Needle and Dime

Bowling at Rohmann's

2011-05-09T11:19:00.003-04:00

There is a very cool old Inn, just about 45 minutes from our house, which has a you-set-your-pins bowling alley in it. It is also a hotel which was visited by the likes of Mary Pickford, Charles Lindbergh, and Ronald Coleman, once upon a time (you can see their signatures in the old register even). We'd been meaning to go bowling there for the past year but only finally made it on Friday evening. I think we'll be back again soon! More photos here.

Last Week

2011-05-03T09:21:00.001-04:00

Very little crafting was accomplished last week but there was plenty of out-and-about accomplished. There were

A trip to visit Elliott the Ram, his son William, and

His new lambs (again.)

A trip to an abandonned cement factory and water fall in High Falls.

Cookies baked to take to a BBQ at my cousin's house in New Jersey.

And violets were foraged. More on that to come!

Another Mini Quilt?

2011-05-02T09:51:00.003-04:00

Of course I won't start on it until I've finished the list but I just saw this quilt this morning on the purlbee and think it's way too cute not to share!

Potholders 2011

2011-04-27T17:54:00.006-04:00

My potholders arrived in the mail today! They're lovely! Thank you so much to the crocheters (left to right, Becky / I Felt That, Brenda B, Betheany, Betsyknitsy, locteach) and to the organizers of Potholder Swap 2011.

The End of Week One

2011-04-24T11:12:00.003-04:00

I've stuck to it for one week, at least! No new projects were started and I even finished 2 "old" ones. Sure, neither of these had been sitting around for all that long but they were still on the list.

Trip Around the World Doll Quilt. Continuing my efforts to amass a collection like this one.

Flower Seeds pillow. I just love this fabric and how it matches the curtains in my craft room so it had to be a pillow. And, as an added bonus, this wool on the back is one that I love and have had for years and years (since my gung-ho rug hooking days in about 2004) but have never found a use for. Now I've used a bit of it at least!

Finishing Things

2011-04-17T10:37:00.008-04:00

Everyone who knows me very well at all knows that I'm not too good at finishing projects. Especially when I have places to store these projects (as I now have in my house versus my 1-closeted apartment in Brooklyn) and so they're not staring me in the face at every turn. So, now that I'm working more frequently (for the best letterpress printer), I've decided that I need a list and a little accountability to get my list of UFO's under control. My goal is to have everything on this list finished by the end of October. I know that the list looks daunting but, just so you don't think I've lost my mind, I'll just point out quickly that quite a few of these projects are very very nearly finished already. Also, I'm not going to start any new projects except for those for people outside of my household until the end of October. Hold me to that one especially!

Here we go!

Throw Quilts:

Doll Quilts:

Woodland Bitty Blocks

Bed-Sized Quilts:

Either Rectangles and Squares Quilt

OR Sleepy Hollow Quilt

Daybed Log Cabins

Pillows:

Master Bedroom Pillow Shams

String-Block Daybed Pillow (using blocks like the top one from this post)

Pink Flower "Seed Packet" Craft Room Toss Pillow

3 Koigu Granny Square Crocheted Pillows

Painting:

kitchen cabinets

furniture to be charcoal grey (small dresser in study, kitchen chairs (3), Thea Table)

Curtains:

last study curtain

living room porch-window sheer

Clothing Sewing:

Amy Butler Tunic

Grey Linen Dress (from the same pattern as this dress)

Liberty Summer Blouse (from the same pattern as this one)

Knitting:

Patrick's Brown Cabled Sweater

Seaming for my machine-knit pullover

Black Kim Hargreaves Dress Sweater

Blue Sweater Vest for Patrick (ravelry link)

MadTosh Ink Socks (ravelry link)

Rosamund Cardigan (ravelry link)

Mosaic Throw

Misc Sewing:

Chesterfield Pincushion (like this one)

Cross Stitched Tiny House & Flowers

quilted potholders

Back to the sewing machine with me!!!

Spring-Like

2011-04-10T17:54:00.003-04:00

I've been distracted by some before-it-gets-too-warm to work on quilts sewing and a bit of garden prep work but I'll be back with a more detailed post soon. In the meantime, today it seems that spring is possibly coming to the Catskills and I felt like making a flickr mosaic of the colors of the inbetween season.

1. Finished Square Pincushion, 2. CHARLEY HARPER , 3. P1060291, 4. Project 365 - Day 167, 5. number the tea cups, 6. wreath, 7. I like yellow., 8. yellow week, day three :: yip 2/18/09, 9. spring is here, 10. IMG_4524_edited-1, 11. Cold Spring - Hudson River View, 12. Hourglass Eyelet Socks

DQS10 Finished

2011-03-25T18:42:00.006-04:00

On my end it's finished, anyway. I've still not received my quilt and that is a big part of the swap. But I like most doll quilts so I know that I'll love whatever comes my way. Most of my nervousness in the swap comes from worrying about whether my partner will like her/his quilt that I made. And she did!

This little quilt made it to Dena (here's her blog, complete with the photo I used for the house on this quilt there in the header) and I heard from her today so now I can talk about it freely (the doll quilt swap has secret partners so I couldn't post photos of it before for fear she'd see her house and know it was for her). I'm so excited that she liked it! It was a whole lot of fun to make, with all of the little embroidery details I so enjoy stitching.

Dena also likes to embroider so I just had to include a little embroidery/needle book. With some variegated threads. These swap packages are way too much fun to put together!

And here's the whole thing, with the 2 bits of fabric, some local tea, the needlebook, and the quilt, all smooshed into that plastic envelope to protect it in the mail. I hope the wrinkles iron out.

Now I can't wait for my quilt to come and then it's on to crossing my fingers that I get into round 11!!

Snowing Again

2011-03-23T09:26:00.005-04:00

I was going to be back here with a post about our newly patched, painted, and decorated bathroom (not the pepto bismol bath but the other one) but I feel so whiny about the snow that was just dumped on us that I have to post photos of that instead. I just calculated a couple of days ago that at this time last year we were out working in the yard in t-shirts. Yikes!

I promise to come back soon, not whining about 3 more inches of snow but with photos of the bathroom.

2011-03-14T09:10:00.000-04:00

Another reason for my doll quilt obsession discussed in my last post could very well be my love of miniatures. It does cause me to do some crazy things in cross stitch.

And to buy some totally adorable Lustreware salt and pepper shakers. Why wouldn't it be at least a part of the doll quilt thing? I'm off to cut up some more tiny squares!

Attack of the Doll Quilts

2011-03-11T10:23:00.001-05:00

I seem to be addicted to doll quilts. They're just so much fun! A good place to try out new techniques that maybe I don't want to use for a full quilt. A nice practically instant-gratification project. Not to mention the fact that I've become a bit obsessed with these two photos.

My quilt for DQS10. I love this swap! Except for the fact that in this case, the secret partner thing is requiring me to keep that piece of paper over my favorite part of the quilt until I get it mailed out to my partner!

This one's backed and quilted now but this is still the best photo that I have of it -- at least it gives you an idea of the pattern.

This one's inspired by one of the ones in Hilary's photo (linked above). I do love this fabric!

But the unfortunate side effects of making this many doll quilts is that 1) a person eventually uses up every last little scrap of batting in the house and 2) the quilts all inevitably come to the part (and all at the same time if they're feeling particularly diabolical) where the binding needs to be hand-stitched onto the back of the quilt. Oops.

First Finished Knitting Project for 2011

2011-03-09T10:16:00.003-05:00

I actually finished something! Even working in all of the loose ends, pressing the edge pieces, and sewing on the buttons! It's the Sketchbook Cardigan from Lion Brand. I knitted it exactly as written in the pattern but here's a ravelry link anyway, in case you want more details. I love the way it turned out (although the fact that every single edge is picked up, knit double-length, turned, and sewn down to the underside made me feel a bit insane as I was doing it)! I've been wearing it every day since it was knit enough to be wearable. Even before I finished knitting the trim pieces or sewing the buttons on. I love it so much that I think that my next knitting project may just be another Lion Brand pattern that I have (I picked it up on the yarn crawl last October).

And I leave you today with a button photo. Just because I love buttons. Don't you agree that they deserve a closeup, even if it is a bit poorly focused?

Quick Ikea Dash

2011-02-22T10:39:00.002-05:00

Well we dashed until we hit the line anyway. Then we were a bit stalled. But we managed to pick up

A new light fixture for the downstairs bathroom. One without an extender pole meant to hold it down below the (removed) drop ceiling. Now if only we could finish scraping the room so it could be painted!

No, not the cat. New curtains for the living room. Most notably, the window in this corner is no longer uncovered. That had been bothering me for a long time. Now once I actually get them hemmed and the other sheer for the window looking onto the porch sewn up, this room will be entirely be-curtained.

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T12:32:00.003-05:00

I hope you have a very happy Valentine's Day! Things are very productive over this way today.

Finished redwork pillow (more information here and an in-progress close-up photo here).

One of my series of holiday cross-stitch pieces. This is the one that started that whole project, actually. I love the little heart at the top made of french knots and that the letters are wonky as they are.

And last but certainly not least, I have the Valentines I've received so far from Crow and Canary's second annual card swap. I love this swap! Here is my post about if from last year (complete with a crocheted heart pattern!).

Walk Up the Mountain: Winter Edition

2011-02-10T11:04:00.006-05:00

Since walking up the 3 miles or so a few times last summer, I'd not been back up the mountain on which our house sits until yesterday. It was cold but still pretty and quiet up there (it was 14 degrees F yesterday!). I especially enjoyed the wandering donkeys (the same ones in the pen in the summer post -- I hear that they're kind of "free range" now).

I didn't get any photos of the views as I did in the summer and there weren't any bobcats spotted and the ferns are all hibernating but there were snow-covered and abandonned birds' nests to spot and still the creek to listen to and passing neighbors for roadside chatting.

Bitty Blocks -- February

2011-02-03T12:34:00.003-05:00

The theme for the 3.5-inch Bitty Blocks for this month is words/text. It's been interpreted a ton of different ways but here are my takes on it (I'm in 2 groups so I'm to make 2 sets of 12 to swap). The top set has 3 different fabrics printed with words and the bottom set has 1 fabric printed with letters and another that I freezer paper stenciled with the first initial of each of the quilters in the group. I'm excited for the other blocks to start coming in the mail!

Doll Quilt Swap 10: Begun

2011-01-28T14:27:00.004-05:00

I've had enough time now to check my (secret) Doll Quilt Swap partner's information and likes / dislikes to develop a plan and actually get started. The deadline on mailing the quilts out is in about 2 months still but I plan to do a fairly complicated embroidery / applique piece for the center so the more I can get done prior to receiving my background piece of linen, the better.

Fabric choices for the Doll Quilt.

Inspiration mosaic for the center embroidered piece. All photos from flickr.

A bit of my scale schematics / sketches for the design and an (unironed / untrimmed) bit of the main border.

Back to the sewing machine!

2010 Crafting Year in Review

2011-01-25T11:36:00.003-05:00

For the last few weeks, I'd been seeing all sorts of year in review posts on flickr and blogs. It made me think about what I'd actually finished last year. Mostly what came to mind was house projects or gardening accomplishments. But, in making a mosaic of my crafting from last year, I realized that I'd actually done more that I thought I had. Good reason to do this kind of exercise!

I think I knit that first sweater last year rather than the year before last. I made curtains for my house (and learned about printing by hand in the process), scarves for my etsy shop, pincushions, a doll quilt, stockings, and potholders for various swaps (and improved my applique, paper piecing, machine quilting, pattern developing, and quilt binding skills in the process), and a pillow just for fun from some fabric from one of my favorite illustrators/crafters. There was also a cardigan just for me, and a quilt for my parent's Christmas gift.

I suppose that I did more than I thought I did, craft-wise, last year! (Although I did turn out to have read just as few books as I kind of suspected that I did -- Julie & Julia, The Making of a Marchioness, and Cheerful Weather for the Wedding are really the only books that I finished. I'll have to work on finishing books in 2011 -- I probably started 10 that I never finished!)

Bitty Block Committee

2011-01-18T15:28:00.003-05:00

Introducing my latest craze in flickr swapping -- the Bitty Block Committee! This is a swap wherein the participants can sign up by month to make 12-24 blocks in a theme to send to other swappers in exchange for different blocks, all measuring 3.5 inches square (3 inches finished). December's theme was "birds and owls", for which I made the little embroidered robin, 2nd up and over from the bottom left corner, and the stamped rooster, diagonally up and to the left from him. Also, not for the swap, but to try out paper piecing, I did the 2nd bird down from the top right corner, inspired by this wonderful mug rug. The rest of the blocks were made by my fellow swappers and I love all of them! More of the blocks were used for the pillow I showed yesterday and the last few are being saved for another project to be done in future. Perhaps after the DQS10 is over.

Speaking of which, in other swap news, I WAS ACCEPTED INTO DQS10!!!! How exciting is that? I had so much fun with the swap last year, I can't wait to get full tilt into it again this year. Good quilting on the horizon!

A Finished Project Explored

2011-01-17T11:24:00.003-05:00

Bitty Block Committee Owls

I finished a Bitty Block Committe project! December's theme was birds and owls and, as I signed up to get 24 blocks, I had plenty to separate out just the owls which matched one another. Then, based on this pillow of Amanda's, I made little 4-inch HST blocks and add 1/2-inch borders around the 3-inch owls, sashed it all and made it into a pillow.

The photo of the finished pillow was "Explored" by flickr (thanks to Lynne for explaining all of that whole new thing to me!) How exciting!

New Favorite Fabric

2011-01-10T13:15:00.003-05:00

I knew I was going to love this one from La Petite Ecole (it's the one I asked them to look up when we were at Quiltworks, mom) but I love it even more than I thought I would. Good thing I bought a whole yard (ha!) rather than my usual "minimum they will allow me to purchase". My favorite of the little motifs is that Enfant there in the front. I hadn't seen him in any online previews.

No idea about what I'll use this for (unusual for me to buy fabric (especially this much fabric) without any purpose for it) or how I'll ever find a project special enough to make me cut into it but, for now, I'm enjoying just looking at it.

One of Six

2011-01-07T12:27:00.006-05:00

Well, after a bit of indirect prodding by a flickr friend (who is also making a French General quilt) I managed to (somewhat) conquer those diamonds and my new triangle-in-a-square template to complete one of the blocks for my quilt. I'm still hoping that I can make the "stars" in the corners (only half of which are there now) more prominent with my quilting but I am enjoying a pleasant overload of red, white, and beige for the moment. Five more (and 3 center block portions) to go!

Thanks for the Christmas fabric, Mom!

Because I Was Asked

2011-01-05T14:03:00.005-05:00

I've been a bit too busy obsessing over Bitty Blocks to get very far with this project but, since I created a little bit of interest in the project, I thought I'd go ahead and share the (very) little I've done so far.

The Lumiere de Noel layer cake was a Christmas gift from my parents which I've supplemented with just a little bit of other fabric from French General (just 2 quarter-yards). The pattern was inspired by the sashing on this quilt.

As you can see, I've mostly only done the simiplest parts so far. And have a few mistakes in a few more blocks of those squares-in-squares which I need to pick and resew. Already! But maybe I'll feel inspired this afternoon to tackle a few of the triangle bits and make a completed block.

Since the Last Time I Saw You

2011-01-04T16:40:00.006-05:00

Hello there! I'm sorry for my extended absence. It turns out that handmaking all Christmas gifts and then driving from Oklahoma City to Upstate New York (straight through) is both time-consuming and tiring. But I'm back now. And happy new year to you all!

I just love paperwhites. That's been a major event of the last few weeks is that the ones I bought from the farmer's market are blooming. And have to be continually re-staked because they are so tall!

Also in the past couple of weeks we spent New Year's Eve here at the house with a couple of friends, playing cards. The fire actually refrained from smoking and it was a cozy and lovely evening. We even had a potluck dinner between the 4 of us. ("Company chicken", toffee candy similar to 7-layer bars, and my favorite broccoli soup)

And finally, I'm happy to finally be able to reveal some of the Christmas gifts which kept me so busy throughout December. (Not pictured, I made several of Liesl's gorgeous little boats and 4 pair of Toasty Mitts.)

Perhaps the largest project was this throw quilt for my parents. It was actually completely finished (I am notorious for giving unfinished gifts, as perhaps are most crafters) and the largest quilt I've totally finished to date. I think it looks very nice in their living room so I'm happy that it got done, even if I had to go through 2 walking feet to get it there (I think the first one was just poorly made -- it only managed to quilt 3 potholders and half of this quilt before breaking).

Here I am wearing the hat I made for my husband's step father, Howard. I hope it fits him better than it fits me!

Snowmen from this pattern (found via 2MayBoys and the Trim the Tree swap). I love these little guys!

Sewing Overtime

2010-12-15T14:57:00.002-05:00

Well, the Christmas gifts box went out the door this morning and most of the cards went yesterday. I still have a few more cards, one more batch of cookies (so far I've made these (with peach lavender jam from the summer), these, and these, all of which are quite tasty although the caramel didn't set up), and a few more gifts which I plan to carry on the plane to finish up but I felt this afternoon like I had a bit of time to sew some more on my Mystery Quilt.

I've been asked what a Mystery Quilt is and this seems like as good a time as any to explain a bit. So Bonnie Hunter posts these "hints" on her blog every Friday (basic quilt elements to put together, such as 120 half-pink-half-brown half square triangle blocks at 3.5 inches) and we all follow along blindly until we get to the last step (the past mysteries have had about 7 steps and we're now on 4) where we see what in the world it is that we're making! I know that it'll be a full-size quilt in pink, green, chocolate, cream, and red, but that's absolutely it so far.

Jessica (whose blog I found the mystery through) and I are muddling through together. Having someone to discuss with does make it a ton of fun. But I've been too busy with holiday preparations just now to get much done.

The photos above are, at top, my single 8.5-inch "neutral" block (I'm to make 60 of them but I haven't quite figured out the tricks to sewing onto a paper foundation with my machine), in the middle, 142 of 172 2-inch wide pink-and-green strips, and, on the bottom, most of the 120 pink-and-brown half square triangles (they're not actually to be pinwheels necessarily, I just like arranging them and admiring them as pinwheels). I've not even started on the 120 green-and-neural 2-inch strips and matching 2-inch green blocks. At least I've made a bit of progress though.

Holiday Shopping

2010-12-08T10:02:00.003-05:00

I can't show a lot of what I'm purchasing or working on for holiday gifts just yet but I can show the fun little things I found at Ikea! (Which, by the way, was having a sale (at least the one in Red Hook was) on all holiday merchandise, in case you're interested.)

There were lots of wonderful wrapping papers but I picked this one because it reminds me of a fair isle sweater and that's something I'm very into at the moment. And, of course, I had to buy the (look Aryn, I'm going to call them the right name!) REINDEER ornaments (I kept saying "moose" in the store). I think they'll make some lovely gift tags. Now to find the time to get some things wrapped and in the mail!

Many Small Changes

2010-12-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

This is a photo of our living room from last January, shortly after we'd purchased the house. All of the furniture shown was left behind in the house and has all now found new homes.

And now with our furniture. And my Christmas-Card-and-Mystery-Quilt-making mess on the table. It still needs paint and (the rest of the) curtains. And I'd like to recover that sofa. But I'm excited about the progress. Especially that the squashed-Smurf-colored shag carpet is gone.

This is, to me, one of the most dramatic before-and-afters from our house. Inspired by Patrick's work on that ceiling fan. Believe it or not, it is the very same ceiling fan in both the before and after photos. We just bought a new light kit for it from Home Depot and used some spray paint leftover from painting the kitchen cabinet hinges. And, of course, turned the blades over to their non-rattan side.

Big Progress on a Small Quilt Top

2010-11-29T12:32:00.002-05:00

First, I must make a note that those little bits of Double-Wedding Ring in the front left corner are the quilt on the bed underneath my log cabin quilt. I know that they look funny.

Other than that, I'm happy to report more progress on this quilt which I've been piecing since July! It all came to a standstill when I couldn't find my rotary cutter to square up the blocks and has had insane progress made on it since I bought my new favorite cutting tool and found the cutter again last week. Now all of the log cabins are pieced, many of them are attached to one another, and I'm ready to go find a batting and a backing.

This quilt is for the daybed that I've had since I was 10, which has the same quilt to go with it that it has had since even before the bed was given to me. It's really time for a new quilt! We're planning to pick the bed up in Oklahoma at Christmas. It will become a new "sofa" in my craft room / sun porch. With a new quilt. All of this being here to explain why there are odd cut-outs on the corners of the quilt -- it's for a daybed.

I certainly hope that it goes well with my new curtains. But I still haven't painted in the room so I can pick a paint to match both and bring it all together. Must get back to work (and back to cutting pieces for the mystery quilt which I will show here soon).

Thanksgiving Doings

2010-11-25T13:34:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Busy busy over here. But not with what I should be busy with on Thanksgiving.

I wanted to wear my sugarplum pullover for dinner today so I finished working in all the loose ends.

The first snow of the year is falling.

I'm so obsessed with my new cutting tool (and newly rediscovered rotary cutter) that I can't stop working on quilting.

And the first of Mildred Pearce's eggs to be used is being made into dinner rolls by the bread machine.

I hope you have a good one too!

Yet Another Collection

2010-11-22T11:44:00.005-05:00

I'm dying to buy this book right now so, to deter myself from making such a large and unnecessary expenditure this close to holiday gift-giving time, I'm looking back at all of my other Blackbird pieces I've stitched over the past 7 years. Blackbird Designs are, by the way, my very favorite of cross-stitch companies and Barb and Alma are the nicest people (I was lucky enough, in about 2004 to get to travel to the cutest store in Mexico, MO for a rug-hooking class that they taught).

This is the inside of that needle book at the top of this post. An old, retired loose feathers pattern. I love how they mix little things like needle books and boxes in with the plain, flat cross-stitch pieces in their designs. They always have great instructions for finishing these little items and its fun to occasionally not just use the stitched pieces for framing or pillows.

My most recent framed cross-stitch project. A new addition to my miniature houses collection, from a Loose Feathers pattern. More miniature houses (with a box of pins for scale) below. I have done 3 of these houses so I guess that this is really becoming a Blackbird Miniature Houses Collection.

I don't remember offhand where the pattern on the left is from (if anyone is interested, email me and I'll dig it out of my old patterns to tell you what it is) and the one on the right is, if I remember correctly, a free download from their site from about 4 years ago. Maybe longer. Time flies.

This one can be found here. I have a series of cross-stitched pieces that I like to hang for each season/holiday. I think I have about 13 of them, mostly stitched between 2003 and 2005. Every place that I live, I find a nice prominent wall, put one nail right in the middle, and rotate out these pieces. I'm starting to want to put two nails in the wall and make a set of complimentary pieces. Yikes.

This one is my marriage sampler. It's from "A Fine Collection". They mentioned in the book how they'd originally stitched the initials of a group of their friends in among the leaves. I loved this idea and we had a tiny wedding so I put the initials of all of the attendees in among the leaves, with my and Patrick's names and the date at the bottom. We came to NYC on the train in December of 2003 after being married in November and I stitched most of this on that 3-day ride.

Also somewhere around here is another half-finished piece which I believe I'm planning to make into a pillow. But it's hiding. Probably with my rotary cutter and the bin pulls for the kitchen drawers. So I'll save it for a later post.

Maybe in the meantime I'll go stitch something else from the Fine Collection book since I've only made one thing from that whole book (and surely I don't need to buy another book until I've made better use of the one I already have!)

Stitching Away

2010-11-19T11:55:00.002-05:00

I don't think I'm going to get a whole lot more done on these wonderful ornaments of Alicia's once I get started on this huge quilt but at least I've finished two (of six -- I think I was feeling quite ambitious) before getting distracted. And had a ton of fun doing them both!

Isn't this one cute, even with its waste canvas in? (Waste canvas is, by the way, magical! I'd never used it before and now I'm seeing cross-stitches all over everything in my house!)

After my cats' complete and utter (and undeterable) obsession with my polar bear, I decided that it was a bad idea (for me -- I don't think there is a single thing wrong with the patterns) to leave the bottom open, as instructed, and so I cut a little ellipse out of some leftover felt and made a faux-ribbed cuff to close the opening, while still leaving the bottom of the mitten "open" (the extra piece of felt made the bottom 3D, rather than just blanket stitching it all closed). Maybe this will keep it all in one piece after the cats find my hiding spot (on the wall) and play football with the mitten.

And, to close, a less dismally dark photo of my polar bear, complete with tiny scarf. He he!

Woo Hoo!

2010-11-19T11:53:00.003-05:00

And we're off on the quilt. I'll see you all in a month, after I find my rotary cutter (MIA since the move last February. . .) and cut out 172 "sections". I don't think I've cut that many of a piece of fabric for any project, ever. This should be fun!

Get Rolling Cotton Boll

2010-11-14T11:38:00.006-05:00

I'm feeling very impatient to get started on my Quiltville Mystery Quilt. I found this whole mystery quilt business through Jessica's blog and felt intrigued by the mysteriousness of it all. But then I saw the Double Delight quilt from a previous mystery and looked at the holes developing in my two current quilts (which are both commercially produced quilts and both getting to be quite old, as far as commercially produced quilts go) and couldn't resist. But now I've gathered all of my fabrics (most of which came from my stash -- I had no idea that I had so much fabric!) and put them in pretty little piles and I am itching to cut!

A lucky thing for me is that I happen to really really love the color combo for this particular mystery quilt (which is likely why I had so many of these colors in my stash -- if she'd thrown in a blue I'd probably have had more trouble). I don't, however, have 1-3/4 yards of any single fabric in my stash so I'll have to order the red she mentions. Darn. I love this one. So much that I'm having to restrain myself from buying a whole lot extra so that I can have it around for future projects.

This is going to be great fun!

Happy Friday

2010-11-12T19:00:00.004-05:00

Just a couple of photos from the past few days. The weather has been really nice here which has led to a few fun walks (and pinecone gathering) and some lovely light in the house. Autumn has come back after a few weeks of winter! Proof in the mixed nut bin in the grocery store (there are some nuts for that squirrel under those pinecones).

Persephone Grey

2010-11-10T12:47:00.008-05:00

Progress has been made on the house! I'm not sure that I've had a major (positive) update like this to share since the hallway, all the way back in July. It's always tough to photograph our house, since all of the rooms are quite small, but I hope that I can do it justice. Our master bedroom, which was previously seafoam green, full of cracks and scuffs, and bedecked with frilly curtains, is now cleaned and patched and painted the color of grey of a persephone book cover (I just went to my paint guy, who is the best paint guy in the world, and asked him for a grey the same color that he'd made the primer for another room -- and it's lovely, don't you think?)

I realize now that that photo above may be a bit confusing -- that thing in the lower left corner, at the foot of the bed, is my cedar trunk -- it's just the exact color of the floor and so kind of makes it look like the floor overlaps the door somehow. The door up there on the right goes into the study and the other out into the second floor hallway.

Now for some before and after:

This is the "before" photo of the same corner as the photo of the chair at the top of the post. It was taken almost exactly a year ago, when we were just looking at the house.

This above little tiny pressed-flower artwork (which I love -- it's from my favorite antique store in my hometown) is hanging in the little space between the closet door and the wall with the windows which you can see in the "before" photo above, thus making these two photos a kind of set.

An immediate "before". The other before shot was taken just after purchase of the house back in January but this one is just from a few days ago. Those white smudges are patching of some of the cracks.

And the fourth corner (below). I don't have a good "before" photo to pair with this one so I'll just let it stand alone. This corner did have the biggest crack of all though -- it went all the way through to the hallway (the door to the hallway is just outside of the frame of the photo, to the right -- that's it reflecting in the mirror).

Power Outage

2010-11-08T15:35:00.003-05:00

Every time there is a power outage here (which is really quite frequently -- we're up in the mountains), I am dismayed to notice, yet again, just how much of my day-to-day life requires electricity. Not even just batteries but plugged-in electricity. No cooking. No machine sewing. No knitting in front of the television. No blogging. No dish washing (the boiler is oil powered but is triggered by electricity). Really unbelievable. Surely I can think of something to do about this?

On the upside, last week these fantastic ornament kits from Alicia came and I'd not had time to get started on them, despite my huge excitement, due to all of the aforementioned "distractions".

Aren't they terribly cute, all packaged up?

I actually only stitched up the polar bear before the power came back on (they're used to the power-out drill up here, as I said) so the rest will have to wait for another day (including this guy's little blue scarf) but I had so much fun stitching him in front of our (smoky) fire, with a cat on either side. Hooray for an occasional power outage!

Great Steps in Quilting

2010-11-02T15:30:00.007-04:00

This week I've had several quilting "breakthroughs". Which I suppose is really the fun in learning something new -- when I learn something new. When it's challenging. It's certainly tough sometimes though.

Everything's still a bit wonky but that's "handmade", right? At least that's what I like to tell myself.

To make those 3 little objects up there (the top one is a Dresden Plate doll quilt I made just because I wanted to try to make a Dresden Plate, and the bottom photo is of 2 potholders for PP5), I purchased and learned how to use a walking foot (how did I ever sew anything without one of these? It's the coolest thing ever!), really learned how to machine quilt in general (using this hugely helpful post), finally managed to make my square corners more pointy (reread Denyse Schmidt Quilts for info on that), and actually finished one of my own quilting projects (I'd finished quilting projects for swaps but not a single one of the projects I'd started for my house). Of course I still have tons of room for improvement but every little bit helps!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T11:51:00.001-04:00

If you celebrate that sort of thing. . .

(made from this pattern)

Halloween Swap

2010-10-29T11:27:00.003-04:00

Here is the first bit of promised swap-info. This was from the Autumn/Halloween Swap on ravelry. It was the first ravelry swap I participated in, and I joined the day that I finally joined ravelry. It was a lot of fun, although I do find the flickr swaps a bit more active and easy to post updates too. But maybe it's just because I'm more familiar with flickr. Probably so.

Anyway, above you have my lovely swap goodies. I must apologise here to slippergirl for taking so long to get this photo posted. At least it's up in time for Halloween! As I mentioned, I've been somewhat preoccupied with this Christmas crafting.

I am especially happy to have some point protectors (believe it or not, in the 10 years I've been knitting, I've never owned a single point protector -- and there were certainly times when I should have been using one!) and crazy flavors of candy corn. I've never had either of these before. And I think I'll be using the yarn for yet another gift in the next couple of months so that's certainly a good thing to have! Thank you so much, slippergirl, for all of the fun loot!

Below is a photo of the things that I sent to my swap partner. My favorite thing to make/gather was the "boo" wall hanging. I just had a few Halloween bits about and once I started sewing them together, it became one of those most fun of all projects where it all just seems to magically work out and go together and fit. That doesn't happen often, I can tell you! There is also a skein of cascade 220, some Martha cupcake papers, candles made near my house, a tin full of candy corn, fingerless mitts, knit by me, and a project bag I sewed up.

Not included in this photo but in the package were a whole bunch of candy corn and a great Halloween pattern designed by Thea. It's felted (which my partner, Cary, seems to like to do), and super-cute. If you knit and are into Halloween, you should go check it out!

Blogging Holidays

2010-10-28T11:41:00.004-04:00

For all of my on-again-off-again relationship with Needle and Dime, I am just realizing that I've never before actually blogged through a holiday season. How do people do this? I find that I'm spending most of my time making Christmas gifts (with a little bit of swapping on the side -- more to come soon on that front). Christmas gifts which I can't really blog about here. Hence the lack of posts lately. But, as I've hinted, I have a few swaps ending soon and will be back with show and tell very soon! (And you know that there will be a huge post right after all of these gifts are given!)

Knitting Again

2010-10-18T14:08:00.003-04:00

You may have noticed that I'd not been knitting much for some time. Quilting had taken over all of my spare time. But I guess that it must have been the yarn crawl, although I didn't buy much yarn on it, that sent me back to thinking about knitting. And the sheep and wool festival in Rhinebeck this past weekend was the last straw. I bought a lot of yarn. More than I'd bought in the entire past year all put together.

Last week, the week between the yarn crawl and the festival, I knitted these ornaments for the Trim the Tree swap. Then today I've started knitting this (progress pictured above) while watching this fun new find. Full of wonderful cardigans and sweaters. I forsee a lot more knitting in my future. Especially now that it's so chilly here (in the 50's over the weekend! -- fall has arrived).

planned to be socks

planned to be two pullovers (not both for myself), the finishing for a pullover begun last year, and one skein of tbd (the red-orange one)

vest for Patrick

Back from Yarn Land

2010-10-12T14:05:00.002-04:00

And into my pile of dishes (and apples). But at least the dishes are kind of quiet and don't involve walking miles and miles of NYC. Don't get me wrong, the Yarn Crawl was super-fun (and where I spent my entire weekend). My feet just don't feel terribly happy about it. I have a ton more photos over on flickr but here are a few, just as a representation of my holiday weekend.

And the loot. Hmm. That doesn't look like very much yarn for a yarn crawl. Oh well. I guess it just goes to show that the quilting bug is still in full effect!

Another Garden Post

2010-10-07T20:51:00.004-04:00

Anyone who might be there is likely to be tiring of gardening posts, I would guess, but I still have one more to share. Garden season is coming to an end and crafting in front of the fireplace season is about to begin.

In the meantime, one more gardening post.

Tonight I made my first soup of the season! With lovely leeks from the farmer's market and broccoli from my garden (which wasn't very photogenic), I made Molly's Broccoli Soup with Lemon Chive Cream. So good! I even got to use some garlic chives from the same (most helpful to this new-to-gardening-few-vegetables-eater) farmer at the market. I hadn't had the soup since last winter and had forgotten how just good it is. Good way to start soup season!

Must remember to keep the woodchuck out of the garden next year so I can make a whole lot more of this then.

As for the lack of crafting, beyond soup-making, I blame the apples. Which are seemingly never going to end. But, luck of all luck, yesterday this new, wonderful gadget was sent to me by my thoughtful mother. Now I can peel and slice the apples in half the time. And, as an added bonus, my waste bowl was not looking quite so equal to my cookpot (in other words, the peeler keeps me from wasting so much fo the apple). Too bad it doesn't cook them for me too. . .

Dresden Plate Progress

2010-10-06T12:27:00.006-04:00

I'm loving loving making this Dresden Plate. I never wanted a full quilt of these but I always loved them and wanted to try one. And it's so much fun! I see now that I'm making pretty slow progress but I think it's just because it won't be there to work on any more once it's finished.

I followed this tutorial, used a border like this doll quilt, and used this quilt as the inspiration for the treatment of the circle in the center (it's done, in my case, by applique of a blue-dot circle and then cutting out a square of the white fabric barely larger than the blue circle, folding it into quarters, cutting a curve out of the corner, and applique-ing the shape on top of the circle). It's not perfect but I like to just chalk that up to "handmade".

All that's left to do is to add solid-blue squares to the corners (I can't seem to find what's left of my solid blue fabric. . .), put on the back (which will be blue-green, rather like the color in that Denyse Schmidt square print there), and then bind it all with the white-with-aqua-dots fabric which is kind of out of focus but toward the top of the photo above. And then quilting. Which will be pretty minimal on this small of a quilt. Sadly. I do enjoy quilting.

Apples Apples

2010-10-04T17:00:00.005-04:00

Well. After that post last week in which I mentioned processing a few apples, I put up 3 apple pie fillings (in ziploc quart freezer bags into the freezer) and set aside 4 lbs of apples to use for the apple butter. And then there were only about 8 apples left. So I decided to go back to my friends' farm for a "few" more apples so I'd have enough to make sauce. Yeah. A few. They had other ideas and sent me home not only with my bag completely full (which I'd only filled halfway last time) but also a box that they'd ostensibly filled for themselves but decided that I needed to take with me.

At least it was a lovely weekend, weather-wise, especially after the constant rain of last week.

Not that I'm not happy to have all of the apples (because I feel very lucky to have them). Just feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Especially as I am still without an apple-peeler-corer (we tried to buy one yesterday but the store had run out).

Today I used up about 2/3-rds of that box to make 7 quarts of applesauce (all I did was fill my largest pot with apples, a fair amount of cinnamon, and about 1-2 c. of sugar, heat it on low for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then used a canning funnel to put it into 7 quart jars). As for the rest of the apples, I'm begining to run low on ideas. I'm going to do the apple butter and I think an apple-plum chutney from, again, my Small Batch Preserving book. Then maybe 3-4 more pie fillings. Patrick wants some apple leather which, apparently, is just made by baking applesauce spread on a baking pan. That should leave me with about half of the bag to go. Any suggestions?

Pop! There goes one of the applesauce jars. What a satisfying noise!

Encouraged by Potatoes

2010-09-30T11:16:00.004-04:00

Who knew that digging potatoes would be fun? It reminded me of the time that my family went digging for diamonds in Arkansas (no one found any) but I could eat what I found in my garden. And anyone who knows me knows how much I love eating potatoes. Plus, as an added bonus, potatoes take practically no effort to grow. No pruning or tieing up or constant worry over bugs, just bury them, add a little more dirt a few times, keep them watered, put up tomato cages, and dust for the obnoxious earwigs once in a while. And look at what came out of that little patch of dirt! I'm estimating that I have 3 pots of Yukon Gold Potato soup from my 4 little seed potatoes that I planted. Next year, I think I'll try growing the potatoes more vertically (although I plan to build wooden boxes rather than using tires) but, for a first try, this year was great!

And, as an added bonus, from under the dying potato plants (I was told that the potatoes would be ready when the plants started to die), I unearthed another lovely butternut squash. I so hope that these guys ripen before the frost hits!

I also have an obscene amount of apples, given to me by a friend who wasn't going to use most of the yield from his trees. These are being peeled, cut, cored (by hand -- I need one of these cool gadgets), mixed with cinammon, sugar, lemon juice, flour (a la Joy of Cooking), put into quart freezer bags, and frozen for wintertime apple pies.

If I can get back to cutting today, I plan also to make apple butter from my favorite canning book.

And, in the meantime, I leave you with a photo of my flower bed and my favorite snapdragon (my favorite flowers in general).

Rainy Afternoon

2010-09-27T14:36:00.003-04:00

I'm in an organizing mode today and don't have very good light for photos so I'll just post this one photo of the leaves beginning to turn outside the study window. Have a lovely and cozy afternoon!

What Was Hidden Above the Dropped Ceiling aka Full Stop

2010-09-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Well, as horrible as it was, I guess that the schoolroom dropped ceiling in our kitchen did serve a purpose after all.

First, it covered the never-repaired holes in the plaster from when, apparently, there was a leak in the bathroom above. At least they didn't just plaster over a Dixie cup, as the previous owners of my parents' house had done to "repair" a bathroom leak!

(This second hole photo is of the twin hole inside the tiny bathroom next to the kitchen. The upstairs bath is above both the kitchen and the downstairs bath.)

Next, and quite importantly, it contained all of the flakes of paint that were falling from the ceiling. All of the flakes of most-likely-lead paint. . .

Third, it concealed the ever-pesky tops of the old cabinets.

And, lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it contained all of the wiring for the kitchen. Not just for the monstrously awful fluorescent lights in the kitchen as we'd assumed but also for the cute light above the sink, both light switches, the 3 whole electrical outlets which the kitchen contains, and who knows what else. The porch light and butler's pantry light could even be wired into this mess.

Now we are at a loss about what to do next. We don't want to put the panels back in, as it created a kitchen with approximately 7-foot ceilings but we also do need some electricity in the room.

There's an older junction box that's actually above the plaster (you can kind of make it out in the photo above) which we might just be able to tap into entirely. Although it would likely require that we make more holes in the plaster to hook all of the wiring to it properly.

Also, we have the option of encasing the wiring more efficiently and then putting in a bead board ceiling higher than the dropped-ceiling was. But that seems like just a new band-aid to cover the old band-aid.

Our plumber recommends that we not patch the existing holes until we're finished with remodelling the bathroom upstairs, which could take years. Maybe we should just knock down all of the plaster, do it all right, and live with a construction zone kitchen for however long it takes to fix both the kitchen wiring and the bathroom layout upstairs. We'll probably go with the last option, realistically. But, in the meantime, we just have to ask our guests not to look up when then come into the house (the door in the last photo is the one we use for most coming-and-going -- it's on the street side of the house). Ah, the joys of an old house!

The Little Red Lighthouse Under the George Washington Bridge

2010-09-22T12:31:00.003-04:00

This project, as happens with so many projects, has certainly been a long time in the works. But now I am fairly finished with it. It is limited edition (run of 200) gocco'd notecards. They are printed by hand over an inkjet-printed background (as you can see in the second photograph down) from a sketch I made of the Little Red Lighthouse. I had a ton of fun working on these and hope that you enjoy them. They're up in my shop now.

And. . . An Afternoon in the City

2010-09-22T12:17:00.002-04:00

Wandering in the Country

2010-09-19T15:10:00.001-04:00

A Week of Fingerless Mitts

2010-09-15T10:30:00.004-04:00

It seems to be fingerless mitt knitting time. Especially since it's gotten to be a bit chilly up here in the mountains and that makes me think of things like unfinished mitts at the bottom of the project box. These first mitts, however, are a new project. For a new friend. And a new (to me) thing. I've just (finally) joined ravelry and immediately joined a swap (ravelry link). Because I do love a good swap.

It's another secret swap so I can't tell you much more about the mitts at the moment, other than that they're from this pattern and they were a lot of fun to knit. I knit them in almost exactly 10 hours. I can tell you this because I was gallery sitting for a friend here in town last weekend and it was very slow at the gallery so I mostly just knit for the entire time I was there. And these mitts came of it. At least I'm ahead on the swap!

And, because I've apparently become a crazy cat lady, here is the second cat photo for this swap. Can I help it that she likes to be wherever the camera is pointed? Of course not. (And I'm not going to try!)

These ones are the wonderful Endpaper Mitts. I love fair isle knitting! But, somehow, after travelling with us to Europe a year ago and making the move to the new house 7 months ago, the mitts had fallen by the wayside, with all that was left to do being putting the fingers' ribbed trim on one and the thumb trim on both. Geez! So I pulled them out and finished them right up. Too silly!

Now my hands will be warm (and someone else's hands will be warm. . . ) just in time for fall!

My Vastly Improved (but Still Unpainted) Sewing Room

2010-09-13T11:30:00.011-04:00

After spending most of last Friday better organizing the shelving in my craft room / sunporch, I decided that the time had finally come to post a few photos over here.

First, here is the room as we saw it when we looked at the house last summer. It was being used as a kind of breakfast room. Off of what was set up as a dining room (now the tv room). Off of the kitchen, most of which was taken up with a dining table. Hmm.

As you can see, my sewing machine is right underneath where that light fixture dangled (and, conveniently, looking out onto the chicken tractor!). I whacked my head on that thing about 1,000 times. Luckily, I have a husband who doesn't mind being daring with harmless little things like electricity, so he replaced the fixture with this milk glass one that we picked up at a junk shop for practically nothing. It lacked "guts" but he just put in the wiring from the old fixture. I didn't even have to paint it (it's kind of copper-patina-green)!

You might also recognize the curtains made for me by my mother and grandmother. These are pretty much two of my favorite things in the house right now!

Beeker likes to watch the chickens just as much as I do.

The fabric and books are all in there (with tons of miscellaneous other things). Obsessively organized, with red, brown, and grey fabric in the cabinet on the left, and blue, yellow, and green fabric in the cabinet on the right. That porcupine-y thingy next to the window, on the left, is my knitting needle holder. Being guarded by a monster I made in a silly craft workshop with my friend, Aryn.

I actually managed a decent shot of the yarn tower Patrick built for me from cedar (to keep the pesky moths away a bit). The room is so small, it's really tough to get a shot of it but here it is! (And this is all after not buying yarn for almost a full year!)

On the other end of the room, not as much is going on. I'm hoping to eventually be able to get my daybed which I've had since I was 10 years old shipped or brought up to New York. It will go down here with the quilt on it. In the meantime, at least it no longer contains a toaster oven and a television and I've been able to hang a few of my favorite bits on the walls. (The first photo is (hopefully obviously) a before photo.)

In the foreground is the cat-proof door that Patrick put up for me. It's one of the best things about moving from the bay window in our apartment to the sunporch in our house.

On the wall are (clockwise from top left) a funny clay head which Patrick made in high school, a very very cool fabric collage that I found at an antique store on Cape Cod, a shadow box I put together with a postcard from Paris, an antique crochet hook, a lace doily, some antique buttons, and my small vegetable ivory collection, one of Stephanie's pinecones, and an antique picture postcard of 3 baby bears in Maine.

The only (major) thing left to do is to paint the panelling. I don't know when it will happen as I have made it my goal to paint the living room, finish painting the kitchen cabinets, and paint our bedroom before Sheep and Wool (when I am having a party at my house). Some day, the panelling will hopefully be similar to what's in the adjacent tv room, only pale green rather than white.

I Love the Mail Today!

2010-09-11T17:55:00.004-04:00

I couldn't even wait to get somewhere to sit down to open my DQS9 package! Patrick had to hold the box while we walked down Main Street and I pulled out my wonderful presents, one by one. As we were passing one of the shops, I'd just pulled out the beautiful Amy Butler fabric and the shopkeeper stopped me to say that I should make her something with it because it is so pretty. I agree with her about how pretty it is, that's for sure!

Also in my swap package from Valerie were some very cool stamps, mother of pearl buttons (which are perfect for the cowl that I made yesterday -- see below), a Canada tshirt which magically fits me perfectly, and a super-cute little notecard. And, of course, the most lovely quilt!

The Swaps Continue

2010-09-10T12:53:00.006-04:00

Continuing on with the Scrappy Pincushion Swap, I've decided to jump on the paper piecing hexagon bandwagon. I used this tutorial and the hexagon "graph paper" generator she links to, set on 0.75". The hexagons were indeed fun to piece. I don't know if I could do a whole quilt of these though. I pulled all of the fabrics from the pile shown on Tuesday. The sides of the pincushion will be an embroidered flower garden.

I've also just joined my first swap (ravelry link) on ravelry, which I've finally joined. My friends have all been after me to sign up for several years but I've only just now decided that I have a bit of time to devote to the infinite browsing everyone says follows signing up. It's not happened yet (honestly, I find the site a little bit difficult to navigate) but I'm still having fun with this swap. More on that to come!

The Sewing Bug

2010-09-07T10:24:00.003-04:00

I think my sewing maching may just burst into flames. I don't know if it's been the heat keeping me from wanting to knit or just the excitement of DQS9 but I can't seem to stop sewing things! First I have my completed quilt from the swap. It was for Lael and she seems to be loving it. And her kids seem to love the ducks I crocheted for them. If this isn't encouragement to go on doing swaps, I don't know what is!

So then I moved on to the Scrappy Pincushion Swap. It's another blind swap, like the DQS (where my partner doesn't know who I am so I can't ask him/her questions) and my partner doesn't have much information available as to what she'd like so I've decided to use these cool feed sack scraps that I found in the house we cleaned out a few months ago. At least I think that they're feed sack scraps. There was such an age-range of things in that house that I can't really decide for sure. But I'm sticking with my story for now.

I've also been saving selvedges for a while and, with all of this sewing, have a good selection to make sachets. And I also made one with a scrap from the backing fabric and a bit of cross stitch for my friend who is having a moth problem (they're both stuffed with lavender from the local health food store -- hopefully my lavender plants will produce lavender for me next year!)

And finally, I've started on a doll quilt for myself. Based on this quilt and this quilt from the DQS that I LOVED and this quilt that I saw a photo of some time ago. I've decided that the small size of doll quilts makes them absolutely ideal for my many many quilt ideas. At least I can get many ideas out of my head without completely filling my house with quilts or spending thousands of dollars on quilting fabric!

I'll see you back here in a month when I tear myself away from my sewing machine again!

Cozy Pieces of the House

2010-09-03T12:09:00.004-04:00

Inspired by Amanda's Corners of My Home, today I have a few little bits photographed. Since there are few pieces of the house looking "nice" so far, it's fun for me to isolate the nice ones (or at least the ones that are nice, in my opinion) once in a while.

Please ignore the drop ceiling in the first photo. I do believe that it will come down over this long weekend. Something I do love at the top of that one is the door bell. It makes a horrible buzzing noise but it looks pretty cool. Being a real bell and all. It's called an "Edwards Buz-A-Bel".

The last picture is a few things on my mantel. There are other things on the other end of the mantel (mostly more silver stuff) but it will have to wait for another post.

Have a great weekend!

Dyed Roving

2010-09-02T10:24:00.004-04:00

Here is (finally!) a photo of the roving that I dyed at the workshop a few weeks ago. The pinkish ones on the left were dyed first with madder root. That dye pot didn't work so well though so I overdyed them with cochineal. The one on the right was done at the very end of the day so none of the pots had much umph left in them. It went in pretty much every bath and wound up slightly ivory-colored. But that's okay. I think that they work well together. Now to learn to spin. . .

Last Weekend at the Fair

2010-09-01T10:16:00.008-04:00

Last weekend, my friend, Thea, and I went over to the Dutchess County Fair. Partly, this trip served as an important testing of the route from my house to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds (where this will be happening very soon), and partly it was a trip to check out what this other event in Rhinebeck is all about. It turns out that it is mostly about fried food. We had a great time!

Three (French?) Hens

2010-08-27T11:24:00.004-04:00

We picked up our little hens yesterday. Three Buff Orpingtons. Petunia, Mildred Pearce, and Georgia Brown. I don't know that there is much to say about chickens but Patrick and I are both very excited and looking foward to lots of fresh eggs in January.

Patrick built this lovely tractor for them (there is now chicken wire over the part on the left).

Vintage Puzzles

2010-08-25T17:53:00.004-04:00

I think I'm finally finished working, photographing, and listing my found stash of vintage puzzles. They're over on etsy if you're interested in that kind of thing (I know I am)!

Dyeing

2010-08-23T09:35:00.005-04:00

I never thought I'd really want to learn how to dye yarns. It's silly but there are so many great options out there already that I felt like I needed some parameters somewhere. But that was before I started gardening at my own house and read about a dye plants lecture at the local Weavers and Spinners Guild. I don't spin and I didn't (I've since been very generously given one which I need to learn how to use) have a fancy harness loom but those are both things I'm interested in so I went to the lecture (back in April) and was promptly convinced to join the guild. Then I looked forward all summer to this dye workshop which was held on Saturday.

Not only was the dyeing itself a lot of fun but learning about the histories and materials behind many of the dyes was fascinating! Above, left is cochineal which is a bug which is a parasite on cacti in South America. It makes a beautiful red/pink and was monopolized by the Spanish for 300 years and second only to gold in value of products from the "New World".

In the middle is madder root. I think I may try to grow some of this in my garden next year as it was my favorite of the colors shown (surprisingly -- I thought my favorite would be indigo). We may be a bit too far north but it never hurts to try. The yarns on the left in the photo below are done with madder root. Our batch didn't work out too well so I overdyed my roving (yes, it's true that I don't spin -- but I do want to learn!) with cochineal -- photos of that to come. But I'm willing to try again, for sure. This is the dye used for the reds in real Persian rugs. Always beautiful, right?

The last of the photo mosaic at top (the photo on the right) is a thing called oak galls. These occur when a certain wasp stings an oak leave and creates a kind of cancer in the leaf that grows into one of these galls. The insect lives inside and crawls out through a hole. These can be found on the forest floor, although rarely. She said that the basket in the photo represents half of FIVE YEARS of collecting these doodads. And she's a park ranger! I don't know what color they make but it sounds like a fun treasure hunt to search for them and give them a try someday.

The thing about natural dyes, as mentioned above, is that they are not particularly reliable. But that's part of the fun, really! All we did was mordant our yarns or rovings (with potassium alum) while the lecture was given and then the dye pots were heated and we all ran, full speed ahead, at the dye. It was crazy but a whole lot of fun! I'll post photos of my dyed roving once it stops raining here (it's been raining non-stop for the past two days) and I can get a decent shot.

Book Excitement

2010-08-20T11:08:00.004-04:00

Why are there so many wonderful craft books just out or about to come out right now? I can hardly stand it! I'm going to have to save all of my pennies to get at least part of these. And then I'll need materials to make things from them. . .

It's a vicious cycle.

First there's the Wee Wonderfuls book which is out already. I've been meaning to buy her patterns for Mr. and Mrs. Gnome but this book is a whole new dimension to the idea. And I have several friends with small children who will be needing Christmas gifts fairly soon. Perhaps it's justified?

(And while I'm on the subject of Hillary's wonderful-ness, how about this quilt? I'm completely obsessed with this color combo.)

Then there's Samantha's upcoming book. Eep! I purchased Maggie from her some time ago and do think she'd probably like to have a friend or perhaps a house? I can't imagine how anyone other than Samantha could draw so beautifully with a sewing machine but perhaps that is the point (for me) of the book?

And there's also Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion. I'm going to have to hunt around the internet for more previews of this one to see more of what's actually inside but it certainly looks promising. And I do love to embroider.

Even beyond the craft books, there are two book-books I'm very excited about due out at the end of this month.

How can I be asked to choose just a few of them??

Pickling Part Two

2010-08-19T16:43:00.002-04:00

The pickling of the 4 beets I picked from the garden (supplemented by a few from the farmers market) and more of my cucumbers became quite a saga. I started it all on Monday, only to have the power go out about halfway through. It certainly made me miss my gas range in Brooklyn! The power stayed out for 8 hours! I've seen tornadoes in Oklahoma but that storm was quite scary, even compared. It blew down all of my garden plants and even blew a few pictures off of the walls in the house (before I closed all of the windows)!

But, luckily, I'd just finished the cucumbers (although not the "processing" as directed by my book -- the lids of the jars did pop so I'm hoping that that's good enough) and just poured the water off of my half-boiled beets and put them back in the fridge. They were finished today. I definitely could have used a few more beets but they're still pretty to look at! Fingers crossed that both of the batches are safe. . .

This enamel canning pot (even with a wire jar rack inside!) is the treasure of the junk I cleaned out of my basement earlier in the summer (the house was completely packed full when we viewed it and the sellers only took about 3/4 of the things away). It made the 3 days spent in the mildew and bugs kind of worth it. Isn't it pretty?

An Important Lesson About Carrots

2010-08-18T18:33:00.002-04:00

Hmm. It seems that carrots take both more than 2 months

And less than 3 months

To be of a reasonable size. Or perhaps they need somewhat less than 3 months and more sunlight than the ones planted in June were given as the parsley grew to be a monster and cast its shade over their portion of the bed. Either way, these are some monster carrots!

Selfish Buttons

2010-08-13T09:44:00.001-04:00

Anyone who knows me in real life or reads this blog or even casually passes me on the street probably knows at least one thing about me -- I have a button obsession. I think it's because they're so compact and inexpensive (usually) and varied. Or maybe it's something else. But, any way you look at it, I almost had a heart attack when, in the course of helping my friend (the antique dealer) to clean out a house recently, I uncovered a whole bread bag packed full of buttons at the bottom of a hidden compartment in a sewing table.

My friend (both fortunately and unfortunately for me) deals in buttons so he wanted to take them but he generously gave me first pick on which ones I might want to keep.

I thought I might use this ornate one for a pincushion center.

This wooden one is my very favorite. Although I'm quite partial to that blue silk one next to it as well.

Below are a few button cards I found at a hidden gem of an antique store recently. I thought I'd include them while I'm going on about buttons so as not to wind up with a whole series of posts on buttons (I easily could).

They were quite a bargain so I had to buy two. (Did I mention that I have a problem?)

A Wine Bottle Border and Finally Something Happening in the Flower Bed

2010-08-11T17:38:00.003-04:00

We now live so far north that it seems to be quite difficult to get flowers in the growing season unless they are wild (we had 6-foot floxglove a few months ago!) or started indoors first. And I suppose that doing a better job than I've been able to do of keeping the deer and woodchuck at bay might help as well.

I always admired dahilas like the one above at the Brooklyn farmers' market. I'm so excited that my bulb worked out reasonably well. Even if the flowers from seed had a more difficult time and the volunteer roses caught some kind of disease or something and stopped blooming after about a week.

Here are the sachets I've put up in an attempt at deer control. Unfortunately, the cats find them quite appealing and keep pulling them over. You can also see my little concrete mushroom back there. Can't have a flower bed without some sort of cutesy little tchotcke. I saw little ones like this in England but had no garden or space in my luggage for a concrete thingy. I found this one here in Sullivan County! Just behind the mushroom are the most unfortunate hollyhocks. I love hollyhocks but so, apparently, to do all of my garden pests. Oops. I doubt that I'll get any flowers from these guys this year.

But at least a few of my snapdragons (started from seed) are blooming now. I think I should have thinned them a bit more to get more blooms.

And here is the wine bottle border. I don't remember where I originally saw this idea. But it certainly stuck in my head! I suspect that it was before we even thought of buying a house or having a flower bed that I saw this idea and filed it away in the back of my mind for "some day".

This whole how-to is fairly self-explanitory. All you do to "build" one of these borders is to collect wine bottles (it helps if you have European friends to save their bottles for you) -- preferably of approximately the same size/shape/color, dig a trench about the same height and width as the bottles, and then to bury them upside-down. We liked the way our border looked best when we removed the labels from the bottles (so that tiny bits wouldn't be peeking up) and buried them with only about 3 inches above ground -- it looked a too obtrusive to us with more than that -- we were going more for the look of green stones or something along those lines.

Refrigerator Pickles

2010-08-06T12:23:00.000-04:00

An overgrown garden

yields a ton of cucumbers (these were just the ones picked in one day)

which make some lovely pickles. Very strange and interesting but good pickles. From this recipe (which seems to have a typo in that all of these ingredients fill a one-quart jar rather than a two-quart jar). We'll be making more of these ones for sure!

Another Busy Week

2010-08-05T23:12:00.003-04:00

Monday: Basketweaving class at the Home Textile Tool Museum. Followed by

Patrick-made dinner on the porch with the mother-in-law, and my favorite game:

Tuesday: Fresh-pressed apple cider at Sonoma Falls (the apple crop in New York State is early this year so we get to have cider early too!)

Wednesday: Finally made a batch of kale chips. They're not very photogenic so I'll spare you the photo but just say, from a non-vegetable-eater, that they were fantastic!

Thursday: Sketching and swimming in the Delaware, a trip to the new saloon, and homemade pickles (more on that tomorrow).

Lots of family visiting this summer = instant staycation. And all kinds of busy fun. Back on a normal schedule on Saturday.

And Now for Something I Made

2010-07-30T11:31:00.001-04:00

Although there have been few posts lately about things I've made, there has still been making going on. Most particularly, I made curtains (granted, they are more simple than roman shades but they're still curtains) for my kitchen window. Which is a very good thing because washing dishes at this sink when it is dark outside and all you can see are the ghostly white seed pods floating in space is not a fun experience. Now I'll be able to look at pleasant curtains instead!

I used Lena's book, Printing by Hand, for the basics on freezer paper stenciling (like which side to iron to the fabric and what kind of ink to buy) and then just had a fun time with the printing.

It was all as simple as the book makes it sound and her directions were super-easy to follow. The pattern is my own sketch, traced and repeated onto the freezer paper.

very before

after painting, before curtains

finished

As an added bonus, I now feel more confident to work on one of my proposed Alabama Chanin projects, having I've stenciled on fabric.

Lucky

2010-07-29T12:14:00.004-04:00

Most of the reason I was so busy over the last week was because I had a visit from my grandparents and aunt. Which was very fun, of course, but busy as well. So the blog languished. But the house did not!

I am super-lucky to have a mother and a grandmother who not only are able but also willing to make roman shades for my very own craft room (I can't tell you how excited I am to have a craft room after my craft bay window for the past 4 years in Brooklyn). And this is no ordinary room. It is a sun porch so it has 5 windows. And I wanted to use in the curtains some lovely vintage French fabric I'd had on my ebay watch list for approximately 2 years. And I have a grandfather willing to help me string the said curtains and hang them in the windows. Now my craft room is infinitely brighter and nicer looking. As you can see from the "before" photo below.

All that's left to do is to paint the panelling!

Before

After (this is the window on the right in the photo above)

In the Jungle

2010-07-28T09:55:00.003-04:00

Wow, the last week really got away from me quickly. But an upside is that I have a lot of things to share here now! Most immediate is a garden update since it's started growing like crazy and will look so different tomorrow that if I don't post these photos now they'll be totally irrelevant!

The corn is starting to look kind of like corn.

Cucumbers for pickling (I didn't realize cucumber plants had such huge leaves!)

Watermelon vine. Another branch of this vine is growing along the ground in between the edges of the raised bed and the woodchuck-deterring fence. I don't know how it's going to do out there but I figure I'll try leaving it and growing this bit up the vine and see which does better.

I'm doing a Square Foot Garden this year. Now that my garden has turned into an impenetrable jungle (I pulled about 2 dozen string beans off of those buxhes in the foreground while bending across the garden border, around a corn plant, and under my rampant roma tomato), I'm thinking I need to set about planning more carefully next year. Like watching out for placing plants with lots of small things to pick behind tall plants with only a few things to pick. I can't even see my carrot plants any longer. At least I got the parsley right -- it's growing more crazily than anything else but it's on the edge of the bed so it's only trying to crowd out the dill! Live and learn (I knew my first garden wouldn't be perfect but I have to keep telling myself that just the same).

Positive Woodchuck-ness

2010-07-19T14:32:00.004-04:00

Since I've had groundhogs/woodchucks on the brain for the past few weeks, when my friend asked me to participate in an art festival that he was setting up and to bring some knitting to sell if I wanted to, the first thing that came to mind was to knit a woodchuck based on all of my observation of Phil.

Patrick made the silly sign for me (in case you can't read it, it claims that these particular Groundhogs are 100% safe for your garden).

I'm thinking I'll write the pattern up in the next few days, especially if anyone is interested, but for now I just have photos of the little guys and the great fair held on Saturday.

Junk Sales!

2010-07-15T10:47:00.006-04:00

It's been so long since I've lived in a place where there are actually inexpensive flea markets / garage sales / random little ladies selling sewing supplies out of their garages, that it's about my favorite thing about this summer so far. I've not bought a whole lot but, to me, I found some treasures.

I love the little embroidery of the barn especially. There was one like it at a store in Brooklyn but it was already embroidered and they wouldn't sell it so it was great fun to finally get a little barn embroidery and to get to work it myself!

In case you can't tell those dogs are cross-stitch patterns. They're in a crazy embroidery manual from 1967 which is fun to look at but I will actually stitch some of those dogs.

We're using the big old crock as a compost cannister. It's too bad that it doesn't still have its handle but I think it's cool anyway.

And all of this is not to mention all of the good stuff left behind in our house (most of the things left behind were horrible, like piles of Reader's Digest Magazines from 1994 and a very very old hospital bed). But that's for another post.

Da Da Dum!

2010-07-13T17:03:00.004-04:00

As requested by Anna, what follows are photos of our bathroom. If you are faint of heart, you should click away now. Anna had no way of knowing, when I posted a comment about the loveliness of our bathroom the other day that I was being extremely sarcastic. But, as she requested the photos, photos you all shall have. It is sheer horror. Pepto Bismol pink, all the way to the very top (the ceiling is pink too), with a faux-marble, gold-veined wainscoting, and with gold linoleum on the floor. And, not only all of that, but the room is long and narrow, accentuated by the ridiculously large linen closet running along one side (the bifold doors on the right side of the first two photos is the closet) and the shower running the length of the room (on the short side of the ceiling slope, no less). Enjoy!

With all of that said, I do actually like the shelf/towel bar in the last photo which "came with" the house. It is pink (of course) but with some navy spray paint, it is one of the few things (other than the shaving brushes and my fabric window in the second-to-last photo) which figure into my visions of my new bathroom (taken straight from What Lies Beneath, of all places!)

P.S. In case you're wondering, I seem somehow, like an old movie, to have edited the toilet out of the room. But there is one! It's next to the sink (cabinet on the left in photo 3) and under both the window and this little shelf/towel bar -- and somewhat inaccesible as that radiator in photo 4 is immediately in front of it.

Another Great Year

2010-07-12T13:41:00.005-04:00

Yes, it's true that my birthday was about 2 weeks ago now. But it's also true that there's been a major holiday, a heat wave, and a visit from my parents since then. And that my gifts from Patrick were delayed in the mail and didn't make it to my house until Saturday. So, even though it is rather late, I give you my "thank you" birthday post!

This photo of my gifts wrapped is a little silly but I have to mention that my two friends who have very very definite styles wrapped these two gifts for me. I didn't realize until I got home that they're both done very much in my style but not at all in either of theirs. It was very thoughtful of them! They both also, independent of one another, bought gifts for me from one of my favorite stores. How well do they know me??

I also have here a hand-goccoed birthday card, photostrips from a favorite restaurant, and several very inspiring books from a generous mother-in-law.

Patrick found out that two of my favorites were putting out new albums right around my birthday. And who couldn't be completely excited upon hearing about either of these strange concepts? I'm especially having trouble turning off the Ben Folds album. There are so many crazy little things going on with it!

I've already posted about the wonderful kitchen faucet from my parents (my aunt tells me that getting a kitchen faucet as a birthday gift makes me officially and "adult").

And then, to put it all completely over-the-top, my friend the antique dealer gave me a sofa! I was certainly quite the lucky one this year. It's been a good one! Thanks everyone (and to all of my facebook friends for all of the lovely well-wishes).

Doll Quilts

2010-07-10T17:05:00.005-04:00

I am so very excited to be a part of Doll Quilt Swap 9. When I read about it on the Fat Quarterly blog, I didn't know that I would have to actually apply and be accepted. But as soon as I found out I crossed all of my fingers and feel so lucky to have been accepted. I also had no idea that the "secret partner" aspect of it would be quite so much fun. Every time I log on to flickr I can't wait to see what new quilts are in the pool and to try to guess which might be mine. Here are a few of my favorites so far.

This quilt is the one I'm working on for my swap partner. She has a lot of white space, aqua, and red in her inspiration mosaic so I'm hoping that this is her kind of thing. It will have a sailboat appliqued to the top portion (she suggested that she'd like a nautical theme) and then the top will be complete.

Further in the spirit of Doll-Quilt-Palooza, I couldn't be expected not to notice the quilts on antique expeditions. This is the only one I've bought so far. It isn't acutally quilted, seems to have polyester batting inside, and looks to me to be from the eighties, but I love the fabrics and colors.

At The Bandstand

2010-07-09T18:24:00.002-04:00

Yard Sale Wrap Skirt

2010-07-06T12:24:00.000-04:00

I started this skirt from Weekend Sewing last summer but then got very lazy when it came to doing the hand-stitching on the hem. There wasn't a problem with the pattern or anything. It was fantastic and easy-to-follow. I just don't really like making clothing (I think this is the first piece I've ever actually finished) and was lazy about it. The skirt languished until Sunday, when I wanted to wear it to the Fourth of July Party. Then I spent the entire time while Patrick was baking cookies to take to the party hemming the skirt. I'm glad to have finally finished it!

Bonus photo of the tasty cookies! They're from my favorite recipe in my Once Upon a Tart cookbook (I love that cafe -- too bad that Purl isn't next door to it any more).

A Great July 4th

2010-07-05T14:08:00.003-04:00

I hope that those of you who celebrated yesterday had a great time. We definitely did. Even though it's our first year here, we've been lucky enough to meet some fantastic people, some of whom invited us to a party out at their house. They have a pond where we were able to swin, bunnies we petted, a gorgeous house we hung out around, and a field where there was a fireworks display.

I was always sad on July 4th in Brooklyn because we couldn't really find a place from which to see the fireworks without being in the middle of crowds and crowds of people and we'd had a nice, quiet 4th of July tradition in Oklahoma that I missed.

This was a promising start for the holiday here.

Hallway Update

2010-07-01T12:30:00.004-04:00

As promised, I have a few photos of the completed hallway redo/cleanup. It's now kind of a gallery but I don't think that we can get away with calling it that. It'll just continue to be the hallway.

Before:

That last one is really from inside the study looking back at the hallway (and no, you don't have triple-vision -- there really are that many doors in that corner!) but I think it best captures the corner where the shelf is now. The window on the hall landing is just blocked by the doorway on the right in this last photo. Hope that helps to orient you!

After: (I have to apologize for the darkness of these photos -- it looks better without the flash but it is a fairly dark hallway, with its one window shaded by the One Big Tree)

(this one is looking back into that door that the last "before" photo was taken through)

(How do you like that glimpse of the Pepto-Bismol Bathroom there at the top? I assure you that the decoration of that bathroom is the reason we bought the house.)

We removed the odd bits of furniture left behind and the excess handrails (the ones mounted to the walls), patched all of the cracks in the plaster (mostly occuring around the said handrails), painted everything light sage green, and hung most of our large collection of family photos/memorabilia. You might recognize some of the pictures from our apartment. They are large and difficult to move but they'd be the things we'd grab, were there a fire and we could only take a few things.

When Phil Attacks

2010-06-30T12:57:00.002-04:00

We've noticed a woodchuck (or groundhog, whichever you prefer) hanging around our house for some time now. I'd been told he'd attack my garden but I was waiting to see what would happen. Well, last Tuesday, he fulfilled his promise, as a woodchuck, and mowed down my broccoli, carrot tops, some parsley (there was luckily a ton of it), and, insult of all insults, sat on my dill plant. Now that's just mean!

In retaliation, Patrick has now dug a 50-foot trench, all the way around the perimeter of the garden, 9 inches deep and 12 inches wide. We buried a chicken wire fence all the way around.

Yesterday morning, on our way downstairs, we noticed Phil nosing at the edge of the fence but unable to get at our tiny garden (hey, Phil, what about those other plants there, or those there, or that grass over there?) A small but satisfying victory!

Now if we could just get a gate built so that I can get into my garden. . .

The Past Week

2010-06-29T14:20:00.009-04:00

With my parents' visit over the past week came

my birthday and fennel ice cream (we had to follow Molly's suggestion since she's from Oklahoma City),

lots of hiking

and work on the house (my birthday gift from them was this wonderful faucet which doesn't spit water all over the place as my old one did),

a trip to a local sheep farm I'd been wanting to visit, and much much more.

Thanks for the great week mom, dad, and Patrick!

A Preview

2010-06-26T18:33:00.004-04:00

All of last Tuesday (and I mean all of it) was spent in painting the hallway. I know that this sounds like an excessive amount of time to spend painting a hallway but you have to hear about the hallway itself. It is a small hallway on the first floor, containing 4 doors, then the walls of the stairs up to the landing, containing 1 window, then the walls of the stairs up to the second floor, where there are a further 4 doors. Lots and lots of trim work.

My parents came in for a visit (from Oklahoma City) on Wednesday. They helped me to hang a 1920's/30's light fixture given to me by a friend but we haven't yet been able to hang the excessive number of framed things I plan to hang in the hallway. Here is a preview of the newly patched, painted, smoke-detectored, and light-fixtured hallway, for now.

More soon.

Antique Store Find

2010-06-21T15:49:00.006-04:00

This weekend, I finally got to go out to an area antique store which is supposed to be a really great shop but is closing at the end of the summer. It lived up to its reputation (although a bit low in stock, likely because of the impending closing) and I found my new favorite piece of furniture.

The photos are a little weird due to the fact that the light in this room is always bad but you can imagine that the colors are nicer (less purple -- the walls are white) in person.

The first teacup I acquired was the one on the bottom right. Patrick's Great-Aunt gave it to me when we stayed with her a few years ago. Since then I've been given another (top left) by my grandmother, bought one at my favorite antique store in Oklahoma City (center right), found one at a tea room in York (top right) and then, despite my decision to buy no more than 4 cup sets, purchased one more on a trip to maine (center left). They've never had a place for display until I ran into this great shelf. And now I need one more teacup to finish filling the shelf. Added bonus (I love quests for pieces to finish collections)!

Forget that the walls are not yet painted and the light is not good and the cabinets are currently lacking doors, I love this pantry room and the fact that I have this shelf for it makes it just that much more fantastic.

After the Rain

2010-06-16T10:44:00.000-04:00

It rained and rained for about a week. And my garden is all the happier for it! I'm sure that the last time I took a look at it, there were not any peas. Now they are almost ready to be picked. I know what's for dinner tonight!

Walk Up the Mountain

2010-06-15T13:22:00.012-04:00

Yesterday evening we decided to actually take the 3.7 mile walk up the mountain across the street from our house that all of our neighbors had been talking about. And it was lovely. We should have gone sooner. We feel very lucky to live in such a pretty place.

I think my favorite part was the elderly lady toward the top of the mountain who had a very very old farm which is now being worked by her son. She was very friendly and, just because she saw us looking at her livestock from the road, gave us a tour of the whole farm and chatted with us for quite a long time.

Here is my huge quantity of photos. Click on over to my flickr, if you want to read my comments about them.

Chicken Little and Littler

2010-06-12T18:06:00.005-04:00

I've been sidetracked from my usual work by knitting chickens for a few days. I ordered this great yarn to make the black speckles and at about the same time that it came in I found out that my friend has a room decorated with chick-themed things so I had to have some chicken-knitting time. No choice.

The chicken is from a Blue Sky Alpaca pattern. The yarn is bits that I had about (Lorna's Laces and Araucania) and the white-with-black-speckles that I ordered from owool on etsy.

The chick is a free pattern from Purl Bee. He is from some leftover Beaverslide Dry Goods (I love that yarn and their website!) mixed with some leftover Anny Blatt mohair and a bit of random yellow cotton.

Until I get some real chickens (which we are considering doing), these two gals are being amusing enough.

Gems

2010-06-10T12:07:00.004-04:00

I think I've mentioned here that I've spent most of the past three weeks working with a wonderfully helpful local antique dealer to clean out the "presents" left by my house seller in the basement, attic, and many of the closets. With the trash pick-up yesterday, we are almost finished!

In the process of doing all of this work, we've found some definite treasures, many of which went with the antique dealer but a few of which I am keeping for my own purposes or to find a good home via etsy. Today I've listed a few things over on etsy. I'll post the gems that I'm keeping myself here soon but, for now, these few things are all that I've had time to photograph.

Probably this is because the local strawberries have started to show up at the Farmer's Market and I find myself tied to my berry bowl lately.

And who could blame me, with those lovelies? Hopefully my own plants will produce something next year but, in the meantime, I'm certainly enjoying other people's plants.

Renegade!

2010-06-06T17:09:00.005-04:00

I love the Renegade Craft Fair. I always loved craft fairs but Renegade is above and beyond many of them. When I was in Brooklyn, it was always a fun excuse to meet up with my friends and spend a whole day outside, wandering around the park (or the swimming pool, depending on which year it was) but now it was just a good excuse to drive into Brooklyn to see my friends and find some really cool things. I spend most of the time out of doors these days.

The camera was forgotten so I don't have any photos of the actual fair to share but, as requested by Melissa (who wanted to go but couldn't make it out), here is a shot of my purchases. Unfortunately, I don't remember where most of them came from (when you are walking around and around a track, with many many booths on all sides, it's tough to remember things like where things were purchased) but I do know that the handkercheif kit and pouch on the right are from Kimberly. And that both the fabric-covered buttons and the wooden buttons will likely find their way onto future knitting projects, whomever it was that I bought them from. Thanks, Renegade (and Aryn and Thea and Nana), for another fun year!

Quilt Update

2010-06-04T14:17:00.001-04:00

I've been going full steam ahead on the quilt. Even though the bed it will be for is still in Oklahoma. I calculated that I will need about 32 squares and I'm up to 27 (I've done a few more since I took these photos). It needs ironing but you can still get the idea of the colors and layout. No point in ironing it before I'm ready to piece the blocks together. The cats will just get on them again anyway.

Because it's important to note things like this, I have to say that the lowest block on the right in the first photo is my favorite.

Also, because I'm absolutely super-lucky, my mother and grandmother are working on roman shades for me for the room the quilt will go in. They're going to have a panel of this (which I've had my eye on for years) down the center. I can't wait to show them here!

How the Garden is Growing

2010-06-03T15:06:00.000-04:00

It's doing pretty well. Especially the parsley (which I'm sure is entirely thanks to Melissa's lovely marker). Although something has been munching on my bush bean and cucumber seedlings. I need to read up on what to do about that. I can't see any sign of a bug on or around the plants whenever I look for any clues.

Pretty Projects

2010-06-02T12:44:00.005-04:00

While there is a ton of construction-type work to be done on the house, it's not always the fun thing to work on. This weekend, with the help of our magnificent and generous houseguests, we did several of the "unimportant" pretty projects. And I can't stop staring at them!

The largest silhouette is from an antique store here in town which I had been stalking in anticipation of its opening for "the season". It's the only one which is actually cut paper and it made me feel like my collection was completed and had to be hung up. Even if the wall isn't yet patched and painted.

As you can see, this half-bath is tiny. It had a 3-inch deep medicine cabinet on the wall where the mirror is and that just wasn't working out too well for us. First, we didn't need it for storage and second, even the 3 inches of space was precious in this tiny room. So Kelly and I picked out this mirror while Patrick and Mark inspected lumber at Home Depot. We hung it and the shelf (from Pottery Barn but we've had it for about 5 years) and the little soap dish while they worked on their masterpiece on the porch (below).

Patrick and Mark working on our new guestroom headboard based on one I saw in a Crate and Barrel promotional e-mail about a year ago. (I don't know if the actual headboard was at Crate and Barrel, the ad was for bedding.)

Beeker's version of helping. At least she's not getting under their feet.

I think the room looks far more finished and less empty. Although I do still need to hang a few more things on the walls and do something about the frilliness of the ceiling fan (maybe just take down the light kit -- the light switch goes to a lamp in the corner anyway).

Epilogue

2010-05-27T16:47:00.000-04:00

Since I've not been commuting to New York City any longer, I've not been able to drive daily past my favorite collapsing barn. But last Saturday, on the way to a tent sale at a nearby antiques store, I had to get another photo for old time's sake. It is certainly looking greener around here!

Guest Room Redone

2010-05-26T18:13:00.006-04:00

You may remember back in March when I was discussing my plans for the then lemon-yellow guestroom. Well, a mere 2 months later, just in time for "the season" (we live in a tourist town and our friends & relations are behaving accordingly -- great excuse for us to be tourists too), the plans have been (mostly) executed!

All of the furniture was either left behind in the house or repurposed/found old furniture of ours so I only had to buy paint and fabric -- my kind of a redo! I still don't approve of that ceiling fan and have plans (and fabric) for a red-and-white-triangles quilt (of my own design, hence no links to patterns -- sorry!) but this is the most-liveable room in the house, thus far.

It has a nice view of the One Big Tree and the window box of impatens.

Checked fabric for pillow shams (which were meant to go with the planned red and white quilt, not this one) from Brooklyn General. There's still a little bit of random stuff piled near the door but this room is mostly organized.

The curtains are of a combo of my favorite fabric ever (sorry, can't find a direct link at the moment) from purl and some checked linen from mood (that linen was a bear to sew!), lined with cut-up sheet. I wanted to leave the tie back in the middle of the curtain so that the gingko pattern would still show. Here's a detail on flickr.

Our new (or semi-new -- she's been with us for 2-1/2 weeks now) kitten, Beeker, approves. Especially since she can easily see out the window from the bed.

Buttons, Buttons Everywhere

2010-05-20T20:48:00.006-04:00

Lots of button-related posting for today. I've put up 4 styles of cross-stitched buttons over on etsy.

Also, I'm working on a summer cardigan (Marigold Sweater from Interweave Knits, Summer 2010) and, due to my extensive button collection, can't decide which buttons I like best for it. Any opinions?

vintage red plastic (from Tender Buttons -- designed by a store employee pre-1960's)

peach glass

pink ceramic with imprinted flowers

white victorian shoe buttons

A Sunny Afternoon

2010-05-14T10:28:00.003-04:00

It's overcast (again) here this morning so I thought I'd post some photos from a recent sunny afternoon. Don't get me wrong, I and my garden are certainly grateful for the rain. I'm just going to have to look for a dose of sunshine somewhere other than outside. Enjoy!

Metropolis, Again

2010-05-13T10:43:00.003-04:00

I know this is off of my usual crafting / house topic but it is such a major event (to me) that I think it's worth mentioning.

The latest version of Metropolis, including footage found in Argentina in 2008, is spectacular! Although it seems as if each year a new version of Metropolis is released, every time with new materials, this latest footage is well worth a look. Even if you were hesitant about the 2 hour version (it is a silent film, after all) this 2.5 hour version feels shorter than any of the older versions. It makes more sense and has far better / more exciting pacing. Particularly during the sequences of the workers' revolt. Where before they tended to get a little tedious and rushed at the same time, now they are actually suspenseful. Several characters are given more clear places and functions in the plot. Not to mention the whole new dimension added by being finally able to use Fritz Lang's original score. And how often do we get to see footage from a 1927 film which was thought to be lost forever?

Well worth the trip to Film Forum, if you're in the area! (I also hear that the film is soon to play in theaters around the country)

Hopelessly Addicted

2010-05-10T12:15:00.006-04:00

I can't seem to stop making these! I've never made such and un-fussy quilt before. I just cut the strips freehand and started grabbing (mostly at random) and sewing. Lots of fun! Although I do think that I need to try a value quilt as I seem always to sort fabric by color rather than by value and it sometimes makes my designs difficult to read. And, let's face it, these value quilts are just really fantastic!

Must stop sewing as I ordered a bit more fabric early last week and if I don't stop sewing soon, it won't make it into the quilt at all! I'm going to switch off my machine, put down my scissors, and take another trip to the post office to see if the fabric has come in.

Giving My Scissors a Workout

2010-05-08T14:38:00.001-04:00

I'm finally making a log cabin quilt! I've always been fascinated by log cabin quilts (my parents even have one made by my great-grandmother) but never quite had the right inspiration / spot for one. But now I'm going full-steam ahead! The color-scheme is based on this stained glass window which we saw in Paris last fall (I know, terribly silly to look at Tiffany glass in Paris when there is far more of it to be found in NYC but it was still fun to see even though it was a tiny exhibit). The internet photo doesn't really show the colors off to full advantage but you can use your imagination to see that the glass is actually golden yellow and peachy pink.

It's all going to be cut into strips soon (except for the neutrals in the middle which will be the center sqares for the cabins) and I'll have to have my scissors sharpened.

The quilt will eventually be for my daybed (my 10th birthday gift) which is currently at my parents' house in Oklahoma. How I will get it to Upstate New York is yet to be determined but I figure that the quilt will take some time so maybe I'll have time to come up with a plan.