This Yarn is NOT Behaving

Maybe my projects are all conspiring against me... 

The yarn is pooling and striping and you can't see  the stitch pattern much at all. But the yarn is also thick and will keep my toes warm and at this point it makes just as much sense to keep going in the simple stitch pattern as it does to rip them out and start over again in stockinette.

There's a pair of socks on Ravelry that uses the same exact pattern and yarn. It's what convinced me to cast on for this pattern in the first place. That pair, unlike mine, doesn't have any of this ridiculous pooling and flashing.



I didn't get very caught up in Haunted is Always in Fashion, the latest Haunted Vintage Mystery by Rose Pressey. The situation with Cookie's psychic cat is getting more interesting and I think I'll read the next book to find out what happens with that, but the mystery itself wasn't particularly exciting.


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

Straight Lines

Is it too much to ask that my sewing machine work properly when I finally have time to get some free motion quilting done? Apparently it is. My Janome and I have been through this before. 

Whenever I try to round a curve, it seems like the needle tip is snagging in the fabric. My feed dogs are down. I've re-threaded....and re-threaded again...and tried a different bobbin....and changed the needle...and cleaned the machine... and tried two different free motion feet.... And after an hour of trying this that and the other thing it still wasn't working any better.  

So straight lines it is. Maybe the machine will let me quilt tomorrow. 

Making Small Blocks Smaller

I spent last night playing around with little Christmas ornaments. When I did the tutorial for the Dutchman's Puzzle ornament a couple of years back, I sewed binding around the edges. It added a lot of bulk and I was never really happy with the results. This time, I trimmed the edges and zig-zagged around the whole thing, which I like a lot better.

The block would finish at 2" square, but because there's no place for the seam allowances to go it winds up being 2 1/2"  The  churn dash is 3 1/2" I'm leaving the seam allowances because they give it a nice border effect, but I'd like to get the block a bit smaller without making myself completely insane in the process.  That's when the math starts to get scary, when the seam allowances take up more space than the actual block pieces.

Black Friday at the Thrift Shop

This week I'm trying somethig a bit different with my stash report.  It didn't seem like still pictures would do these finds justice.



Have you ever been to the thrift shop on Black Friday? I wasn't even sure they'd be open, but I'd had to drive to Target to get a prescription refilled. Never EVER do that! I had to park at the opposite end of the mall in the farthest reaches of the lot -- and then a woman cut in front of me at the pharmacy counter because she was parked illegally. I think we were supposed to feel sorry for her. But honestly I was too busy appreciating the fact that these days I can park way out in the lot and walk quickly to where I need to be without regretting it for the next week. I'm a lot faster than I used to be.

Parking at the thrift shop was just as bad and the shop was more crowded than I've ever seen it. Is Black Friday thrift shopping an actual thing that people do? I was just taking advantage of the fact that I was in town alone. For eight bucks, I wound up with an unopened cross stitch kit, an unopened quilt kit, and two dozen skeins of matching embroidery floss -- enough for whatever big project I decide to tackle next, as long as brown is the right color choice.

There were also plenty of goodies that didn't come home with me, including some pretty nice yarn at good prices.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 30 1/4 yards (+4 sheets)
Net added for 2016: 23 yards

Yarn used this Week: 400 yards
Yarn used year to Date: 7150 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 9518 yards
Net added for 2016: 2368 yards

Even Faster Socks

I can't think of a name for this pair. In the skein it looked like Halloween colors, but as  socks they're just bright and fun and kind of indescribable. I can't find the yarn tag, which didn't have a descriptive color name anyway.

They were fun to knit and I like the way they look -- and do normal people name their socks at all, let alone worry about naming one particular pair?

This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Crazy Mom Quilts, Wrap up Friday  

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/25/16}

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} Needle in a Garden

When I was digging out my Halloween cross stitch for a previous Throwback Thursday post, I found this... 

It's probably the best sampler I've ever done, but I do not remember stitching it. I vaguely remember splurging on the fabric and convincing myself to bu the specialty stuff instead of using a less expensive evenweave, but that's it. If I didn't remember the fabric, I'm not even sure I'd know it was mine...except that it's in my house and I'm the only one here who does stitching like this.

Ever completely forgotten a project?

What Will it Do?

This yarn is pretty. I want to knit with it next. 

I thought I was going to knit another pair of plain socks, then I remembered that I'd decided a couple of years back that I wanted to use a textured stitch. Then I started to worry about whether or not it would pool, because some of the Knitpicks Memories did. Looking the yarn and colorway up on Ravelry didn't help much -- some socks have pooling and some don't.

Maybe I'll me a decision while I'm winding it into balls.

Making decisions about which book to read next is just as tough. I've got a bunch of titles I'm excited about starting. And a bunch I just finished...



A Composition in Murder by Larissa Reinhart 

Cherry Tucker is back, this time teaching art to senior citizens who are demanding she spice things up with nude models or they'll leave her class to sign up for hot yoga. When one of the assisted living home's residents asks Cherry to witness the signing of her will, Cherry suspects that someone might be trying to take advantage of the wealthy CEO. That's exactly what the 90 year old was planning on and she urges Cherry to investigate the hit and run accident that left her daughter dead. Cherry's personal life is always complicated and if you've been keeping up with the series you absolutely won't want to miss this one.



Unnatural Deeds by Cyn Balog

This one felt like a run of the mill teen thriller until the ending blind-sided me. I thought  I had an idea what was coming, but I was totally wrong. Now I'm trying to decide whether an unexpected ending is enough to make me recommend a book that was otherwise just okay. It's an entertaining read, but not the best thriller I've read lately.



A Killer Location by Sarah T. Hobart

At first I couldn't remember what I'd liked so much about new real estate agent Sam Turner in the first book of the series, but then she hosted what has to be the most catastrophic open house ever and I was hooked again. Poor Sam is already struggling to provide for herself and her teenage son -- and the bodies that keep turning up in the house she's trying to sell aren't making her situation any easier. She goes to some crazy lengths to solve the mystery, but she's desperate to save her job. The mystery kept me guessing Sam and the cast of colorful secondary characters kept me giggling.  And I love Sam's relationship with her son -- none of the usual maternal griping about teenagers here!

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

Is There Anything Scary About Sewing Machines?

This post contains some spoilers for the movie Annabelle.

Teenage Son and I have been binge watching horror movies. Friday night's choice was Annabelle, which I'd been wanting to see because I'm a sucker for scary dolls. It turned out that what fascinated me most was the sewing machine. I waited and waited for the camera to move around so I could see the front and tell whether it was a Singer 404 like the one that a blog reader gave my daughter after she made that dress. Mia, the character in the movie, does a lot of sewing although we never see what she's actually making.

The machine is loud and the needle looks wicked and she's not holding her fingers the way I'd hold mine. So it's no surprise when she finally gets one of them in the path of the needle. I'd already Googled "what kind of sewing machine was used in Annabelle" -- because the plot was moving slowly and I really wanted to know whether I was right -- and the first results were video clips about the sewing machine scene. So I spent the rest of the movie expecting something awful to happen.

It doesn't. She hits her finger with the needle, just the same way most of us have at one time or another. She didn't get herself pinned to the machine, the way Bonnie Hunter once did and have to turn the wheel to free herself. She didn't have the tip of the needle stuck in her bone like Lori Kennedy at the Inbox Jaunt did. She bleeds just enough for it to be visible, rinses her finger in the bathroom sink, and heads back to her trusty Singer. (Which is, as best I can tell, a 404.) That confused my son, but I'm pretty sure it's what most of us quilters do. The most realistic part of the movie might be that she was so engrossed in her sewing she failed to notice her kitchen was in flames.

I think that sewing machine might have gotten more screen time than the possessed doll. In other scenes, it runs by itself. Mom's old Viking used to do that now and then, until we stopped leaving it plugged in. Again, not at all scary. At least not to this quilter.

Have you seen the movie? Did the sewing machine scene make you nervous?

{Guest Post} Julie Chase, Author of Cat Got Your Diamonds

Today I'm happy to be participating in a blog hop to promote Cat Got Your Diamonds, put together by Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours.  There's a giveaway at the bottom of the post, so be sure to enter for a chance to win some of Julie's other books.

Lacy Crocker makes her living with glitter and tulle. When she confronts an intruder in her shop, she's not afraid to go after him with her glitter gun. Things don't get scary until her attacker turns up dead and the investor who she depends on to keep her growing business afloat announces that he'll pull his support until the murder investigation is over and she has been cleared. Cat Got Your Diamonds by Julie Chase was all kinds of fun. Lacy's clientele is demanding (I'm still trying to picture the shih tzus in tutus and llamas in leg warmers) and she's determined to save her business. The animals are front and center and obviously adored by their owners, but it was never enough to turn this non-pet parenting reader off. And there were just enough loose ends to have me eagerly waiting for the next book, due out next year.

What a Difference a Year Can Make
by Julie Chase 

I recently returned to New Orleans, after a year away. I was in town for the first time about eighteen months ago while researching for another project. I lost days inside museums, taking walking tours and sitting on benches along the Mississippi filling up on café au lait and beignets. I was in love with the city long before I’d arrived, but being there was extraordinary. There was beauty, history and inspiration everywhere, but it wasn’t until I wandered onto a streetcar and exited in the Garden District that the wheels of creativity began to churn full speed. I had no idea then that the experience would change my life. I can vividly recall the tingles climbing my arms as I stood under a sprawling, bearded oak. It was as if I’d come home. I spent the rest of the day wandering. I shopped. I gawked. I ate. I knew this was where my story would begin because this was the place I didn’t want to leave, and writing about it would being me back every day.

As fate would have it, the world mystery convention, which moves to a new city each year, had chosen New Orleans for 2016. I had the chance to go back, and I took it. I spent another week in my favorite city, walking the same streets and revisiting my favorite sites, but this time the trip was completely different.

This year, as I walked Magazine Street, I wasn’t wondering what story I could tell. This year, I knew. I pictured Lacy stocking shelves inside her new and thriving pet boutique, Furry Godmother. I imagined her cat, Penelope, riding Spot, the vacuum robot over polished wooden floors and Jack, the handsome detective, arriving unannounced for a visit because he just can’t get Lacy of his mind.

This year, I wasn’t planning a novel. I’d already written it. And two sequels. I’ve connected with an amazing agent and a fantastic publisher. Both are as excited as I am about this new series. Last Year Julie would never have believed it.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell myself how much that trip would change her. That her dreams were about to take off. Then, I remember how exhilarating the last twelve months have been, and I wouldn’t want to have missed any of it. In fact, I can’t wait to see where I’ll be next fall because now I know what a difference a year can make.

Cat Got Your Diamonds is book one in the Kitty Couture Mysteries Series published by Crooked Lane books November 2016.

Grandeur and opulence are everything in the famed New Orleans Garden District where pets are family and no bling is too big. Opening Furry Godmother, pet boutique and organic treat bakery, is Lacy Marie Crocker’s dream come true--until the glitter gun used to make her Shih Tzu tutus becomes a murder weapon. And Lacy becomes public enemy #1.

Now Detective Jack Oliver is hounding Lacy, and her Furry Godmother investor wants out before his name is tarnished by association. To make matters worse, a string of jewel heists with suspicious ties to the murder case has New Orleans residents on edge. To save her dream, Lacy must take a stand, put her keen eyes to work, and unravel what really happened at her shop that night. But can Lacy sniff out the killer cat burglar in time to get her tail-raising designs on the catwalk?

Witty and whimsical, Cat Got Your Diamonds, the first in a new cozy series by Julie Chase, will be the cat's meow for fans of Rita Mae Brown and Miranda James.

Meet the Author

Julie Chase is a mystery-loving pet enthusiast who hopes to make readers smile. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Julie is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Sisters in Crime (SinC). She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyons Literary Agency. Julie also writes as Julie Anne Lindsey.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure - I received a review copy of the book as part of the book tour. As always, all opinions are my own. The Rafflecopter giveaway is run by Great Escapes. 

{Stash Report} Bulky Orange Yarn

I'm posting my stash report a day early because tomorrow I've got a guest post scheduled.

My first thought when I saw this yarn at the Dollar Tree last week (after I stopped wondering why it was there in the first place and how there was any of it left) was that I needed it to make cabled pumpkins for next Halloween.  Then I took a closer look at the label and realized that it was 100% wool and how much of it there was. Now I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with it.

What do you do when you're confronted with a great deal on pretty yarn that isn't something you'd usually use? Sock yarn, lace weight, worsted....those I use all the time and can guess at amounts for. But bulky? I knew that there were projects in my Ravelry queue that called for it, but I had no idea what the yardage would be and my phone is way too slow to do that kind of research on. So I made a wild guess. It was a bit high, but too much yarn is better than not enough. Whatever I don't need for the shawl, I'll use to make pumpkins.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 30 1/4 yards (+4 sheets)
Net added for 2016: 23 yards

Yarn used this Week:  0  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 6750 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 9518 yards
Net added for 2016: 2768 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Let's Make Baby Quilts {11/18/16}

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.

When the Safe Places are Really Safe...

The only thing I know about this cookie jar is that it belonged to my Great Grandma Walters. 

I've had it for twenty-five years or so and never once used it for its intended purpose. In one of our first apartments, we kept extra packs of taco sauce and ketchup in it. These days, it lives on an unreachable kitchen shelf for its own protection.

I think my favorite thing about it is the way that every inch of the glaze is crazed.

Look who I found when I opened it up to take the pictures --

 

Donald is, as far as I know, the only surviving toy from my husband's childhood. I assume that I put him in the cookie jar to protect him from little hands...and it worked. He's going back into his safe place which is going back on the high shelf. It's kept him in one piece for this long and I'll be darned if I let anything happen to him now!

Putting Together My Own Sock Yarn Sampler

Whenever Knitpicks sends an email with one of their new yarn samplers, I get a little bit weak in the knees. They're always so gorgeous and so many of the yarns are in colors that I'd love to knit with...which probably explains  why I've got so much of their yarn in my stash already, often in some of the same colors as the samplers I'm drooling over.  I can't help it that it looks prettier in the professional photographs than it does in my knitting bag.  

For a while now, I've been keeping my favorite socks yarns in a vintage train case. It's cute and keeps them safely contained and won't break if a kid happens to sit on it. (Can you guess how many plastic bins I've lost over the years?)  The only problem with that organization method is that the newest yarn goes into the case and the older stuff gets forgotten. So when I pulled out all of my sock yarn a few days ago, I picked out the colors I'm most excited about. Half of it is from the oldest depths of my yarn stash and the rest is newer. The plan is to do another sort in this spring and replace whatever I haven't used with the yarn that makes my heart go pitty-pat then.

In the meantime, I'm knitting away on a new pair of socks --

I made it through all of this in five  days before deciding that I'm sick of ribbing and can't stand the idea of knitting another round. We'll see how long it takes me to get over that.

(Can anyone else see a repeat in the yarn pattern here? I sure can't!)

Lots of Room For Pin Basting

For years, I've been sure that I was the only one who didn't have plenty of room to pin baste large quilts. I've heard people talk about ping pong tables and miraculously clean garage floors and using the tables at their library or community center. I was starting to think I was the only one who didn't have an unused living room to spread out in.

It wasn't until my post last month about pin basting on the queen size bed in our travel trailer that I realized I'm not the only one without huge expanses of empty space.

For this one brief moment in time, though, I've got an entire empty room! Teenage Daughter has moved to her own apartment and Teenage Son hasn't moved from the room he's currently sharing with his brothers. I'm hoping I'll work up the motivation to pin baste EVERYTHING before he gets motivated enough to start moving his own stuff.

And yes, I do realize that this floor is probably worse than the garage floors people are spreading out their quilts on. It's amazing how many dust bunnies reveal themselves once most of the furniture is gone. And photographs really do emphasize close to a hundred years of scratches and dings. (Anyone want to tell me the best way to clean up a floor that's probably lost most of the original finish? I'd like to redo it someday, but there are a lot of things higher on the list.)

Experimenting

My more recent scrap quilts have been more and more controlled. I play it safe by sticking to greens or blues or mixing obvious lights and darks.... or in an "anything goes" quilt like Cheddar Bow Ties,  I use all of that bright background to tie the fabrics together and make them play nicely.

It's been a long time since I threw caution to the wind and did something like Sparkling Gems. I had serious doubts when I started piecing the blocks for that one, but it all came together into a quilt that I still like.

We'll see what happens with this one. It'll take a lot more blocks before I have any idea what the finished quilt might look like.

The Whole Sock Yarn Stash

After I laid out my socks and got a look at what colors I'd used over the past few years, I decided that it would be interesting to lay out my sock yarn and see what colors I've been buying. And (maybe) how much sock yarn I actually have.

At the rate I've been knitting, I could get through all of that in about four years. If I don't use the leftovers to mix and match toes and heels and make pretty Frankensocks like Carol makes over at Polka Dot Chicken. This is all hypothetical and I think it's socially acceptable to not use every last yard of leftovers, so we'll stick with the 75 pairs I can knit if I don't get at all creative.

Honestly, I thought it would be worse than this. I've got a couple of random skeins in project bags and about a dozen single skeins that I didn't put in the picture because life is stressful enough without trying to remember if I started out with enough of a colorway to knit a full pair of socks, but this is as close to all of it as I'm going to get in one place. (All of the sock yarn. Not all of the laceweight or worsted weight acrylic or whatever other yarn I've got around here.)

The best part, even better than having a totally knittable amount of sock yarn, is that there are very few "what was I thinking" skeins here. And those that I did find have explanations. One was a totally different color than it looked on my screen and the other less than gorgeous stuff was really cheap and intended for mindless car knitting.

My taste in sock yarns has gone in circles over the years .At first I loved anything that looked pretty in the skein. Then I actually started knitting socks and realized that I'm not a fan of pooling... Then I only wanted pretty dark solids so I could play with texture....Then Judy did the Pooling Sock Yarn Challenge and it was back to the multi-colored stuff.  A few years after that, the accident gave me a whole new appreciation for pretty self-striping stuff. Now, I'm wanting lighter colored solids to show off fancier patterns -- and pretty self-striping stuff for car and TV knitting.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 30 1/4 yards (+4 sheets)
Net added for 2016: 23 yards

Yarn used this Week:  400  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 6750 yards
Yarn added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 9518 yards
Net added for 2016: 2768 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Fall Night Socks

My last pair of socks took forever. Two months, even if I adjust it for the time I spent knitting the September Scare. (For comparison, it usually takes me around sixteen days to knit a plain stockinette pair.) 

Yarn: Regia Arne & Carlos Fall Night  

This pair, which I finished on Thursday night, took me around ten days. I wasn't pushing myself or racing the calendar, but it sure feels good to finish a pair that didn't take an eternity. It might help that the yarn is a lot more exciting. I liked the Lavender Mix, but it didn't make my heart go pitty-pat. It was supposed to be boring-in-the-car knitting, but I wound up not knitting on the trip and then I was stuck with them.

The yarn for the next pair is so pretty that they may go even faster.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/11/16}

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.

Yarn Swift Storage

I've been meaning to sew a zipper bag for my swift, especially because it spends much more time in storage than it does in use. It takes a few minutes to wind a hank of yarn into a ball and a couple of weeks to knit the project. And most of the yarn I buy isn't in hanks to begin with. 

This is one of those tools that proves the "if you haven't used it in several months you don't need it" rule wrong. I don't use mine often, but when I do it's worth having. I've also used the rear view mirror of my car, my own knees, and a kid's hands to wind yarn. The swift is much easier! 

If you're not a knitter, here's what it does when it's expanded -- 

The top spins as you wind the yarn into a ball, either with a ball winder (have one, never use it) or your hands. It makes the job much faster and helps to avoid a hopelessly tangled mess of yarn. Although I've managed that even with the swift.

The bag is as simple as it gets, with three seamed sides and a long zipper. I decided a long time ago that when I did this I didn't want to be sliding the collapsed swift into the end of a long tube. All of those little ends want to  get caught on everything -- that's why it needed a storage bag in the first place.

I didn't make a lining or box the corners or anything fancy, even though it makes me feel like I'm cheating. Lier over at Ikat Bag makes a pretty convincing argument against unlined bags. It's a good thing that I skipped the lining though, because I wound up adjusting the length and width three times before I was happy. Figuring out the proper size to make a bag for an oddly shaped thing isn't one of my strong points.

The fabric is one of the oddest things I've found in my scraps to date, yellow calico spinning wheels. Just why? I like it because it's old and quirky but I'm not sure what I'd ever want to use it for besides a swift bag which won't see the light of day very often. (The bits that were left over will get chopped up and sewn into a scrap quilt so I can point at them in years to come and talk about the calico spinning wheels. They should fit right in with all of the other random bits of novelty prints.)

This post is linked to Bag It and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Faster Socks

 I'm doing better on this pair -- just look at how much I've done in the past week!

The best part is that I'm not even pushing myself. This is what got done in between  everything else.

I'm not in a rush to finish these to protect my children's toes from frostbite or for a war effort back in the years when factory made socks weren't a thing. I'm just anxious to finish this pair so I can cast on with yarn from the next pretty skein. And the one after that.

This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along 

{Estate Sale Temptations} I Had to See That Couch

There's been just too much going on for us to make it to many estate sales this year. I was starting to think I'd missed the entire season, but last weekend the sun was shining and I took a look at the online ads. Two estate sales and a barn sale, all close to home...and I had to go to the grocery store for milk anyway. 

So I loaded up the boys. 

I really, really wanted to see this couch in person. It's even wilder than that zodiac couch we found at the thrift store! Seriously -- why does this thing exist? I had so many questions, including whether or not those little oval pillows were attatched or loose and what the asking price for this monstrosity and it's matching love seat was.

On Friday, we couldn't find the sale. The directions were as plain as can be, with obvious landmarks, but there was no sign where the sale was supposed to be. It's not my favorite stretch of highway and there aren't good spots to turn around in, but we still went by three times before giving up.

Saturday, I was still thinking about the couch and needed to make another grocery run, so I gave it another try. There was a sign with balloons and I got to solve the mysteries of the couch.

First of all, this thing is easily eight feet long. Probably more like ten feet. Those oval pillows are loose, which makes it the most uncomfortable looking piece of furniture I've ever seen.

The price, for the couch and love seat and those three tables you can see? FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS. But he was willing to drop it down to four hundred. It was really expensive when it was new and, the grandson of the original owner told me, no one ever sat on it. Which totally explains why all of the velvet stuff is completely worn off.

It could be a really neat statement piece for the person with the right room and some upholstery skills. I hope it doesn't wind up in the dump.

I'm still squealing over the chair, which we found at the other estate sale. The one with an address and signs.

I saw it sitting in the carport and immediately plunked a boy into it with instructions not to move because if by some miracle it wasn't already sold, it was going home with us. It's in the back of my van now...

Except for the leather on the back, it's all solid wood. I don't know why it's gold, but at least they did a good job of painting it and managed to avoid all of the pretty metal hardware. I'd love to make it not-gold, but I've been wanting a chair like this ever since I saw the one Grandma tore apart and refinished. For ten bucks, I'm not going to quibble about the color. If it had been pink and sparkly and covered with stickers, I probably still would have brought it home. (Although I'm sure Teenage Son would have been less enthused about having it in his room.)

Speaking of my oldest son, he's been wanting an explosives crate probably since he learned to read and figured out that they were a thing. We see them in antique stores all the time, but they're always expensive. This one was at the barn sale and dirt cheap.  I found some nearly identical crates on Etsy for ten times what this one cost.

The seller said he started out with six of them. It's probably a good thing that he was down to the last one or my day would have been much more expensive. Because I'd kind of like a dangerous box of my own.

There was also one lone canvas bank bag. The boys are now creating a story about how someone would have a bunch of bank bags and an old box of explosives in his barn. I wish there'd been more bags, because one of those would be awesome for a zipper bag project. I'm not mean enough to fight my son for his. But I'll definitely keep my eyes open for another one!

The basket on top of the explosive box? That's one of three. They nest and have handles that fold flat and I don't know why I needed them, but I did. And once I paid for the explosives box and the bank bag and the metal first aid kit that's exactly like mine except it has it's original contents, the guy threw in my baskets.

I adore the chair and I'm happy my son got his crate, but the trip would've been it just to see that couch!

Narrow Strips and Lots of Seams

Ever decide that the best way to spend your afternoon is playing Jelly Roll Race with 1 1/2" strips? It's definitely not for the faint of heart or the impatient, but it gave me exactly the effect I was hoping for! I don't think I could have gotten that result any other way, so it was worth all of the untwisting and ridiculously long seams.

Soooo many seams to press when it was done! But I would've had just as many of those if I sewed the strips together the regular way. Now I've got to matchstick quilt the whole thing, because I have no common sense at all.

This post is linked to the Stash-Buster Link Party. 

Happy Squishy Mail

I had a moment last week, or maybe it was the week before, when I was sewing up a  couch cushion while balancing the phone against my ear and trying to get through a bunch of automated menus. Not the best time to have someone come in and dump the mail in my lap. I was dealing with enough at that particular second without having more things added.

The same thing happened again a few days later, but that time there was a squishy envelope on top of the pile from my friend Jo.

Isn't it pretty?!  I've never used this brand before and this colorway isn't showing up on Ravelry, but from the others that do show up, it's going  to make some wonderfully busy stripes. At first glance, I thought this yarn might be too close to the stuff I'm using for my Faster Socks to knit them back to back, but in addition to the white and orange and black, this one has green and yellow.

I talked myself out of frogging my toe and starting over with the pretty new yarn.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 7 1/4 yards
Fabric added this week:  0 yards
Fabric added year  to date: 30 1/4 yards (+4 sheets)
Net added for 2016: 23 yards

Yarn used this Week:  400  yards
Yarn used year to Date: 6350 yards
Yarn added this Week: 400 yards
Yarn added Year to Date: 9518 yards
Net added for 2016: 3168 yards

This post is linked to Patchwork Times.

Socks!

When I was still a newish knitter, I saw a fantastic picture of  someone's hand knit socks all laid out in a color wheel. (That site is gone now, but I found it on the wayback machine if you want to see the fifty-seven pairs of socks that got me so giddy.) At the time I'd only knit a handful of socks myself and even one seemed like a huge accomplishment.

Times have changed and a decade has passed and look what I've done..

This is only thirty-two of the sixty-some pairs I've knit since that picture took my breath away. I think I'm a real sock knitter!

What would be interesting would be to compare this with the sock yarn in my stash. The colors I love to buy versus the colors I actually pick up when it's time to knit...

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {11/4/16}

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.

Faster Socks?

Hopefully these go quicker than that last pair. I'm anxious to get to an orange stripe because I really want to see how this knits up.

Another haunted house book -- woohoo!



Starter House by Sonja Condit  has the same kind of scary quality that I loved so much about Rosemary's Baby. Being pregnant, especially pregnant and on bed rest, makes a woman vulnerable in a particularly uncomfortable way. An experienced teacher, Lacey is sure that she can deal with Drew, the angry little boy who haunts her new house. He's just a "noisy boy," she tells herself, not that much different than the living children she's dealt with in her classes. She's been warned that people have died in the house, and that something there hurts babies, but Lacey loves her new home and refuses to see how dangerous it is until it's too late to leave.

Disclosure -- The book came from the library. All opinions are my own. This post is linked to Patchwork Times, Yarn Along 

The Socks That Took Forever

I still don't understand this pair of socks. I cast them on before the Sedona trip, assuming that they'd done in plenty of time for me to cast on a pair with Fall Night and knit on those in October.

Two and a half months later, they're finally done. I can't explain why they took so long. Two weeks is usually plenty of time for a plain pair of socks like these. Nothing went wrong. I didn't have to rip back and start over. They just dragged on forever, to the point that I think my fingers haven't quite remembered how to knit yet.

But now they're done and I've cast on with some yarn that I really love and I'm hoping things will get back to normal.

Ever have a project like that?