Self Control

There's a costume shop in town that always catches my eye when we drive by. How could it not when at one point they had the plant from Little Shop of Horrors in the display window? On Saturday I saw the ad for their going-out-of-business sale and Teenage Daughter hopped in the car. 

The ad said they had fabric and sewing machines, which was all the excuse I needed to indulge my curiosity. 

If I needed tuxedo dickies or swim caps, that would've been the place to buy them cheap. Or an adult size fish costume... or feathers... or sequins... It was a lot of fun to look and I'd love to know the stories behind some of those costumes.

There was fabric and it was very reasonably priced. Zippers were five for a dollar.  I behaved myself and only bought a white shirt for Quinn to use as a paint smock and a pair of (new in package) fishnet stockings to use for a science project we saw on Pinterest.

I kind of wish I'd brought the boys along, because they definitely would have talked me into buying the moon mask from the top picture. I spent a little too much energy talking myself out of that purchase and I'm already regretting it just a bit. For three bucks, I could have  called it a Halloween decoration. Or hung it next to the purple cow.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 5 1/2 yards
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 12 yards (+2 sheets)
Net used for 2016: 6 1/2 yards

Yarn used this Week: 0  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 3550 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 5526 yards
Net added for 2016: 1976 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

A Quilter's Mixology

Long time readers of my blog will know how much I love curved piecing. It's been a while since I made time to actually do any of it, but those curved pieces make my heart go pitty-pat. Especially when there are Drunkard's Path blocks involved.

A Quilter's Mixology by Angela Pingel has several unique projects that aren't like anything I've seen in all of my searching and drooling. I love those paint drips, but the quilt as written is bigger than anything I'd be likely to use. I'm hoping I can find a tiny drunkard's path template somewhere and make a wall hanging.

Some (but not all) of the patterns are sized to work with the Sizzix and AccuQuilt drunkard's path dies, which is nice. I'm always happy to find new ways to use the tools that I already own. 

Disclosure -- This one was a library book. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/24/16}

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.

Red Crosses

I've been wanting to make a Red Cross quilt since I read World War I Quilts a couple of years back. They're just so pretty.  Red 1 1/2" strips swiped from another project, some white muslin from my rapidly dwindling bolt, a couple of evenings, and I've got a cute little doll quilt to show for my efforts.

No pattern, just an idea from a vintage quilt I saw somewhere online -- 3" cross blocks (which are really just nine patches) and plain squares in between. Easy as could be. If I was doing it again, I'd make sure that all of the solid bars were crossing in the same direction, but one I saw what I'd done I wasn't excited enough to take the top apart and reassemble it.

This post is linked to Finish it Up Friday.  

Rabbits?

What do you see when you look at the pattern this self-striping sock yarn is making? I don't think it's suppose to create a deliberate pattern, but I definitely see rabbits. Teenage Daughter saw deer, Teenage son saw Kokopelli, and Hubby thinks we're all nuts.



Kiki Lowenstein finally had her baby! It feels like I've been on pins and needles forever anticipating Glue Baby Gone and the book was definitely worth the wait. (I actually read it the day it was released, then somehow forgot to write about it.)  After a delivery that definitely didn't go as planned, Kiki isn't coping well. Postpartum depression, a discussion with her teenage daughter about which pictures should not be shared publicly, a newborn stolen from a local hospital....there's a lot going on in this one -- and that's before the ending leaves readers hanging and waiting for the next book.



Ellie Haskell is summoned to St. Roberta's, the boarding school she attended as a child, to recover a stolen lacrosse trophy. Although Ellie enjoyed novels about the boarding school life, her memories of her own school experiences are less than perfect. Goodbye Ms. Chips by Dorothy Cannell is a cozy mystery that never really managed to pull me into the plot. There was nothing about the book that I particularly disliked, but there was also nothing I loved.

Disclosure -- I was provided with an advance review copy of Goodbye Ms. Chips. I bought Glue Baby Gone with my own money. All opinions are my own. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along, iknead2knit 

Lozenge Update

If I was making my lozenges according to Bonnie's instructions, I might be done by now...but as soon as she said that 2 1/2" strips would make the lozenges too small, I knew that was how I wanted to make mine. The more different prints I can fit into a scrap quilt, the happier I am. And the smaller the blocks are, the more prints there's room for.

It's been two years since I laid out my finished units and took that picture. At this point, I have no idea how many I've got done or how many I still need to assemble, but I've got a box of cut pieces that I need to make into lozenges, so that's probably the easiest place to start for now.

This post is linked to the UFO Challenge over at Jo's Country Junction. 

Design Wall Monday

I cut the 2" strips for this baby quilt a couple of months ago and finally decided to see if the blocks would look at cute in real life as they did in my imagination. I think this plan is going to work -- especially if I quilt them in big spirals!

The little Red Cross quilt had been tacked up over my sewing machine since I finished it. Reminder -- it does NOT take long to baste a 15x21" quilt. Or to quilt it.

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Home Again!

Actually we've been home since Thursday night, but yesterday was the first chance I had to settle in and think about some sewing. 

I didn't find any fabric to buy while we were on the road, but as soon as we got home I bought a yard of solid blue for an upcoming project and pulled fabric from my stash for two other things I've been wanting to make.  If only the Row by Row Experience had started a bit sooner! We drove through six states and must've passed at least a dozen quilt shops.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 4 3/4 yards
Fabric added this week:  1 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 12 yards (+2 sheets)
Net used for 2016: 7 1/4 yards

Yarn used this Week: 0  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 3550 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 5526 yards
Net added for 2016: 1976 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Some Parents Take Their Kids to Disneyland

We took ours to the hotel that inspired The Shining. Our family spent Monday night at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. 

Even though I'm a huge scaredy cat, I've now spent the night in two haunted hotels. When we checked into the Clown Motel in Tonaphah, we didn't realize what a reputation the place had -- or that there's a cemetery adjoining the parking lot.  This time, our haunted hotel stay was deliberate.

The first time Hubby and I drove through Colorado, I knew that The Stanley, the hotel that had inspired the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, was there somewhere. Sidewinder is a fictitious town so I went through every single hotel listing in the AAA book and couldn't find it.

By our next trip, I'd learned that it was in Estes Park and was hoping we could find it. Things were more complicated before smart phones and GPS. But once you're looking in the right town it's almost impossible to miss --

The first time we stopped there, which was a few years back, the tours for the day were completely sold out. Even if you're not staying the night or taking a paid tour, you can see a lot of the main floor. Doorways to the music room and billiards room are open but roped off.  They keep a close eye on that staircase. Going up to our room, we were stopped and politely asked which room we were staying in.

There's a staircase at each end of the three guest floors. I kept getting myself turned around and losing track of the elevator, not to mention which floor I was on. After the tours were done for the night and the visitors in the lobby had gone home, Teenage Son and I roamed the halls to get pictures without strangers in them. This is the staircase outside Room 217.

While we were taking that picture, a couple asked if we were ghost hunting and offered to show us around their room, which was one of the notoriously haunted ones. I'm pretty sure that following a guy back to see his haunted hotel room is one of those things you're not supposed to do, right? We politely declined the opportunity to visit Room 401 and its womanizing ghost.

I loved the old elevator and rode it every chance I got, even by myself a couple of times. And although I was sure that I'd  get spooked in the wee hours of the morning (and that my husband and sons had some plan to make sure it happened), nothing about The Stanley was scary.

There are a couple of spots on my photos that I could claim are orbs if I was so inclined. I blame my camera lens and beginning photography skills. Harder to explain was the wall of the room the boys slept in. A two foot wide patch of plaster was very hot to the touch.  We moved a chair to make room for the rollaway bed and the hot spot moved with it. The best explanation I could think of was that the sun had warmed the wall, which was opposite a window, but it was just as hot the next morning.

The building was gorgeous and I want to read more about F. O Stanley, the man who built it, and his wife. I wonder if there are any other haunted hotels I could talk my husband into visiting. He's not into ghosts, but the history of this place alone made it worth the trip.

Next on our list of dream hotels, The Inn at Old Faithful. I just checked, and it looks like that one is haunted too.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/17/16}

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.

The Foot

This is the only one of the anatomy books that makes me a bit squeamish. I don't want to think about those bones, especially the little toe, too much or about that spot behind the ankle. Even though I don't know what Hubby's injuries felt like, I can imagine them a little bit too vividly.

Nothing left to stitch now but the lungs and ribs...

Another Skein of Green

I found that last skein of green yarn that I was looking for. It seems jarring, but when I look at actual pictures of creepers the shades of green range from very light to very dark. Guess I should ask my resident gamers what they think.

My thought is that I need another shade of light green to add to the mix.

Creepy Crawly Things in Our Back Yard

When I was a little kid, I'd look in the yard for pill bugs. There were usually some under the big wooden spool on the porch. Now I'm a homeschooling mom and know that the actual name for pill bugs is woodlouse and that they're crustaceans....and I've got sons who can't be bothered with little bugs because they've got bigger things to hunt.

(Yes, this guy was in my yard. And about four feet long.) 

The boys are also smarter about it than I was and have put out a piece of metal flashing so they can predict exactly where the snakes will be.

A couple of  times a day, the youngest one will go out and check and there's usually someone under there. So far, most of the snakes are quicker than he is.

I'm not a fan of reptiles myself, but I do appreciate that they eat the mice and  moles and other critters I love even less. So they're welcome in my yard. And the kids know that, while the snakes at our house aren't poisonous, they ones in Arizona and Utah probably are.

Unlikely Mending

After kicking around in the since last summer, my floppy hat was starting to come apart. I thought briefly about trying to sew it by hand and then realized that my Janome would be able to sew through that braided paper much easier than I could do it on my own.

I was going for functional, not perfect, and I think it turned out pretty well for a quickie repair job.

Who says quilters don't do mending?

What Would You Call This?

I know what it is. I just want to know what you'd call it.

The tag says it's a pool rack. And the thrift shop guy who sold it to me asked if we had a pool table. And now I'm kind of confused about the whole thing because I thought I knew what pool racks and gun racks looked like.

A few weeks ago, I was playing around on Pinterest and found this project.

Wouldn't that be perfect for displaying interesting scraps while I figure out what to do with them? Just one problem... to make it I need a gun rack. I know that Hubby had one like it when we were first married, but that was five moves and almost twenty-five years ago. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw it, but it was before any of the kids were born.

If I asked him about it, I'd have to explain what I wanted it for. And he probably wouldn't know what became of it. It might be in the barn, but the odds are probably slim to none. (When we were moving into this house and I was in the hospital on bed rest with our youngest, Hubby left a quickly packed utility trailer full of our stuff in the barn. Someone noticed our absence and helped themselves, so there's still a lot of stuff that might be in a box in the barn, or might have left with them. I'm still trying to account for a dresser.)

If Grandma was still alive, she'd have known exactly what I was looking for and found one dirt cheap within the week. Because she had fairy godmother powers like that.

But I was on my own, without much time to put into the search. Maybe the fairy godmother thing is rubbing off a bit because it wasn't long before I found this one at a local thrift shop for  two bucks. That's definitely a better deal than an afternoon crawling around in the barn and attic. Now I'm on the lookout for some cheap dowels.

Since I bought this one, I've seen two more beat up versions, both labeled "Gun Rack" and both priced at twelve bucks.

Quiltmaker's 1,000 Blocks

I've been wanting a copy of Quiltmaker's 1,000 Blocks ever since I saw the book mentioned on Bonnie Hunter's blog. I bought most of the magazines as they came out, but I'm not the most organized person and I love the idea of having all of the blocks in one permanent binding.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint about the book now that I have it in my hands. I didn't realize when I ordered it that the book comes with a CD. I want to be able to pull out a book from my collection and make a quilt without messing with the computer. (Having to enlarge patterns from a book also makes me cranky.) I love online patterns and downloadable PDFs, but I want my book to be usable as a book.

I did put the CD into my laptop to see how it would actually work (unlike another book with an unexpected CD, which is still sitting on the shelf because I refused to deal with it) and the PDF file are easy to load and use. But with CD drives becoming a thing of the past, I'm thinking of printing out all four hundred pages and getting them spiral bound at the local print shop.

The book is huge and weighs and absolute ton, so I realize that they couldn't have included the templates in the book itself without reducing the number of blocks.

There's a lot to love about this book, in addition to the huge variety of blocks. There's an index by designer, so I  can find my favorite quilters easily. Some of the quilt blocks have layout suggestions.

I'm excited to see how many of these blocks I can use as inspiration for baby quilts. That's always been my plan for the magazines, but I think I've only managed to make one of them, Jonah.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/10/16}

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.

Embroidered Anatomy

One more block stitched and three left to go.

As much as I love the way the embroidery looks on my recycled linen skirt, I can't get excited about tracing the designs. My pen skips over the rough threads and with the light box shining through it, the variations of the fabric make it tough to see what I'm doing.

I know I want to embroider on linen again in the future, but maybe next time I can find something with a smoother weave.

More Patient Than I Used To Be

Drops Fabel in the Texmex colorway.  I'm loving this yarn and the way the colors change so unpredictably. 

I was halfway through the foot of the first sock when I finally convinced myself that going down a needle size would give me denser fabric and a more enjoyable sock. (That was also the point when I finished the Toasted Almond socks, which freed up a pair of needles.)  I'm much more satisfied with the denser fabric.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have ripped out three days of knitting unless there was absolutely no choice. These days, I can scrap and entire sock. Does that means I'm progressing as a knitter?





Thanks to the advice she offered in her local newspaper column, astrologer Julia Bonatti has enraged a charismatic cult leader. With the membership of the Prophet's Tabernacle picketing outside her apartment, scaring away her clients and enraging her neighbors, Julia is running out of options. The authorities refuse to believe that Reverend Roy is anything but a responsible member of their community, but Julia and her fellow business owners can see how dangerous he is and refuse to be terrorized. When the elderly aunt of a client falls under the Reverend's spell, the astrologer takes matters into her own hands.  The Madness of Mercury by Connie di Marco is the  first title in a new series and I've got to admit that I didn't love Julia or the advice she offered her clients and readers. Something about her rubbed me the wrong way.

Disclosure -- I was provided with an advance review copy by the publishers. All opinions are my own. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along, iknead2knit 

{Thrift Store Finds} New Kitchen Curtains

I found this at the thrift shop and it was love at first sight, even if three dollars was a little more than I wanted to pay. (While I was hanging them, I found a second price tag for seventy-five cents. Looks like they didn't sell at someone's garage sale and then got donated and then  found me.)

This is the perfect touch for a shabby old farmhouse kitchen.  

Even after living in this house for ten years, we're still making due with plenty of things that came with the place. When we finally started to move in, I had a six-month-old and had just found out that I was pregnant with number four. Before the move was over, I'd spent a month in the hospital on bed rest and both places had been broken into.  If something wasn't really important, we didn't waste time worrying about it. 

The cheap lace curtains in the kitchen window weren't even on my radar.  I knew that I didn't love them, but it wasn't until I took them down to put up my new find that I realized how nasty they were. Polyester and grease is an unpleasant combination.  

I'd almost always rather knit something myself than buy a stranger's work, but these crochet hot pads were in a bundle of four and I was in desperate need. They're simple and perfectly worn and do the job and make me smile. I'll keep using these even after I make some myself. (Only two made it into the photo because the others are in the wash.)

Not bad for a quick trip to the thrift store and a grand total of four bucks!

Time to Retire My Favorite Tote Bag?

I hate to even think it, but my favorite bag ever is starting to lose its shine. When I first made my Nancy Drew tote, it stood up on its own.

These days it slumps and shows its age.

I can't complain -- this bag has been with me just about every time I left the house for  the past three years. That's a hundred and fifty some trips to the library (which means it's hauled a couple thousand books for me and the kids) and countless trips to the park and lots of vacations...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to toss my favorite bag. But I'm thinking it might be time to start planning a replacement for the Best Bag Ever. I love the size of this one and the strap is the perfect length to wear over my shoulder or across my chest.  But I'd like the next bag to zip across the top and for it to have an inside pocket to keep my phone from falling to the bottom. I can't find my phone under everything even when it's ringing.

I can take the lessons I learned from this bag and make another one that's the perfect size and has the perfect strap length and doesn't spill everything onto the floor of the car when I knock it over....but the new bag won't have that book spine fabric.

That's what's going to stop me. I've got lots of wonderful fabric, but I can't think of any prints in my stash that I'd happily carry every day for the next three years.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 4 3/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 11 yards (+2 sheets)
Net used for 2016: 6 1/4 yards

Yarn used this Week: 800 yards
Yarn used year to Date: 3550 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 5526 yards
Net added for 2016: 1976 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Ever Stayed in a Haunted Hotel?

Would you stay in a haunted hotel? Or take your kids to one? Apparently, we've done it more than once.

I didn't realize that we were supposed to be afraid of the Clown Motel in Tonopah until someone told me they'd seen it on Ghost Adventures. After that, I looked it up online and then refused to believe that it was actually next to an old cemetery. I couldn't have possibly stayed there so many times without noticing the creepy old burial ground, right? We checked it out on Google Earth, which proved that I could. It's right there, adjacent to the parking lot. And somehow none of us ever noticed.

The internet makes the place sound absolutely terrifying. Like I said, we've stayed there five or six times and never even knew that it was supposed to be haunted, let alone had that "oppressive sense of creeping dread."  I agree with whoever said that the sign out front makes it look like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it's cheap and not at all bad for the price.

The place we stayed one night in Montana could still give me nightmares fifteen years later. When you can get a cabin that will sleep five people for thirty-five bucks, that should be a huge red flag. So should the fact that the guy in line ahead of us had three big dogs and it was just fine with the owners. And the fact that it was the only place for miles with any vacancies. I spent that night half expecting the guy in the hockey mask to burst up through the uneven floors because that run down cabin would have been perfectly at home on the shores of  Crystal Lake.

The haunted hotel I do want to visit and take my kids to? The Stanley, in Estes Park Colorado. Because that's the hotel The Shining was based on and the place is absolutely gorgeous.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/3/16}

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.

{Throwback Thursday} Leif's Snails

For years, I've been wanting to make a scrappy snail's trail quilt and putting it off because it sounds hard. Somehow, I managed to completely forget that I've already made a quilt with that block in it.

Made in 2009, this is another one of those quilts from my phase where I'd see a pattern and think "I think I could do that -- I should try!"  It's starting to seem like I made a lot more leaps of faith back then. 

The pattern is from Quilter's Newsletter. (Sorry, but I can't remember it's name or which issue it was in. If it helps, it's the same one as North Pacific.) It's one of those rare projects that I bought brand new yardage to make...and then actually made the quilt I bought it for.

There's a hole in the upper right hand corner that goes all the way through the quilt. I'm not asking too many questions. This one was made during the same period as Scrappy Mountains (which had a run in with some safety scissors) and Birds in the Air (ball point pen on the white muslin back) and whichever quilt it was that they duct taped pennies too. I was sad at the time, but I've gotten over it. And I think this one might be honest wear-and-tear. Or possibly the handiwork of my Whirlpool Cabrio.

Toasted Almond Socks

If I'd known how yummy this yarn (Red Heart Heart & Sole - Toasted Almond) would look once it was actually knit into a pair of socks, it wouldn't have been waiting patiently in my stash for so many years. I love these narrow stripes and rich colors! 

This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Wrap up Fruday,  Yarn Along, iknead2knit, Crazy Mom Quilts.