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So ~ Many ~ Books

Books have been piling up and I thought I should share them with you.  .  .

52 Projects by Jeffrey Yamaguchi -- I've been seeing this book around many of my favorite blogs and I decided that I must have it.  It's subtitled "Random Acts of Everyday Creativity" and it's filled with 52 projects that you can use to kick start your creativity.  Paging through the book already has me excited!  I'm sure I'll be posting about the projects as I start to work my way through the book.

Super Crafty -- I think I mentioned that Pete bought this for me for Valentines Day.  Let me give you an idea of the projects that I plan to try from this book -- "Super Sock Monkeys" (can you believe I never made a sock monkey before?), "Magnets Galore + Inspiration Board", stuff from the section on shrink plastic (a whole section on shrinky dinks!) and the "Superstar Luggage Tag".  Of course I'm sure I'll give each of these projects my own twist.    I have to say that this book is packed with great jumping off points -- such as the section on vinyl, which is packed with tips.  In fact, there's info on everything from sewing to block printing.  Really a great resource to have around.

Complete Craft by Katherine Sorrell -- Great out of print book that I was lucky enough to find for a song on Alibris.  Really great book!  The crafts covered are unusual and while they produce beautiful sophisticated results, they are presented in a no nonsense way.  You get the feeling that you could do any of them!  Crafts covered include:  screen printing, silk painting, felt making, paper making, cyanotype, mosaic, acrylic molding, gilding and many more.

Betty Crocker's Cooky Book -- I just had to get this one.  I remember making cookies from my Mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook when I was little -- oooh!  found a picture of hers online:

So anyway, I'm loving the vintage pictures and old fashioned recipes in this cookbook.  And there is just about every cookie recipe imaginable included in this book too!

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion -- A birthday gift from Pete.  I love baking and I love books on baking.  This is a winner of the James Beard Award and it's truly a comprehensive baking reference.  Tips, advice and recipes -- my god, the recipes!  If it's not in this book, I don't know where you'll find it.  When I go to bake something, I love to have 3 or 4 recipes that I can look at as a jumping off point and that makes this a great addition to my cookbook library. 

So that's some of the books that have been coming my way.  And I haven't even started to tell you about the library book sale books.  I'm almost finished with Wicked, so I'll be talking more about those soon!

Birthday Breakfast

Yummy crossiant from Wiliams-Sonoma.  I can highly recommend these.  (Thanks for confirming that these were worth it, Rosemary!!)

I plan to spend the day crafting -- doing the homework for my quilting class, playing with the goodies in my red envelope and perhaps even doing some spinning.  If we have time we may do a bit of thrifting -- I hear a new shop opened up in our town.  And tonight -- dinner out with Pete. 

Oh goodness it's after 11am and I'm still in my jammies.  Better get going if I want to fit in all this fun!

New look for the blog!

Sometimes I just need to move pictures around or re-arrange the furniture. I guess the same thing is true with the blog. While I loved the autumnal colors of my old look, well, it isn't autumn anymore.

I may mess around with it a bit more. Let me know if anything is looking weird!

I think my blog may soon crash

Pete was just linked on Boing Boing.  OMG!

**Update**

Heh -- Just looked in the help file and TypePad doesn't do anything if you go over your bandwidth.  Whew! 

Now go download the cute cute paperdolls at Wee Wonderfuls for the little girl in your life (or yourself for that matter!)  And while you're over there, stop by her new blog -- Thrift Craft which is also very cool!

More on Audrey Niffenegger

Go listen to the Audrey Niffenegger podcast over at Authors On Tour - Live!. (Thanks to Pete for finding this cool podcast for me!)

And see my review of The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger back here.

Freespirit Website

Did Freespirit's website always look like this or did they just totally update it?  It's so cool!  I was just surfing around and discovered that they had it all organized with free quilt patterns organized with the fabrics and everything.  I've been on it a bunch of times before and I don't remember this at all.

And they have up the Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy fabrics with a picture of a quilt -- no free quilt pattern yet.  Maybe one will be forthcoming as there are many available with the other collections.  Hmmmm.

I'm feeling a bit. . .

. . . under the weather.  You know, that feeling you get just before a cold?  I'm planning on drinking lots of hot tea this afternoon.  After all Saturday is my birthday and I really don't want to be sick on the day I turn 36! 

So needless to say I'm kind of floundering through the day.  I wanted to show you that I have been knitting though:

I've been working on a new bag design!  I just love knitting felted bags.  There's something about Cascade 220 and size 10 1/2 circs.  It's my mac & cheese knitting.  It's so comforting to me.  I don't know what it is.  So that's what I've been working on during the Olympics.  It's perfect because I don't have to look at what I'm doing.

I also wanted to tell you about the yarn shop that Theresa and I got a chance to visit last weekend.  It's called Peggy's Strands of Heaven and it's in downtown Plainfield, IL.  The selection of yarn was really nice and shop was cute.  It's an old building and she kept a lot of the original fixtures.  There were places to sit and knit too.  I didn't buy much as I'm trying to work down the stash, but I couldn't resist this summery Trekking yarn:

That's Trekking XXL in colorway 107.  My Trekking 100 socks are my favorites to wear, so I think this is probably a good investment.

Now I'm off to finish up some work so I can get some rest this afternoon.  I will not be sick on my birthday -- I refuse.  (Me stomping my foot on the ground and crossing my arms.  Hmph!)

Mad dash!

It's been a bit of a mad dash around here today.  Thank goodness Pete had today off!

First, I wanted to get together a post for whip up on French monochromatic cross-stitch designs.  I have the design I included in the post over there  coming from Stitching Bits and Bobs.  Bobbie, the owner, has been a peach!  I had to special order the thread because it takes a *ton* of the same color (*duh*) which had to be dyed up all in the same lot.  I'm hoping to get everything to start on it in the next week!

I also had to get all the fabric for my quilting class washed and pressed today.  It's in the washer on *super* gentle cycle as we speak. 

The rest of the morning has been taken up with work (lots of orders for Black Sheep Bags since I was featured in an article in CNA Magazine!)  This did give me time to get caught up on the crafting podcasts though.  Here's some new ones (episodes) I listened to:

• About Time -- Great interview with the Yarn Harlot.
• KnitCast -- Marie's 1st Anniversary show with lots of guests!
• Cast On -- Brenda's latest episode with some interesting ideas on advertising and podcasting.
• FiberCast -- New to me.  Not really about knitting -- this podcast is more about spinning and fiberarts in general.  Great episode with info on raising Angora bunnies.

So you see. . . it's been a busy day.  And I still have a quilting class ahead of me!

And Liz, you have *completely* changed my mind about CVM!!  I am in love and will not be happy until I have a whole mess of CVM in my hot little hands.  I think Theresa & I will be combing MS&W this year for this lovely fiber.  I'm now thinking that the dyeing process must not have been kind to the CVM I had, because the lovely chocolate brown stuff you sent was so soft and springy that we could hardly believe it!  Thanks again!  We are having a lot of fun trying out these new fibers and were ooohing and aaahing as we fondled each one. 

Disappointed

I finished Peace Like a River by Leif Enger last night and I have to say that I was really forcing myself to get through it at the end.  Now before all of you who read it and loved it send me all kinds of comments and emails -- hear me out.

I do think Enger is a very good writer.  In fact, the only reason I finished the book is because I really thought that he did a great job of bringing his characters and the story to life.  At first I thought the book was heading in the right direction.  I was interested in the concept of the escalation of violence and the destruction of the family that resulted.  Then, just as Davy fled, so did the storyline -- for me at least.

Yes, the over-riding theme of this novel is probably not the thing for an atheist such as myself.  I suppose the brief description on the back should have alerted me to this.  (A few words that I may have overlooked -- "believe" "miracles" "revelation" "faith").

So, it wasn't my cup of tea and I found the ending very difficult to swallow.  If, however you are not an atheist, as I am aware a vast majority of the population is not, I think you will enjoy this book a great deal.  Because really, Enger is a great writer! 

Now on to a book I have been wanting to read ever since I went to see the musical:

And no, I don't expect the book to be anything like the musical.  I mean, there won't be any singing and dancing.  At least I don't think there will be?

Conversation with my Mom. . .

Mom (on phone): Do you have any punk stuff?
Me: Punk stuff?
Mom:  Yeah, like punk clothes?
Me: Mom, I shop at the Gap.
Mom:  Do you still have your Doc Martens?
Me: Why are you asking me this?
Mom:  I'm going to a party and I want to dress like a punk (said in a perky tone!)

Okay -- so 15 years ago I used to go to a lot of punk shows and my head was partially shaved and the rest of my hair was dyed purple, but now I'm like a soccer mom -- seriously.

I'm taking a Quilting Class!

I've longingly looked on as gorgeous quilts were started and completed in the modern quilt along.  I own The Modern Quilt Workshop and I've thought about joining, but I know I'm just not up to the task.  (Check out Kim's quilt -- is that not incredible?)

Now I've started several quilts over the years and not one of them has ever made it anywhere near completion.  Probably because I have always chosen something too ambitious and gone into it with too little know how.  So I decided to start with something easy and to learn the basics from my knowledgable local quilt shop teachers.

Even though I've been sewing since I got my first children's sewing machine when I was about 7, I went in and told them that I wanted to start from scratch.  I asked to be taught about thread, fabric selection, everything.  So that's how I'm coming at this -- with a totally fresh outlook.

With the help of the friendly staff at Robert's Sewing Center in Joliet, I chose these fabric:

And I will be making the "Candy Cane Lane" quilt from Christmas at the Bears Paw Ranch.  It's a *very* easy design in which there really aren't any corners that have to meet, so I don't have that to worry about.  We'll save that for quilt number #2.  The fabrics are civil war prints I think and they are from various manufacturers.  I needed so many different prints that we kind of had to pull them from all over the place. 

Overheard at our house:

Me:  My homework is to wash and iron the fabrics.
Pete:  I'll show you how the iron works.
Me:  Very funny.
Pete:  And I'll wash the fabric too.

The boy knows what I like. . .

I have to leave it to Pete, he knows what I like! For Valentine's Day this year he brought home some lovely Godiva chocolates and Super Crafty.

I haven't had a chance to *do* any of the crafts in the book yet, but it's packed with all kinds of ideas, tips and tricks! I can't wait to get started. And as usual. . . a full review will be forthcoming. . .

I'm at Whip Up!

A while back I told you about the cool new collective craft blog called whip up. Well, I'm now feeling like one of the cool kids, because I was invited to be a contributor to whip up!!

You can see my first post -- which is on knitting podcasts on the website today.

And the winners are. . .

I drew the names!  The winners of the two copies of A Good Yarn by Debbie Macomber are . . . (drull roll please). . . Annie and Wanda.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment.  I'll be giving you more details on the books that came home with me over the coming weeks.  Especially the old needlework books from the 70's.  What a hoot!  (Literally -- they are filled with cute little owls!)

Mail! Mini Swap!

Maddie & I participated in the Mini Swap hosted by Molly and Maddie already received her package from Elliot and his mom Paige!  (We are a bit behind them, but are planning on getting our package out this week!)  It was filled with all kinds of great things, including a very nice drawing from the very talented Elliot!  Here's Maddie ripping into the goodies:

She thought it was so much fun and has been making valentines with all the crafty bits and pieces packed into the wonderful package!  She especially likes the cute little hearts that you see in the front of this last picture. . .

After "school" she filled them up with things from each of the little silver containers ( buttons, foam beads, paper heart, etc. . . ) and set off with her "Valentine purse".

Thanks so much Elliot and Paige!!  Maddie & I are having lots of fun with the wonderful package and we hope to put together one that you will enjoy too.

** Update **   There is now a flickr group for the Mini Swap. 

That's not all I received in the mail though. . .

Liz sent a great big box of fiber for Theresa & I to try out!  This deserves an entire post all it's own, so I will save it for another day.  Thanks so much Liz!

And finally. . . the Spring 2006 Interweave Knits arrived.  Can't wait to take a look at that later. . .

Very dangerous!!

Our library had a book sale. $5 per bag. PER BAG I TELL YOU!! We came home with two bags. Where are we going to put these books? Here's the pile:

And for those without old radiators, I'm throwing in a child for scale:

And I didn't forget you all! Look. . .

That's two copies of A Good Yarn by Debbie Macomber. If you would like a copy, just leave me a comment. I'll draw two names and send each lucky winner a copy via media mail. These copies are used library copies, but they are hardcover and appear to be in fine condition. Just leave a comment -- that's all you have to do! See, I was thinking of you!

Go take a look!

Jan has up the gallery of photos from her visit to the Tokyo Quilt Festival.  There are some *gorgeous* quilts!  Go check it out!

Mail order Fun!

I'm bad.  I forgot to alert you to Amy's mail order club.  Actually I nearly forgot about it myself!  (Upping the meds has my all befuddled again.  A side effect that fortunately only lasts a couple of weeks!)  I logged on this morning and luckily she had sent out a reminder email to her mailing list -- thank goodness I had the good sense to sign up!

I can't wait for the fun mail to arrive!!

I distract you once again with chocolate. . .

The best laid plans. . .   I had planned to make the brownies from my new favorite cookbook -- Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook -- but when I went to the grocery, they didn't have any semisweet Scharffenberger baking chocolate.  They did however, have some bittersweet baking chocolate -- all the better in my opinion -- but I wasn't sure how it would translate in the recipe.  Baking is such a funny thing.

I grabbed the chocolate anyway, figuring that Scharffenberger was sure to have some recipes on their website and they didn't let me down!  I choose to make John's Favorite Brownies despite the fact that I didn't have a double boiler.  I just threw a pyrex bowl on top of a saucepan and it worked just fine.

These brownies are super rich and I would highly recommend them!

(You didn't want to see my progress on pseudo-melody anyway, did you?  It really does pretty much look like it did a couple days ago despite my furious knitting.)

New Knitting Podcast!

There's a new knitting podcast! It's called Pointy Sticks and here's episode 1. This podcast comes to us from Christine over at Big Pink Cookie.

I just listened to it and I thought it was great! Go check it out!

Migraines back. . .(not so) quick post about that pile of books

Yesterday and today have been somewhat hellish with the return of the dreaded migraine.  I had a good run there.  Almost a month since going on the new meds.  My doc upped the dosage, so hopefully I'll be back in good shape in no time.  I just had a nice latte and a couple of advil and I'm already starting to feel almost human again, so I thought I'd start to get caught up on my book posts.

First of all, I finished this. . .

That's Julie & Julia by Julie Powell.  And I have to say that it was a lot different than I thought it would be.  There was a lot of cooking, a lot of butter and a lot of strange animal parts being consumed, sure.  There was also an underlying message that seemed to hit home for me.  I think that for the author in the end it was less about food and more about challenging herself and finding her raison d'etre.

Oh yeah, I also loved her New York attitude and her liberal politics  :)  And I should tell you that the author started as a blogger!  I did not know this when I picked up the book.  So I just decided to go looking for her blog and it's still there although she hasn't posted to it since Julia Child's death.

Okay.  So I was all gung-ho to read Wicked next, but I read Julie & Julia so quickly that Wicked didn't arrive in time.  I tried to start The Sea by John Banville, but I just wasn't feeling it.  Then the squirrel got into the transformer (or at least that's what I heard) and the power went out.  We went out to dinner and the bookstore and came home with a pile of books.   So now I'm reading this book. . .

Peace like a River by Leif Enger.  I'm really enjoying this book!  The authors is a great storyteller and the main character is a wonderfully likeable boy .  It's also got a weird magical realism thing going on (read "religious miracle" which I suppose is the magical realism of the midwest).

I've also had some fiber and baking books arrive, but I'll have to write about those another day.  Right now I need to rest and make this headache go away.

Alpaca, a knock-off and a great big pile. . .

In an effort to find some balance, I have been trying to relax a little more and this involved a bit of weekend crafting.  First of all, I spun up a bit of some lovely alpaca that I had sitting around for ages.  After the CVM fiasco, this stuff was like buttah'!  I'm going for a lace weight and hoping to make a shawl with the resulting yarn.  It's a gorgeous soft cocoa brown, which may be difficult to discern from my crummy picture.

And I've even been knitting!  Shocking, isn't it?  This is two pictures of the same thing.  On the left with flash on the office floor and on the right with no flash on the radiator below the sunny window.  The color is probably somewhere between the two but leans toward the darker picture.

What is this strange balled up mass of yarn?  Why it's Morehouse Merino laceweight yarn in some unknown colorway which I purchased at MS&W last year.  Now I bought this because of the color, but I didn't like the pattern that came with it.  So I thought and thought and cast on and tinked and thought and thought some more.  Then I decided I would make Melody.

Now I didn't have the pattern for Melody and I knew I didn't have enough yarn, but I just cast on a bunch of stitches and started knitting and I haven't looked back.  This is just how I do things.  Sometimes it works (& we don't talk about the other times -- ha ha.)

Speaking of Morehouse Merino, did you know that they have a book coming out?  I'm eagerly awaiting it's release!  And I'm eagerly awaiting another visit to their booth at this year's MS&W.  (Why, yes!  I plan on being there again this year.  How about you?)  Yes, right, back to the book. . .

Looks like it's going to have 40 designs.  And I have to tell you that from what I've seen of their patterns, they are just nice simple things that you want and need to knit.  Very much looking forward to this one!

And speaking of books. . .

Many have been arriving at the house (some as the unlikely result of a power outage -- may that poor squirrel rest in peace).  I need to find time this week to tell you more about them!

Stitch 'n Bitch

I really enjoyed Brenda's take on the whole Stitch 'n Bitch controversy.  Go listen to her latest podcast!

Cool new blog. . .

ReadyMade has a new blog and Claire from Loobylu is one of the contributors. Very cool!

More later. I did actually do some relaxing and crafting this weekend which included both merino and alpaca. Mmmmmmmm. . . .

OMG!

I'm sitting here listening to WBEZ, my local NPR station, online and I hear Stephanie come on The World talking about The Knitting Olympics.

Wow!

And the link to the actual article. (Thanks, Chris!)

California Variegated What?!?!

That's a skein of California Variegated Mutant, or CVM, that I spun up over the last week.  I got this strange stuff at MS&W last year and I remember that it was CVM, but that's about all I remember about it.  I think it was dyed with some natural dye or something too.  (Norma, are you out there?  Didn't you buy a bunch of this too?  Do you remember the details?)

So I was kind of excited to spin up this strange stuff.  I guess it's rather rare and the wool is supposed to be pretty nice stuff.  According to the American Sheep Industry Association the average fiber diameter is 22-25 micron and the staple length is 3-5 inches.  Not bad.

Well, the roving I had was, how shall I say, rather less "prepared" than I'm used to.  It had quite a bit of VM throughout and there were places where there were clumps of very short fibers.  I also thought the fibers were less combed or carded than I'm used to -- plus this particular breed has quite a bit of crimp to it's wool.  It just wasn't that pleasant to spin.  And I found myself putting more spin into the wool just to keep it together because of the clumps of short fibers.

After plying, the yarn was less than spectacular, but after a bath it softened up quite a bit.  There was quite a bit of dirt, VM and dye that came out in the wash -- maybe that helped.  Here's a close-up of the finished product after it's bath:

Definitely a learning experience.  I'm enjoying spinning up lots of different fibers prepared in different ways.  I feel like I'm starting to find out exactly what I like to spin (BFL & Cormo are my two favorites followed by merino if it's blended with something with a bit longer staple length) and how I like it prepared (really well -- maybe this will change over time and I'll be buying a fleece to prepare myself, but I seriously doubt it!)

I would give the CVM another chance if it was prepared in a different manner.  Next time I sit down to spin I may try 100% alpaca!  There's been some sitting in the stash for ages, but I've been scared to try it.

Knitting Blogs Web Ring hits 900!

I just added the 900th site to the Knitting Blogs Web Ring.  Can you believe it?

February MagKnits is Live!

Go check out the February issue of MagKnits!  Such cute things!  Knitted Sushi!  Atari Socks -- okay -- they're called Tech Socks -- but they are Atari Breakout socks!  This takes me back.  I could also see myself making Ziggy.  And I though Odessa was really pretty.  (I am so not a hat person though.)

And many of you have probably already visited Whip Up which I mentioned the other day.  It has gone live and there are articles on felting and and interview with a sock knitter.  And lots of other great things!  I loved the article on fabric thrifting and the paper pictures made me drool!

Lots of exciting things going on out there in the craft realm of the internet.