Rayen

My spring cleaning is going so well I'm way ahead of schedule with that; last night I knocked out the sewing room in a few hours. I'm trying to keep myself restricted to having just one week of posts written and ready to publish for the blog, but I'm a day ahead of that as well. I think the new blog is helping me with my excessive need for online journaling. It's been fun coming up with posts just about crochet over there. A small yarn lot I thrifted came with 26 hanks of needlepoint yarn, and I don't own any at all, so I'll have to come up with an embroidery project or two for that. Another reason I'm so productive is the completely unexpected happiness that 2026 has brought me. I knew having our nephew living with us would be a delight, as the three of us get along perfectly, but it's turned out to be even better than I imagined. He's like a son to us, and such a good houseguest. My guy is so happy that he's here and they can wor...

I was cruising through my photo archives and wondered what I did during January over the past few years. In 2025 I also made a big beautiful basket out of scrap yarn -- obviously one of my favorite projects to crochet. In January 2024 I was working on an art quilted tote much like the one I'm making now for my calendar project, too. 2023 saw me repairing this Fabscrap sample sweater in January, which I later donated to the church thrift as I don't often wear sweaters. I have some trousers I thrifted that I'll probably alter this month, too. Finally in 2022 I took these two pieces from a cut-up crazy quilt and repaired them to make a pretty mat holder for my vintage brooches. I have another damaged crazy quilt piece that I want to use to cover some gift and storage boxes this month. I often do the same projects over and over, I admit, which may seem boring. I am limited on the complexity of projects I take on; they usually involve making something usefu...

It's January 15th as of the writing of this post, and once again I've gotten almost two weeks ahead of myself on blog posts. Like spending money, it's hard to stop journaling, especially since January has been such a nice month. Last night I finished adding some trims to my January calendar tote, and today I'm going to start the embroidery. I didn't think I had much in the way of pretty threads to use for this project in the color scheme, but actually I do -- mostly specialty, but what the heck. This is special. :) After the embroidery (which I am planning to keep simple) I'll get into the beading phase, which is the most fun for me, then sew up the tote and add the lining. I'm really happy with how this first tote for my 2026 calendar project is turning out, too. Onward!

I often find patterns for quilting projects online at quilter's web sites and blogs, but only recently have I started looking at fabric sites. I was kind of blown away by how many free patterns are out there to be downloaded and printed out for free from these sites. Art Gallery Fabrics has a very nice collection of free patterns , including this one for a Sunshine Kisses quilt by Katie Skoog. I've always wanted to make one of these diagonal rectangle quilts, the Cobblestone pattern for which I found over at Robert Kaufman Fabrics among the almost two thousand pages of free patterns. I fell in love at first sight with this Office Cats pattern by Wendy Sheppard over at Windham Fabrics free quilt pattern collection , which also offers many filters to help refine the results for what you're searching for. When companies are selling lines of fabric prints they often offer free patterns as an enticement for quilters to buy the fabric. So if you're looking f...

When I'm thrifting online I often see quilts that most folks probably should not bid on. Take this vintage crazy quilt: it looks authentic, and likely dates back to the early 20th century. What I see: it appears to be made out wool and homespun fabrics that (like the materials in most authentic crazy quilts) are deteriorating, and it's probably never been laundered. Dirty wool and homespun tends to reek. You can't launder something like this; it will fall to pieces and/or shrink. Finally, while the construction is interesting it's not very well done, and the embroidery isn't special enough to merit saving the quilt. Here's a more modern patchwork quilt that appears folded up in all the photos. This is either to hide damage or staining, or perhaps because it measures 94" X 106" (according to the listing.) Whatever the reason, never thrift a quilt unless you can see all of it front and back. Here's a quilting project that...

I admit, I'm one of those annoying extra-tidy people. Like Felix Unger from The Odd Couple, I love housework, laundry and washing dishes. There's something so satisfying in making things clean. You wouldn't think I'd be this way, given my love of vintage and thrifting, but being a Felix actually helps me evaluate what I thrift as to condition. I can handle a little soiling, as long as it's something I can tidy up. When it comes to vintage textiles, that means a lot of hand-washing. I picked up these two pieces of feedsack at The Coop, and once I handwashed them in cold water with a little detergent and some color grabber cloths (these are a good idea when laundering anything old with red dye) I hung them up in the guest bath to dry. Vintage textiles (especially scraps) also often come with unwanted debris, like snipped or fraying threads. For a meditative evening I'll sit down with a few piles like these and remove all that stuff before I han...