bottom looked nasty, but never knew that they had wheels. I'm pretty sure my own doesn't.

Old Guy says he used to restore them  for a living and that this one probably dates to the mid-1800s. I don't know that I believe that, but it's definitely nicer than Great-Grandma's or my daughter's estate sale find. Aunt Molly's steamer trunk might have it beat...if we were keeping score.

I planted the boys on the trunk and went to pay for it and stumbled across a couple of other finds on the way. You know how much I love wooden ironing boards? And how I've been wishing I still had the toy ironing board that Mom or Grandma thrifted when I was a kid?

Look at this!! It's little and weathered and adorable and has all of the things I love about the big ironing boards except it's little girl sized.

And look at my two dollar vintage bread box...

I'd love one that was clean enough to store bread in, but this probably isn't a good candidate for that. It'll be great for sewing or knitting supplies.

I didn't buy a sewing machine. Assuming that it worked, the price was good, but I can't justify another one this week, no matter how gorgeous and blue and shiny it is.

Of the other three sales on my list, two didn't exist and the other one will get its own post. I'm feeling much better about the whole estate sale thing and knowing that the money we spent at this one went towards a good cause makes me feel even better.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/16/18}

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.

Quoth the Raven

Just look what you can do with a skein of black floss, a free download, a hunk of cheap cross stitch fabric, and six evenings of stitching time...

Pattern: Quoth the Raven, Kincavel Krosses (free on their website) 

DMC 310 on 18 count aida 

One of the online groups I'm in is doing an Edgar Allen Poe stitch along. I kind of wanted to play, but wasn't excited enough about any of the suitable patterns I already have in my magazine collection to commit myself to that much stitching. 

Then someone posted the pattern for Quoth the Raven and my mind was made up. Look at that border! Look at all of the details and little crosses! (Don't look at the mistakes I left in because picking out black floss at midnight is really, really hard.)

Bobbinating

bob·bin·ate
verb

wind hundred of skeins of DMC floss onto little cardboard bobbins

"Michelle has spent days bobbinating her floss collection."

I've been going through all of my floss with a DMC checklist, working to put together a master set of floss. When I took the picture, I still had the 3800s left to wind and had run out of bobbins.

I've gone through all of my floss stash and UFOs and partially kitted up projects and seem to be twenty-two colors short of a full set, not counting the last two releases of new colors. I think there are about fifty-one of those, but since all of the charts in my stash pre-date those sets, I'm not in any hurry to rush out and buy them.

There was another floss sale a couple of days ago, with even better prices than the last one, but I found out about it a couple of hours too late. That's okay. The next time there's a sale, I'll have a list of exactly which colors I need to fill in my collection.

Early Morning Knitting

That old shale shawl is a few days from being finished so I decided I'd better cast on whatever the next shawl is going to be. Lately, it takes me a couple of tries to settle on what pattern and yarn combination I'll be happy with, so I wanted to get that out of the way while I still had a project to keep me busy in the evenings. 

So, early this morning, I cast on for Close to You. I think it's going to work!