trying to make up for lost time

It feels like I've been on the road every day lately, going to appointments. If I'm here at the house, I'm making calls or waiting for calls. Friday, I finally had a day to stay home and get caught up. And Friday evening, I plugged in my sewing machine and did some piecing.

This new top is very loosely based on the Flexi Strip Baby Quilt. I only had enough of the animal print for one strip, so this is what I wound up with.  Now I'm not sure what to do with the back. I've probably got enough of the solid blues and greens to make a pieced back and the binding. Or I've got a jungle-themed blue flannel that would work.

The four blocks are for Alex's big girl version of Annabelle, and the corner is an old project that I pulled out to work on.

To see what other quilters are getting excited about, head over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Quilty Nail Art

Teenage Daughter is a nail art blogger and she participates in a lot of challenges. It's not uncommon for her to have a different manicure on each hand. Last week, she needed my nails to do a Mother's Day themed manicure. (I was silly enough to ask why we were doing Mother's Day nails in March -- it's a British blog doing this particular challenge.) 

So for the past few days, I've had pretty quilted nails with lines of stitching. She used a product that made the polish matte instead of shiny, something I hadn't seen before. It's an effect that I like -- I think I'll request it next time she does my nails. If you want the details of the polishes she used, check out her post. 

Weekly Stash Report

Nothing in, not much out, at least for the moment. As always, I'm linking up my stash report with Patchwork Times.

Fabric Used this Week: 1/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/2 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 30 yards
Net Added for 2013: 27 1/2  yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 125 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 75 yards

The Here and Now

Prenna James moved to New York with her mother when she was twelve. In the five years since then, she's been careful to obey the rules of her tight knit community. They must never reveal where they are from or become intimate with anyone outside their group. Those who violate the rules suffer harsh consequences.

Did I forget to mention that Prenna and the others came from the future, a ruined world where mosquito-borne illness has killed most of the population?

I seriously loved The Here and Now by Ann Brashares. It's creepy and suspenseful with a sweet romance element.  The future is revealed in tantalizing little glimpses -- I'd love to read more about it in a different book.

Disclosure -- the publishers provided me with an electronic review copy of the book.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {4/4/14}

No baby quilt progress for me this week. The only way I actually know how long it's been since I sat down at my sewing machine is that it's still threaded for the turtles I was quilting for my March 18 post. Today, I've got plans -- please cross you fingers for me that I get some time to work on them!

Did you see this post about NICU quilts at Notions, the Connecting Threads blog?  The NICU quilts my two youngest got did a lost to raise my spirits.

Some new-to-me tutorials --
April Showers Baby Quilt 
Beach Ball Baby Quilt 
Everyday Baby Quilt 
Flexi Strip Baby Quilt 
Ombre Baby Quilt
Bunny Bricks

Are you getting more done than I am? Show it off by linking up!

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.

{Yarn Along} I don't know what the problem with the heels is

Last week, Whatzitknitz asked which type of heel I preferred -- toe up or cuff down. My default heel is short row, because it's easy and makes sense and doesn't require looking up any numbers. And I know for a fact that it'll work with my toe up socks. I can do the flap and gusset heels, but I still have to have someone else's directions to work from. I hear that you can do a regular heel with a flap and gusset on toe up socks, but I've never tried it.  Maybe it's time to just make a baby sock and figure it out once and for all?

Toe up socks make me happy. I don't have to worry about twisting stitches, or casting on a whole ton of stitches all at once, or running out of yarn with an inch of foot left to go. The cast on I do for my toes probably breaks every rule in the book, but it works for me.

Historical disasters fascinate me. It's not the death and destruction, it's the stories of survivial, about people who made it through impossible circumstances. So I jumped at the chance to read The Johnstown Girls by Kathleen George. The characters in the book are all fictional, but the story of the flood itself is real.

Here's the book's description from Amazon:

Ellen Emerson may be the last living survivor of the Johnstown flood. She was only four years old on May 31, 1889, when twenty million tons of water decimated her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Thousands perished in what was the worst natural disaster in U.S. history at the time. As we witness in The Johnstown Girls, the flood not only changed the course of history, but also the individual lives of those who survived it.

A century later, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Ben Bragdon and Nina Collins set out to interview 103-year-old Ellen for Ben’s feature article on the flood. When asked the secret to her longevity, Ellen simply attributes it to “restlessness.” As we see, that restlessness is fueled by Ellen’s innate belief that her twin sister Mary, who went missing in the flood, is somehow still alive. Her story intrigues Ben, but it haunts Nina, who is determined to help Ellen find her missing half.

It took me a while to get into this book. There's a sex scene within the first few pages. I think it's the only one in the whole book, and it wasn't all that graphic, but I didn't want to be reading those intimate details about two characters I hadn't had a chance to learn anything about. I never did get that interested in Nina and Ben. Ellen and her missing sister, on the other hand, fascinated me. Happily, most of the book was focused on them.  I didn't want their story to end.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis. 



Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with an electronic ARC. 

I've got ideas!

happy sigh

When I pulled this stack of fabric out of the box it came in, my mind immediately started racing. I know exactly what I want to  do with the pink fabric on the bottom...and the light blue print that's four down from the top...and the butterflies...

Thanks so much to Mary Ellen for sending it to me -- this is going to make the cutest baby quilts! 

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/4 yards
Added this Week: 23 yards
Added Year to Date: 30 yards
Net Added for 2013: 27 3/4  yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 125 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 75 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Slices of Life

I cook because I have to feed my family, something I think I've mentioned before. Slices of Life: A Food Writer Cooks through Many a Conundrum by Leah Eskin is one of those books that could easily convince me that I want to spend more time in my kitchen, experimenting with ingredients and techniques.

Ever wonder how to to cope with a half baked chicken and a trip to the emergency room to remove a plastic toy from a child's finger? Or how to make a tart that gorgeously imitates the dark night sky? I really, really want to attempt that tart even though I know my own wouldn't match up to the image that the author created in my imagination.

There are 200 recipes in the book and I've made a long list of the ones I want to try -- Dumpling Pillows, Ricotta Stuffed Focaccia, Chicken Paprkash (I've made it before, but want to see how her version compares to the one in my tattered old cookbook), Banana Bread (same explanation) Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (because just knowing that you can make Nutella from scratch makes me need to try it).

The recipes are broken down into steps that she clearly explains. Unfamiliar ingredients get footnotes telling you where you're likely to find them in your own grocery store, or what you can substitute.

The publisher provided me with an electronic review copy of this one, but I think I'll be wanting a paper version that I can bookmarks and haul into the kitchen with me.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {1/28/14}

How are your baby quilts coming? Got anything fun to share with us this week?

I pulled together these fabrics at about the same time as I kitted up the fabrics for that bird baby quilt I pieced a few weeks ago. There isn't much of the animal print, and it's in a long strip instead of a square, but I'm sure I can do something nifty.

I did a Google search for baby quilt tutorials and found a bunch of fun ones that I hadn't seen before --

Modern Baby Quilt at Piece N Quilt
Monogrammed Rag Quilt at de Jong Dream House.
3-D Pinwheel tutorial at Pumpkin Patch Quilter
Jigsaw Puzzle Baby Quilt at Helping Little Hands
US Map Baby Quilt at Sewn Studio
Apple Core Baby Jane at the Sizzix blog
Skyline Baby Quilt  at Crafty Crafty

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.

{Yarn Along} More Than I Realized

It feels like I've been slogging along on the green knits for months without making any progress. It has been months, and I'm getting nowhere fast, but there's actually a lot of knitting done here. The Weasley sweater needs a few more inches on the back and both sleeves. The Croc Socks need a heel and a foot. The Green Envy Socks need a heel and a cuff.

I was anxious to read The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Children and Parenting, because I've read so much lately about kids who are "spoiled" and "entitled" and these generalizations that are being made about all of our kids honestly scare me a bit.  Maybe I should have figured it out from the description, but the entire focus of this book is on grades and rewards and self-esteem, not stuff. (And the "stuff" aspect of being spoiled and entitled is what I was really curious about.) I found myself slogging through some of the chapters because there are so many quotes and references to other published works, but it was an interesting read about attitudes towards children, both now and in the past. Not a lot has changed over the years --- one of the articles mentioned is from 1838!

I've also been reading I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia. It's the story of Su Meck, who completely lost her memory when the ceiling fan in her kitchen fell onto her head. After just a couple of weeks in the hospital, Su was back at home taking care of her two small children, who she did not remember.  She also couldn't remember how to do any of the hundreds of simple little tasks that day to day life requires.  It scares me to imagine that situation.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with electronic review copies of The Myth of the Spoiled Child. I Forgot to Remember is from the library.

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis.

Wanna guess what this is?

Only one of my sons would go out into the yard to get his shoes and come running back with this...

The first time they found one of these, we were completely stumped. I thought it was a piece of broken cup handle. Hubby thought it was from an animal. Someone thought it was a claw. I can't remember which of my online friends steered me towards images of taxidermy supplies, but it looks a lot like the images of porcupine teeth. I don't think I have a lot of porcupines in my yard, so I was confused until we started seeing the nutria. Those, we've got an overabundance of.

And apparently they leave their teeth lying around.  

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/21/14}

Let's start with the happy stuff.

Audrey from Glory Be Quilter has finished seven baby quilts so far this year, and they're all adorable. I love, love, love this panel of smiling animal faces!

Janet from Simply Pieced has been making gorgeous baby quilts. Make sure you visit her post to see the great texture the quilting adds and the back, which looks just as impressive as the front! And she did a pair of quilts for twins that are equally wonderful. 

I've been putting off this part and hoping that I wouldn't have to write it at all but, after this week, I feel like it's time to explain why I've only finished one baby quilt and two tops in the past three months.

The goal I announced when I started the Let's Make Baby Quilts linky party last year was to make 50 baby quilts in 2013. I managed to finish twenty-nine and was sure I'd do better this year. Fifty is an achievable goal. (In 2010, I made forty-seven little quilts before the wonderful group I'd been making them for disbanded and I ran out of steam.) I know I'll have another fifty quilt year, but it's not going to be 2014.

At the beginning of December, my husband was in a head on collision with a drunk driver. You can see what it did to our SUV in this post. We're lucky he's alive. I didn't write about his injuries here, because that's not my story to tell, but we got MRI results this week and it's bad news, worse than the scariest worst-case scenario that the orthopedist had prepared us for.

I don't really know what else to say, except that I've been completely rattled by this whole thing and it sounds like the worst is still to come. We're as okay as we can be given the circumstances.

A break from blogging doesn't make sense at this point, because I don't know what's happening from day to day. I still wind up with time to quilt and write, but it's going to be less and less predictable. And since I really need to use it for stress relief right now, I'm going to completely drop the one-baby-quilt-a-week goal for the moment and just work on whatever seems like a good idea that particular day. Half inch finished squares are an amazing distraction and so is free motion quilting.

Please stick with me, even though I don't have many new baby quilts of my own to share right now.  The Let's Make Baby linky party will continue to go live every Friday at 4am Pacific Time, even if it's just the linky without any original content. I'll continue to feature my favorite baby quilts from each week and links to baby quilt tutorials. I have plans for new tutorials of my own and will add them to the blog as I get them written. When I find free patterns and tutorials online, I add them to the Let's Make Baby Quilts page over on Facebook and my Baby Quilt Tutorials board on Pinterest. (If anyone is interested in doing a guest post about what inspires their baby quilts, or wants to promote patterns for baby quilts, or something else that ties in with the theme, please send me an email!)

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, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, 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

Still there!

Do you ever go back to the thrift store, hoping that by some miracle you'll be able to pick up something you saw but didn't buy the previous week? I'm avoiding Value Village as long as I can because that steamer trunk is still haunting me. When we went down the following week, it was still in the front window and had been marked down to sixty dollars.  Sometimes resisting temptation is really, really hard -- but I managed!

Things are never there on the return trip. Last weekend, I think we set a record for going back and finding that thing you should've bought in the first place.

Back when we were first married, or maybe a bit before that, Hubby and I were exploring a junk store on the way to the coast. I can date that trip to a pretty narrow window because he bought a can of  paint for his Dodge Charger. What kind of weird quirk is it to stumble across the exact factory color that matches your twenty year old car,  especially when it's a single can of paint that's just sitting there?

I'd completely forgotten about the paint. What I didn't forget were the new old stock dresses. I didn't want one at the time, but I knew in the back of my mind that they were something neat. I've thought of them quite a few times over the years, still not wanting one for myself, but hoping that they'd been found and bought by someone who'd appreciate them.

Saturday I bought one for my teenage daughter, which has to be one of my weirdest junk shopping stories ever. They'd been moved from a back corner of the hardware building up into the front of the store and the price had been raised considerably over what it was in the very early 1990s, but they're the same dresses. (Yes, I asked!)

This has led to discussions about what "No-Iron" actually means. Ever tried to get creases out of a jumper that's been folded in its original packaging for forty years? That was a new challenge.

This post is linked to Vintage Thingie Thursday, Thriftasaurus, Share Your Cup, Ivy and Elephants, We Call it Olde, Savvy Southern Style, Thrifter Maker Fixer.

{Yarn Along} The Memory Child

I'm reusing a picture from an earlier Yarn Along post because everything is still green and looks pretty much the same, despite hours and hours of knitting. I don't know if these projects are really this boring or if it's just because it's all so green. I like green, a lot, but I'm really wanting to cast on something pink or red or any other color! 

I read The Memory Child by Steena Holmes almost straight through, with one quick break to stretch my legs and feed my kids lunch. It's obvious from page one that something is wrong in Diane's world. She was apprehensive about having a baby, afraid that the dark tragedy from her own childhood might repeat itself. Now that she's given birth to Grace, she can't imagine anything better than motherhood. But things aren't quite right. Her husband Brian hasn't returned from his company's London offices, and he hasn't been calling or responding to her emails. Their live-in nanny, who takes constant notes about Diane, seems completely unconcerned with the baby's welfare.

After a couple of chapters, I really thought I knew where the author was headed, but I was completely wrong. The ending hit me like a punch to the stomach. The impact might have been stronger due to recent experiences of my own, but I still didn't see it coming.

I highly recommend this one if you're looking for a suspenseful read. I'll definitely be looking for Steena Holmes's other books.

Quilted Turtles

This is one of those long-term projects. I made the first of the blocks back in October 2012 and put together a tutorial explaining how to make the block with the AcccuQuilt Go! Drunkard's Path and Dresden Plate dies. Then I went through the usual routine of trouble choosing the right green fabrics (because I only got to use 16 different prints -- that's daunting!), putting it aside to work on something else, losing some of the pieces (big problem since the light blue background is a vintage sheet that I was never going to be able to match), not knowing what to do for a border...messing up the math for the border...  I got the top assembled last September and basted it on Mom's longarm in late November.

The plan has always been to quilt each turtle in a different design.

Turtle #1 is a single continuous spiral, which was probably the worst idea I could have come up with. This quilt is so much bigger and heavier than anything I've done on my DSM in recent months that I couldn't maneuver it smoothly. I thought it would be just like quilting a spiral on a baby quilt, but it's not for a lot of different reasons that I should have probably realized in advance.

Turtle #2 is a kind of radiating flower design. Starts in the center and goes out, just like the spiral, but it offers a lot more opportunities to start and stop without obvious glitches in the stitching.  

Turtle #3 is a kind of pebbled design, which really  shows up well on this fabric. I think it might be my favorite turtle so far!

More Lozenges

Now that I've got some dark and light lozenges to mix together, I'm seeing how this quilt is going to work with my fabrics. And I'm loving the idea of it even more than I did last week. 

happy sigh  Can I drop everything else and just  cut pieces for a while? Unlike Bonnie, I'm using 2 1/2" and 1 1/2" strips. Makes it easier to scavenge from other projects! 

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

Spring? Really?!

People have been talking about being anxious for Spring and I've thought they were nuts. Because in my mind, it's apparently still mid-January. All of the stuff that we're still doing to deal with the fallout from Hubby's car accident in December has been keeping me so distracted that I don't even know what month it is anymore. 

Not even the daffodils that have popped up in the front yard gave me a hint. 

But on Monday I saw asparagus at Safeway for ninety-nine cents a pound and it finally clicked. It's the middle of March! Spring is actually just around the corner...

And I'm pinning Halloween crafts for paper plate skeletons. This is seriously cute and I want one. I might not even wait until October --  my little guys could study some bones and make it a school project.

Weekly Stash Report 

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 2 1/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 7 yards
Net Added for 2013: 4 3/4  yards

Yarn Used this Week: 125 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 125 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 200 yards
Net Added for 2013: 75 yards

I just realized that, by cutting and pasting and not thinking anything has changed about my yarn since the previous week, I've counted the same 200 yards of yarn as added every single week since mid-January. This week's totals are correct. And I went back and fixed all of the previous weeks. If I'm going to be this good, I'm getting credit for it!

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Clamshells?

This time, I followed the clamshell tutorial from The Inbox Jaunt.

There's a lot wrong with my clamshells, but on a quilt with prints and little pieces and seams, I don't think it would be as obvious.  And, with enough practice, I think they'll look pretty good. I hate how tiny these stitches are, but I can't make the curved shapes quickly enough to get any kind of decent stitch length. Yet.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {3/14/14}

Have you seen Cute Quilts for Kids by Kristin Roylance? The nine baby quilts are adorable, ranging from butterflies and flowers to dinosaurs and boats, and most of them have unique three-dimensional touches. I'm dying to try the butterflies and those boats with the chenille waves. You can see all of the quilts on the book's product page over at Martingale's website. So many baby quilt patterns look the same, but these designs really stand out. Another things I like is that they're not huge. I can understand the theory behind making quilts that kids can use for years to come, but I prefer to make smaller quilts. If nothing else, it gives you an excuse to make more as your favorite little ones grow bigger.  

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, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, 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 rescued quilt

Of course the week that I write a post about not feeling the need to rescue quilts that we know nothing about just because someone made them, I remember that I've got a rescue quilt I haven't posted about yet.

Look what I found in the Goodwill bins on the same trip that rewarded me with the Happy Hollisters...

I can't even begin to tell you why I bought this little quilt. It's not at all my style, but I kind of like it. Mostly because of that yellow wool. And that big chunky black and white plaid. This thing has amazing texture. It's small, about 30 x 45." And it's backed with the softest, prettiest flannel...

While Teenage Daughter dug for treasures, I walked around with the quilt in our shopping cart. Goodwill Outlet strategy #1 - if you even think you might possibly want something, get it in your cart fast. You can always change your mind and put it back. Strategy #2 -- keep a sharp eye on your cart in case another customer decides to shop from it. If you've got small kids to put in the cart, they can guard your potential purchases for you.

 I definitely didn't need a little wool quilt. I wasn't quite sure whether I wanted it or not. I think what finally tipped the scale was the price. At $1.39 per pound, I figure it can't have cost more than two bucks. At that price, it made more sense to buy the thing than to leave it behind and regret the decision later. (There's a tag still attached from the regular Goodwill store -- if it had been $9.99 when I saw it, I wouldn't even have been tempted.)

For the past month, it's been living on my enclosed porch because I  can't figure out what to do with it. The outlet bins aren't clean and even though it doesn't really look or smell dirty, I can't convince myself to bring it into the house without washing it.

Did I mention that it's wool? I know how to hand wash wool. It should be fine. Worst case scenario, it felts and I wind up taking off and reattaching the backing to fit its new size.

This post is linked to Vintage Thingie Thursday, Thriftasaurus, Share Your Cup, Ivy and Elephants, We Call it Olde, Savvy Southern Style, Thrifter Maker Fixer.

{Yarn Along} A Hatchling!

It's a sort of misshapen knit egg. Wanna guess what's inside?

Because of course the spring knitting should include a baby alligator, especially when every project I've been slogging along on for the past three months is green.

The pattern is Egg to Alligator from Topsy-Turvy Inside-Out Knit Toys by Susan B. Anderson, which I blogged about when it was first released last June.  The green yarn is Red Heart Super Saver which I bought when I was knitting the Christmas ornaments and white mystery acrylic from a fox hat Teenage Daughter knit.

He's a quick little knit -- I cast on Monday afternoon and added the legs and wove in the ends on Tuesday morning. I tinkered with the legs a bit so that he'd have actual feet, and did a three needle bind off instead of kitchner stitch for the end of his nose.

I've been wanting to reread Duma Key by Stephen King. It's one of those books that I haven't been able to shake from my memory.  Have I mentioned that I'm a sucker for haunted houses? Although in this case it's an island. And Edgar's problems with his memory, his descriptions of "sideways thinking" when a word he needs is just on the tip of his tongue but he can't say it -- those scare me more than any of the supernatural elements in the book because a couple of times a year my migraines do that to me. It's not something I want to think about too hard when I'm not in the middle of one.  This time, I was more focused on the supernatural events. Something about abandoned old houses really creeps me out, especially the one in this book!

For more pretty knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis. I'm also linking to

Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Get Crafting Friday, Pinworthy Projects, Freedom Fridays, Inspired Friday. and Friday Favs.

Edited to add -- I just saw that the designer has two free inside out patterns, Egg to Turtle and Duck to Bunny