{Yarn Along} The Socks and the Squid

Same two projects as last week, and not a whole lot of progress on either. Nothing that would show in a picture, at least.

I grew up in a family of tole painters, so of course I was going to read Fatal Brushstroke, the first book in the Aurora Anderson mystery series by Sybil Johnson. It opens with the discovery of a body in Aurora's garden, one that she recognizes by the ring and paint spatters on its exposed hand. There are a few people who might have wished tole painting instructor Hester Bouquet dead, but Aurora wasn't one of them.  She is a suspect, though, and she's anxious to clear her own name.

I love cozy crafting mysteries and this one has me wanting to buy some paint and wood and try out tole painting myself. (It doesn't hurt that we saw a booth of gorgeous traditionally painted furniture and boxes at the local Scandinavian Festival this summer.)  Even if you aren't sure quite what tole painting is, that won't stop you from enjoying the book. The main focus is on the mystery and who had reasons to do what.

Author Sybil Johnson will be guest posting here tomorrow as part of her promotional blog hop.

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

Disclosure -- the publisher provided me with an ARC.

{Kindle Freebie} Harry and the Hot Lava

If you've got a Kindle and someone to read picture books to, scoot over to Amazon and download Harry and the Hot Lava while it's still a freebie.


Remember playing hot lava on the monkey bars and the couch and anything else you could use for climbing a hopping? This book captures that feeling so perfectly, with wonderful vivid illustrations of lava bubbling and boiling through every room of the house.

Disclosure - I found this one all on my own. :-)

Quiltville Challenge Update

Jo from Jo's Country Junction has challenged the rest of us to finish up some of our Bonnie Hunter WIPs before the challenge starts.  

Now that my cheddar bow ties are assembled into a top, I've turned my attention back to the lozenges.

Lots of dark and light rectangles cut, a few of them pieced together....nothing dramatic, but it's progress. 

I'm using smaller rectangles than Bonnie suggested, and I'm still not sure what size I want the finished quilt to be, so there might be some more cutting to be done. It all depends on what turns up as I'm digging through my stash. 

Design Wall Monday

Chocolate Covered Cherries is just the pattern I needed to use up some stash. Or it would be, if I hadn't had plans for all of my brown fabric already.... 

But when I can get giddy over a project and make it entirely from my stash, I'm not about to complain!  I'm loving the way the design stretches into the pieced border.

I haven't made any new letters, but after seeing how NeedledMom is sashing hers as she goes, I decided to start putting mine into rows. The hope is that this will make me more likely to wind up with a finished quilt top than a stack of random letters. We'll see what happens.

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

Remember My Drab Postage Stamps?

I got the top together! 

I've still got plenty of squares, but I was starting to fuss about the mix of light and dark prints and -- at 82" square -- this is probably as big as I need it to be.

Teenage Daughter is giving away a set of Old Factory Candles over on her blog. She's been burning the Coffee Shop trio and they're pretty yummy.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 17 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards
Net Added for 2014: 85 1/4 yards

Yarn Used this Week:  0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6675 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards
Net Used for 2014: 2465 yards

I'm loving market day and irons...

At least when it comes to vintage embroidery. I have a harder time getting excited about actual trips to the grocery store. Is it possible that all of these snails and puppies are quilters? Maybe that's why they're so happy about their irons! 

I knew as soon as I saw these two that I wanted them in my quilt, but the pattern was unopened and so old that I felt bad about actually using it. My experience with the lamp pattern convinced me that I might as well open it up and see if there was even any ink left on the transfer sheet. The images were there, but the transfer seemed to have lost some of its oomph.

This set of transfers has me wondering what the artist was thinking. I love this gal with her steaming iron, but why does she look like she's just realized that someone is watching her?

In most of the images she looks blissfully unaware, but in the one with the pie she looks downright ticked off.

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

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.

{Guest Post} The Thrifty Miniaturist by Joanna Campbell Slan

Those who’ve followed my career as a scrapbooker know I’m always on the look-out for thrifty ways to enjoy my hobby. (Translation: I’m cheap.) Although hobbies are much less expensive than therapy, the costs can add up. Besides, I feel virtuous when I use a coupon to buy supplies or snag something I want on sale.

I wondered if I could transfer my thrifty habits to miniatures. You see, there are two types of miniaturists. One type demands that every item in miniature works like its RL (real life) partner. Another type doesn’t care as long so the item looks like its RL counterpart. Count me in the second category. My goal is to create verisimilitude, the appearance of a shrunken reality. With that in mind, I can use el-cheapo materials with abandon.

Once I decided on this course, the next question was…how low could I go? How far was I willing to stoop to get my raw materials? And where would they come from?

I’ve been writing a new series about The Treasure Chest, a store that specializes in upcycling, recycling, and repurposed goods. My research has resulted in tons of ideas. In fact, I’ve begun looking at all my trash, every single piece of it, with an eye toward turning it into something useful. Could I do the same with miniatures? Yes, ma’am!

For example, the bottle of lavender bath lotion seemed to cry out, “Make me into a bathtub!” So I did. By cutting the bottle down to size, by painting the sides with gesso and nail polish, by adding feet and spigots, I think I produced a creditable tub.

The tiny table was a no-brainer. I cut down an empty toilet paper tube, strengthened it with masking tape, covered with it layers of silk, and finally attached a skirt of black tulle.

The fireplace was a quinoa box. I shortened it and covered it with paperclay.

In fact, I’ve pretty much decorated this whole house in trash. I did buy a dh (dollhouse) furniture kit. It cost about $40 for six rooms of furnishings. I knew I wouldn’t get much in the way of quality for so little money, but I did get a lot of raw materials. Using the wood in the kit, I was able to create the sink in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet, the armoire, the kitchen counter, and a mirror.

My biggest expenditures have been for raw supplies, paints, glues, a nice saw, sandpaper, and paperclay. But I’ll get more use out of those things as time goes on, because I’m already considering what to do for my next project! In fact, I had so much fun with this idea that I created a character, Honora McAfee, to be a miniaturist who works at The Treasure Chest. And as you might have guessed, Honora just loves crafting dollhouse items out of trash.

About the book—


In Kicked to the Curb, Cara Mia Delgatto’s cup runneth over with worries. Her ex-husband is refusing to pay their son’s college tuition, her evil sister is pulling mean pranks, and her old boyfriend has broken her heart. And that’s just the personal stuff. She’s also concerned about keeping the cash register ringing at The Treasure Chest, her retail store specializing in upcycled, recycled, and repurposed décor items with a coastal theme. The media event that Cara plans turns nasty when reporter Kathy Simmons threatens to share unsavory details from the shopkeeper’s past. Things get really dicey when Kathy mysteriously disappears. Cara’s other problems seem trivial in comparison to…a murder investigation!

Get Your Copy--

Kicked to the Curb is the newest book in the Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series by Joanna Campbell Slan.  You can get your copy at http://tinyurl.com/KickedTTCurb. The first book in the series—Tear Down and Die—has been discounted to only 99 cents. You can buy your copy at http://tinyurl.com/TearDD To see all of Joanna’s books, go to http://tinyurl.com/JoannaSlan or visit her website at www.JoannaSlan.com or join her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JoannaCampbellSlan


A FREE offer!

Author Joanna Campbell Slan is offering a special free gift for readers who join her newsletter list. You’ll receive two recipes, two craft tutorials, and an outtake scene from Kicked to the Curb automatically when you send an email to KTTCBonus@JoannaSlan.com  Once you’re on her newsletter list, you’ll be notified about free reads and other special offers.

{Yarn Along} Which Project?

I pulled out the Mock Croc Socks, which I'd set aside halfway through the heel flap. That shouldn't be a problem, but after twenty minutes I was feeling tortured. So I pulled out the squid and spent a couple of hours knitting plain stockinette rounds. Not sure why, but wrestling the squid was a lot more fun. And I've got the latest pair of socks for when Hubby is home because I just can't bring myself to explain why I'm knitting a giant squid. 

The next two pairs of socks are chosen. This yarn's been in my stash for years, but I couldn't lay my hands on it until this week because it was hiding in forgotten knitting bags. I'm really loving my yarn stash these days. Sooner or later, a pretty new colorway will catch my eye -- and I'll totally be able to justify it because this year I'm making a much needed dent! 

Kicked to the Curb has been out for a a while now, but I just got the chance to buy a copy and read it.(Mostly because the author, Joanna Campbell Slan is guest posting for me tomorrow and I wanted to be able to say something about the book!)  I've been wanting to read this one ever since she started posting pictures of her dollhouse miniatures on her facebook page and motivated me to pull my own dollhouse furniture out of the attic.  A new character in the series makes miniatures, but they aren't a major element in the plot. The mystery deals with the theft of some historic photographs that Cara Mia is displaying at The Treasure Chest and a body found in the trunk of a car abandoned behind the Gas E. Bait across the street. It's a fun series, and I can't wait for the next book.

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

Quiltville Challenge Update

It's starting to look like I'll meet Jo's challenge and have a Quiltville quilt finished in time for the reveal. 

I counted. And I counted again. And I'm still 22 bowties short. Frustrated isn't really the word for it, not when I didn't find out that there was a problem until I'd assembled the bowties into 12" blocks.

Here are the options I can see --

1) Make 22 more bowties and take apart a bunch of the blocks to scatter the colors evenly through the quilt.

2) Make 22 more bowties and carefully choose the fabrics so that they'll be varied enough not to look weird.

3) Make 2 more bowties and have a finished quilt that's six inches narrower than the original plan.

The first two options would never happen, so I'm going with the third. Or, I suppose, I could make enough bowties to make the quilt a lot bigger and then it would all blend together.

I'm going to go for a finished, slightly smaller than planned, quilt.

The Garden Party is Coming Together

Can I admit something? I really have no urge to finish this project anytime soon, because I'm having way too much fun with it. When I do decide I've got enough blocks, I'll lose my excuse for embroidering all of these crazy little patterns. Or not. There are plenty of ideas on Pinterest for using odd bits of vintage embroidery. 

I've added a lot of blocks since the last time I laid them out and took a picture. At least two -- Number Seven and the Market Day bird -- were nowhere to be found when I did this layout.  The donkey turned up as soon as I had the rest of the blocks stacked up.  The bird will make an appearance. If she doesn't, I just might make another one because I love the block that much!

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday.

What is YOUR best work?

In last Thursday's post, I wrote about my Great Grandma and a newspaper article that called her apple head dolls her best work. Ever since, I've been wondering what set of standards you use to pick someone's best work.  Is it the hardest one, the one that's the most technically perfect, or the one with the most pieces?

Ten years ago, I would have said without hesitation that this was my best work. I've stitched other larger cross-stich designs, but this one is framed and was the easiest one to grab and photograph. The pattern, in case anyone is interested, is Ironwork Gate by Graphs by Barbara & Cheryl.

I've made quilts that I absolutely love, lots of them. Over time, quilts that were my absolute best work have been replaced by others. Some of those "best quilts" have been completely forgotten until I went to pull something else out of a closet and saw them again. My best quilt tends to be whatever I've just finished.

And then there are a few things that I just can't explain. Like my Endpaper Mitts. It's hard to see the colorwork in this picture, but it's there. And I got gauge, so they fit. But today I couldn't do colorwork to save my life. This is my one and only success.

And there are the lace shawls. A few of those could definitely qualify as "best work."

I think that there's some luck involved with what turns out to be our best work once all is said and done. Maybe it's just what survives the years, what our loved ones still like after all that time, and what conjures up the best memories.  So what's your best work?  Weekly Stash Report  Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards Fabric Used year to Date: 17 1/2 yards Added this Week: 0 yards Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards Net Added for 2014: 85 1/4 yards Yarn Used this Week:  0 yards Yarn Used year to Date: 6675 yards Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards Net Used for 2014: 2465 yards
This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Running Away With the Spoon

This must not be the same spoon that the dish ran away with. Or maybe it is. He does look kind of annoyed with her, doesn't he?

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/7/14}

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.

Her Best Work

I've posted a lot about my Great Grandma Walters and the things she made.  

If my math is right, this photo and the accompanying article about Grandma and her apple dolls  ran in the local paper in 1976. I would have been about four years old.

"A glass display case houses some of her best work, a family of apple-head dolls."

THAT is the case I've been telling you about -- in this post, and this one and probably a few others. Except a case doesn't describe it -- it was a built in hutch with glass doors and I can't tell you how much I wish that someone had taken a picture of it somewhere along the line, because I'd love to compare my memories with what what really in there.

The doll in Grandma's right hand? Here she is almost forty years later:

Look at her little hand beaded necklace. And the gloves. They're masking tape. Masking tape! We fuss about getting the right supplies for our projects, or hear how we need this that or the other thing. And Grandma was using masking tape, which I never even noticed until now.

Her shoes, according to the article, are made from bits of an old glove.

The dress was cut "by guess and by golly." I think that might be my new favorite phrase. It totally describes how I work on a lot of my own projects.

I do question whether this is her best work. It wouldn't be my pick. I'd vote for the painting, or the creepy red riding hood doll, or that little ittt-bittty-teeny-tiny crochet doll dress, or maybe one of a dozen other things that haven't made it onto the blog yet. And that's what the family still has, half a century (or more than a century, in the case of the painting) later.

My favorite quote from the article:

"I pick up ideas here and t'other place. I do anything that I fancy. It all keeps me busy."

I want to be like Great Grandma.

{Yarn Along} The Red Book of Primrose House

Those socks I've been complaining about? Now that it's getting wet and cold and I've had to swap my favorite pair of sandals for the tennis shoes I can barely stand, I'm really appreciating having hand-knit socks to wear!



I really liked Pru Parke, the heroine of Garden Plot. In the second Potting Shed Mystery, The Red Book of Primrose House, I loved her.  The transplanted Texan has finally found the job of her dreams as head gardener in charge of restoring the grounds of  an eighteenth century manor house, but the project is plagued by sabotage. One of her workers is found murdered, and Pru is sure the police are following the wrong trail.

I don't have to like a character to enjoy reading about her, but Pru is just neat. She's older than most of the heroines in the cozy mysteries I read, but never makes a point of her age. She definitely never complains. Instead, she's competent and hard-working, which makes her easy to root for. There's also a sweet romantic element to the books that I hope will continue through the series.

I've also been getting caught up with the Hope Street Church Mysteries. The Graves of the Guilty is a little grittier than the previous two books, with Cooper putting herself into more dangerous situations as she investigates a series of murders. The Root of All Evil weaves three unrelated mysteries together into one intriguing storyline.

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

Design Wall Monday - Chocolate Covered Cherries

I'm really liking this quilt, especially now that I've found more brown fabric in my stash. If my counting is right, I should have enough brown and red pieces cut for the entire quilt. 

I really hope my counting is right!

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

Not Quite What I Was Shopping For

But that's okay. If I can back five quilts for twenty-seven bucks, I'm not going to complain! Especially not since two or three of those quilts are ones that I'm currently working on and actually needed backing for.

We'd gone to the thrift store looking for flannel shirts to finish off the Halloween costumes. I was not looking for fabric. It was the ongoing quest for hot iron transfers that made me detour to that end of the store.

I will never ever understand how thrift stores price things. They had fat quarters and half yard cuts for $1.99 and these pieces, ranging from four to six yards, for $6.99 and $9.99. The biggest piece of yardage was the least expensive one. They're all from Joann's, so it's not a difference in fabric quality.

And, since Teenage Daughter's Halloween costume used up the last of my muslin, I broke down and bought another bolt. Better to have it on this year's numbers than next years, I suppose.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 17 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 44 yards
Added Year to Date: 102 3/4 yards
Net Added for 2014: 85 1/4 yards

Yarn Used this Week:  100 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6675 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 4210 yards
Net Used for 2014: 2465 yards

Where There's a Will There's a Way

As soon as I finished that pair of dogs with the cross-stitched collars, I knew that I wanted to get to work on this lamp. 

I found the pattern at Value Village and almost passed it up because I didn't like the idea of mixing cross-stitch with my embroidery.  I think the problem was that I hadn't seen it done and couldn't picture the finished results.

The package was still factory sealed. When I opened it up, there was only the faintest trace of transfer ink left on the sheet. I didn't pay much for the pattern, but that wasn't the point. I wanted to stitch that lamp!

I did try using the iron on, but there was just enough ink to wreck a piece of white muslin. Then I copied it as darkly as the printer would do it and traced with the iron on transfer pencil. Because, come Hell or high water, I was going to stitch that lamp!

Now I want to do the jars of mushrooms, but I'm not looking forward to the copying and tracing routine and I seem to have misplaced my special magic pencil.