.
ro·man·tic
adj.
Given to thoughts or feelings of romance;
imaginative but impractical;
tan·gle
v.
To mix together or intertwine;
n.
A confused, intertwined mass.
A jumbled or confused state or condition
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.
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 started this socks at the beginning of September, back in 2018. They've been on my needles and in my project tracker ever since. Now and then I'd pick them up and struggle through another few rounds and remember how tedious they were, then I'd shove them back into their projects bag.
As of last night, they are DONE! And they fit, which is an extra bonus. (There's no reason they shouldn't have fit, but with as much trouble as these gave me I didn't have high hopes.)
The problem wasn't with the pattern, which is clear and well written enough. It wasn't with the techniques (although that decreasing five stitches into one at the base of each cable was fiddly and hard until something finally clicked for me halfway through the second sock and it made sense.) It might have been the yarn which, although it was a perfect colorway for this project, wasn't the highest quality stuff.
Most of it was my state of mind. I couldn't tell you exactly what made me avoid these socks. Somewhere things went from pleasantly fiddly to downright hard.
I can't tell you how glad I am to have these finally done! There's another pair on my needles that have been just as obnoxious, but these were the more intimidating ones.
I picked up Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel because it sounded similar to the real life story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. It does start with the same idea, a young woman who has spent her whole life convinced by her mother that she is deathly ill. In the book, Patty Watts has gone to jail for her crimes and is about to be released. Her now healthy daughter has agreed to take her in.
Rose Gold has a completely different life now and she's been waiting to show her mother just how much she's changed. Patty is determined that her daughter remember who is in charge, and still angry that Rose's testimony put her behind bars. Oh, and Rose has a two month old baby caught in the power struggle between the two women.
The book alternates between Patty in her first days out of prison and Rose as she starts her own independent life. They both have plans and it's fascinating to watch the whole thing unfold, although a couple of times I wanted to shake the book and yell at the characters. Munchausen by proxy intrigues me and I loved seeing it play out in a thriller.
Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an ARC. This post contains affiliate links.
I don't. Whatever I don't have, it's going to be the one floss number I need to finish a project. Last year I started Stitch Maynia with a full set of DMC and a lot of duplicate skeins. Since then, I've been pulling floss for projects and then raiding those projects for other projects...who knows what I've got now.
The plan is to get it all sorted out and in order before Maynia starts on May first. While I'm doing that, I can pull leftover floss and patterns from project bags and free them up for new starts.
I'm guessing I'll be short twenty-five colors....I'll let you know what it turns out to be!
Unpopular opinion -- I'm not a fan of the ban on plastic grocery bags. I'm all for reusing you own bags, but I think this new law is going to create a whole slew of new problems. And because I'm aggravated about that, I put off actually sewing some bags.
I've you've been reading my blog for more than a decade, this fabric might look familiar. It's identical to the thrifted sheet that I used to back Simple Pleasures back in 2009. Not long after I made the quilt, Alex found a set of queen sized sheets at the thrift shop. I called dibs on the fabric if she ever got bored with the sheets.
She never did get bored with them, but after a decade the fabric was pilled and unpleasant and she called and asked if I wanted the fitted sheet to make bags or something. I brought it home and it sat because I wasn't in a bag making mood.
Last night, I finally broke down and started the project. These aren't fancy bags. I didn't measure anything. I removed the elastic and corner seams and then tore the fabric in wide strips. The threadbare part in the very center of the sheet was folded over four times to make the handles. They're lined and sturdy and not the ugliest bags ever.
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.
One of the first ebook authors I read, nearly twenty years ago, was Jeff Strand. The book was Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and I was reading it on the couch on a stormy afternoon while the kids napped. Something hit the window from outside and I jumped. There's something especially fun about reading horror novels by the light of a screen.
When I was browsing through Kindle Unlimited titles, I was happy to realize that he's still writing and has put out a bunch of books in the years that have passed. Last week I read The Haunted Forest over the course of a few evenings. A massive forest full of monsters has appeared in the New Mexico desert and H. F. Enterprises is offering tours in heavily fortified trams. It's supposed to be safe... but this is a horror novel so of course it isn't. The book is like a fun monster movie and I really enjoyed it.
I read Ghostland by Duncan Ralston by the light of day, mostly because I couldn't put it down. It's opening day at the most haunted theme park in the world. Haunted structures have been brought in and reassembled and the spirits that haunt them are on display, contained by technology that keeps them in an entertaining loop and unable to harm the guest. Until a computer virus kicks in and things start to go very wrong. This one reminded me (in the best possible ways) of Thirteen Ghosts. Click on the footnotes to get the background of the attractions that Ben and Lilian are passing through - it's definitely worth the extra time. And check out the website that goes along with the book. I can't wait for the sequels.
I didn't know that Pyramid of Skulls was a famous painting by Cezanne, I just stumbled across the pattern when I was looking for still life cross stitch on Etsy and was drawn to the slightly creepy subject matter. And I'm so glad I did, because this is one off my favorite finishes and I'm about to start scouring thrift shops for an over the top ornate frame to display it in.
Pretend that you can't see the two missing stitches. I checked and double checked and those appeared when I took pictures for the blog post. I'll have filled them in by the time you read this. At times, this project felt a bit too much like an eye exam, especially the pale skull in the center. It had Fs and Es and Ps and got a little rough on my eyes and nerves.
But it is DONE and it is GORGEOUS and I absolutely love this piece.
I checked out Jill Gordon's Needlepoint from the library and it rode around in the back of my minivan for weeks before I brought it into the house.
As soon as I saw all of this gorgeous eye candy, I was on Amazon ordering a copy to add to my sewing room bookshelf because even though I don't do needlepoint I can drool...and it's charted in a way that makes me sure I can stitch these as counted cross stitch if I can figure out the right floss colors.
I can't get over the pictures of the finished projects -- and if that's not enough, there are the watercolors that inspired the projects, and closeups so detailed you can make out the threads of the canvas behind the stitches.
Do you see the cushions in front of the window? Those are part of the needlepoint!
The book also has fish and other pretty images, but it's the gardens that made me swoon.
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.
These socks are one of the oldest WIPs in my project tracker. The cables are fiddly and the yarn is just thin enough to make it an extra challenge. I'm also not good at decreasing five stitches down to one to close each cabled loop, but something finally clicked and I'm seeing what the chart wants me to do without checking the symbol key each time.
There's a logic to how cables twist and turn and in theory I sort of get how it works, but in practice I've always been a bit hesitant. Maybe the stars are aligned just right, but suddenly this feels easy.
Please don't let me have jinxed myself by just typing that....
This was a fun read. Lissa Eller stretches her family's budget by living frugally and sharing her tips with the world on her blog. She's helping an elderly neighbor when she discovers a body in the woman's garage. It's not the first time Lissa has seen the man -- at karaoke the previous night she had a disagreement with him in front of witnesses.
With her photographer husband out of the country, Lissa has her hands full running the household and caring for their two young sons, who are a handful. She's also trying to solve the murder because she's worried that she might look like a suspect and she wants to find out what led to the victim contacting her in the first place. The book is filled with parenting moments, which was a plus for me. Lissa tends towards the free range style of parenting and I don't think I've seen that in a cozy before so it was a fun change of pace. I was sad to see that the second book in the series isn't available quite yet because I would've immediately plunged into it to see what happens next in her life.
I've fallen into a happy rhythm where the confetti stitching is just working. It's as fiddly and time consuming as always, but I can see my progress and the more bits of blank aida that get covered up -- even if it's only with a few stitches at at time -- the more I fall in love with this project.
A few people have asked me for tips on how I do this type of stitching, so here they are...
Grid your fabric.
Make sure that you have all of the colors you need and, if possible, keep them in order. It really helps!
Stitch landmarks (the edges of buildings, tree branches, they eye sockets of skulls....whatever part of the project is easy to figure out) first and use them to keep track of where on the chart and fabric you're working
Be patient! Projects with lots of colors take longer, but they're definitely worth the extra effort.
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 not going to pretend to understand why, but when I picked up the Finding the Yellow Brick Road socks yesterday afternoon, the cables weren't nearly as fussy as I remembered them being. You can see a hole where one cable ends and one where the next cable begins but those are just from yarn overs. I'll be happy to have the first sock done even if it's not perfect and no one is going to look at the cable just above my toes.
I don't know what was going on at the estate sale we stopped at on Saturday. The house was way too small to hold that many people and the other shoppers were mean in a way I've rarely seen. This isn't Black Friday shopping and what they had in the house wasn't worth getting nasty over.
I was asking my oldest son to get these off of the wall when an old man told us to get out of his way. (I don't think that's how that's supposed to work!)
Cross stitchers have been using these vintage metal trivets to frame small pieces and a friend asked me to keep my eyes open for them. I tried texting, but didn't get an answer before leaving the sale. That's okay, since if she hadn't wanted them I'm sure I could foist them off on someone else. It's easy to find one or two at this price, but never a whole wall full!
There was some milk glass, but it was on a high shelf in a room full of people and I didn't need it anyway.
What I did need was this bag from the Creative Circle, which was bulging with old needlework stuff. I couldn't tell quite what was in there, but for a dollar I wanted to find out.
There were little mini sample kids from Creative Village Stitchery. The instructions are printed on the inside of the paper envelope. Not something I've seen before, but they're definitely the sort of thing I'm drawn to.
Did you know that Avon made needlework kits? All that I got were the instructions, but now I've got something new to look for. Those bees and owls are right up my alley!
Has anyone ever tried to recreate a crewel piece from the diagram that came with the kit? I'm sure it can be done because where there's a will there's a way!
I'm starting to think that the word "follow" might be trying to replace the world "girl" in the titles of thrillers. I've read Follow Me, Follow Me Back, Followers....and Unfollow Me is still in my TBR list. There are also lots of thrillers involving social media that don't use the word in their titles but still rely on the scary concept of oversharing online.
Follow Me by Kathleen Barber kept me turning pages until the end. Influencer Audrey Miller arrives in Washington DC prepared to start the job of her dreams and move into an apartment she's only seen in pictures. It's in the basement, with a lock that doesn't always work and a bedroom window that opens onto a narrow alley. She's also moved closer to the stalker she doesn't yet realize is watching her online and off.
The book alternates between Audrey and Cat, her best friend from college. The two women couldn't be more different. While Audrey shares everything with the world, Cat shuns social media and has made a success of the life she keeps private. There's also a third narrator, "Him." I spent the entire book wondering if he was one of the males in Audrey's life or someone else entirely. This is exactly the kind of domestic thriller that I love to read.
Samantha Holland hates her job selling lipstick. She believes her therapist may have misdiagnosed her so she takes her prescriptions when and if she thinks they'll work, but can't be bothered to schedule an appointment to figure out exactly what's going on. Oh -- she also thinks she might have killed her lover's stepson. The boy is definitely dead and there's a dent in her car, but her memory of that night isn't too clear.
I was enjoying this one until midway through when it suddenly took a much darker and uncomfortable turn and I was tempted to bail on the whole reading experience. Honestly, I could have put it down and not missed anything better than the first half.
Disclosure -- The publisher sent me an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links.
It's kind of ridiculous that we had to go looking for the library in the first place, but we finally figured out where the library's temporary location is.
The actual library is undergoing a "seismic and safety renovation" that will keep it closed through summer 2021 and I'm completely underwhelmed by their temporary location. Forget spur of the moment library trips to find nonfiction books on something the kids want to research -- it looks like less than a quarter of the collection is available on the shelves.
All I can say is that I'm glad the boys are less excited about library days than they used to be. Imagine two years of early childhood without the library and its resources....
To Do This Week --
finish the Emerald City SAL pull out either pair of unfinished socks start to sort and inventory floss
stitch bookmark
Eller stretches her family's budget by living frugally and sharing her tips with the world on her blog. She's helping an elderly neighbor when she discovers a body in the woman's garage. It's not the first time Lissa has seen the man -- at karaoke the previous night she had a disagreement with him in front of witnesses.
