Rayen

Since prices on yarn have been increasing lately I went through my latest thrifted lot and priced all the skeins that I could. Here is what they would cost retail: Caron One Pound White: $16.98 Big Twist Twinkle Red: $6.49 Mandala Sparkle Serpent: $8.99 Patons Grace Cotton Blush: $6.99 Yarn Bee Through Thick and Thin (discontinued): $11.00 Caron Latte Cakes Blueberry Mist, Gray Velvet & Earl Gray: $13.00 each Lion Brand Ice Cream Parfait: $5.99 Coats & Clark Wintunk Frankie: $4.99 Lion Brand Hometown USA Cambridge Tweed: $5.99 Lion Brand Homspun Montana Sky: $8.99 Caron Simply Soft Sunshine $5.99 Lion Brand Hometown USA Oakland Black $5.99 Impeccable True Gray: $4.99 Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly Bib Baby Pastel Ombre: $14.99 These seventeen skeins would have cost $160.37 if I'd bought them new. Many are no longer offered for sale except as used or vintage. The four that aren't labelled I can price at $5.00 each and add on for a total of $...

The first lot of yarn I bid on and won back in March arrived with more surprises. There are twenty-one skeins in total versus the twenty I counted from the two auction listing pics. The big Caron one pound skein of white matched the color of the remnant skein I already had, which was what I'd hoped. There are four labeled Latte Cakes (I saw three in the pic), an unused Big Twist glittery red skein in pristine condition, and a beautiful Mandala Sparkle cake that made me very happy (I'm going to make a winter hat out of this one.) There's even a skein of gray yarn with some nice knitting needles still stuck in it. The other skeins have been used a little, but aside from needing a bit of winding they're in decent shape. I'm going to price what I can and figure out the total value, but I can already say it's a lot of great yarn for less than ten bucks. I went to work right away with the white yarn, which I'll use to edge my granny squares for m...

I'm having odd (and sometimes very entertaining) dreams again. There was one just after my last doctor's visit where I finally began to lose the weight I need to, but with unforeseen consequences. The flatter my tummy became, the larger my navel grew, until it exposed my insides. I discovered I was made out of delicious chocolate cake. My guy didn't want anyone to attack and eat me, so he tried to cover up my too-big navel with a bandaid. Even in the dream I laughed, it was so ridiculous. In another dream I ended up back in downtown Miami, which had changed quite a bit since I worked there. I was lost, of course. I walked through crowded restaurants and shops as I tried to use my phone to find a map that showed me how to get home. Only I couldn't get the phone to do what I wanted -- it showed me everything but what I needed. Just like real life! Ha. The people I met in the dream were friendly, although not particularly helpful. One older Cuban gentlem...

Back in April my guy and I went on a road trip to Lakeland to visit the Fantasy of Flight museum. We both love planes and it was amazing to see all the vintage and war planes they had on display. I then dragged him to the Hollis Botanical Gardens by Lake Mirror, which are gorgeous. Seeing this fountain/koi pond made me so happy; two of my favorite things in one. To wrap up our day we walked the promenade around the lake, which is almost a mile. We saw some lovely waterbirds and got in some extra exercise as well. A great day. :)

While my nephew is visiting this week I taught him how to make the NY style pizza that I've come up with over the last six months, and he loved it as much as my guy. This will also help him save money when he goes home, as it costs only about $5.00 to make (less if you get the ingredients on sale.) Since he gave the recipe a thumbs-up I've decided to share it online. Rayen's Homemade Pizza For the dough: 2/3 cup warm water 1 teaspoon active dry yeast (I use Fleischmann’s in the jar; keep in the fridge) 1 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt Mix yeast, sugar and olive oil in the warm water. Add flour and salt, and mix by hand or in mixer with dough hook for 5 minutes. Spray a medium bowl with PAM or other oil spray. Place dough in bowl, spray with top with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Place bowl of dough in larger bowl half-filled with hot water, cover everything with kitchen towel. Let the dough sit and rise for 1 h...

My thrift budget for the month of April was $50.00, and I needed a bunch of stuff that I wanted to see in person, so off to the local thrift store we went to shop. This fabric-lined basket was $6.99, but in great shape and exactly the size I needed for a project. I found some of the fabric I needed for a quilt in a packet of five fat quarters ($3.49) and a half yard of coordinating fabric ($1.99). The pretty cloth napkin was .99, which I couldn't resist. Here are the five fat quarters from the one package and the half yard on the right end. Really nice quality fabric; originally marked $9.99 and $4.99 from Michael's. I need more t-shirts to wear for spring and summer, and these three were $5.99 each. Finally, I got two pair of jeans, one at 8.99 and the other on sale at $5.99, marked down from $11.99. The $5.99 jeans still had the store tags on them -- they were $17.99 retail -- so they were never worn. Adding $3.25 in tax, my entire thrifted haul ...

I think of all the fabrics I found in my junk shop bag this multicolor doll print is the worst. I've disliked all dolls my entire life. They creep me out, especially the staring eyes that don't blink. Despite this my mom spent most of my childhood giving dolls to me as gifts, because in that time they were the appropriate toy for girls. I handed them off directly to my little sister, because I wanted Hot Wheels and a red wagon and a pet Hamster, not a plastic baby that stared at me even in the dark. Okay, so safe to say I don't love this fabric. :) That doesn't make it unusable; I could hand it off to another quilter who can use it, that's always an option (best to ask first.) I could use it as reusable gift wrapping furoshiki style, make binding out of it, or sew it as lining into a tote, too. It also works as backing for something I don't have to flip over or look at the back, like a table hot pad. For this I'm going to use some thrifted p...

I've never been a fan of the Harry Potter franchise, primarily because I don't care for anything that depicts cruelty toward children as entertainment. Magic in any way shape or form isn't plausible to me. The humor in this franchise seems rather heartless to me, too. Thus the very last kind of fabric I want to use is Harry Potter fabric, so of coure I got a yard of it in my junk shop fabric bag. All tragic fabric can still be used, even when you don't like it. It works perfectly as foundation fabric for crazy quilt patchwork. I covered the Harry Potter fabric block with some scrap batting, leaving a wide margin all the way around (this is so I can sew the edges to a backing fabric without having to change to a walking foot on my machine.) Here I'm using scraps from the baby quilt I'm working on to cover the piece. Always keep your scraps handy and reuse them if you can. The finished patchwork. Here's the block with the backing...

I see a lot of really tragic fabric out there in thrift stores, and I thought I'd do a three-part series on what to do with these gems that you might otherwise donate (or burn.) Here's a prime example of fabric I personally regard as hideous: a pink skull novelty print that I got in a big bag of fabric I bought at a junk shop. First, I dislike all pink in general. I hate anything with bones that are dressed up to be cute, like these skulls with bows and heart-shaped eyes. To add extra disgust factor, the fabric is also glittery. I wouldn't make anything with this fabric unless I can manipulate it so that it doesn't look anything like it does. How do you do that? Get a yoyo maker and start cutting it up. Here are the first three yoyos I made. You cannot tell what the print is anymore, right? For projects like this I keep everything in a bag. It's easy enough to make a couple each night, and in a week or two I'll have the entire piec...

Although I don't need any fabric, I've been spinning my wheels a bit when it comes to smaller quilted projects. I already have two more bed-size quilts I've planned to do this year that I haven't started, so that's more than enough. I've been looking for smaller project inspiration, and saw this lot of fabric and patchwork, much of it in Mom's favorite color. I get the sense this was a UFO stash someone gave up on. This was a small project, maybe, that never got finished. The dimensions are right for a table topper. The squares sewn together might be a runner or pillow cover. I suspect there are two more pieced projects here that need finishing, too. I decided to bid on it and won the lot, so when it arrives we'll see if I'm right. Images Credit: all the images in this post came from the original auction listing on ShopGoodwill.com.

It's been a year since I started my emergency pantry project, which has provided all kinds of benefits I never expected it would. I think these are the top three: Convenience: When I run out of a staple I don't have to drive to a store; I now always have plenty on hand. Lower Food Bills: I can buy nonperishables we frequently use when they're on sale and keep the extra in the emergency pantry. Less Waste: Thanks to the first-in first-out strategy and the labeling of expiration dates on the face of food products, we've also been able to cycle foods into our working pantry as they grow close to expiring, so nothing is wasted (in a year the only thing I've not used before it expired was a dollar store package of ramen.) I'm also able to see what we constantly use (soups, rice, pasta, canned veggies, small containers) versus what we don't (dehydrated foods, mixes, canned meats, huge containers) so I have a better idea of what to stock up on for...

Since I failed last year's romance reading challenge, I decided to try again with this bundle of romances I picked up for four dollars at a junk shop. I happen to like romantic suspense more than general romance, and maybe a five books would be somewhat less intimidating. The new challenge: I'm giving myself until the end of summer to read them, and then do a write-up about all five. It's difficult for me to read for pleasure anymore, and when I do it's generally cookbooks. I'm not sure why my reading habits have changed so drastically over the last few years. I certainly have enough time for it, but it's hard for me to sit still unless I'm doing something with my hands. I'm more active now than I've been in any other time in my life except early childhood. Maybe it's because I don't experience the need to escape my real life anymore, and all the toxic people are out of it. Anyway, I'm making an effort to read more, and that...

I bid on two lots of yarn back in March, hoping I would get one of them. As it happened I got both, and this is the second lot which was listed as a lot of 12. There were 15 skeins I counted in the other photos of the lot, so someone missed a few. The other thing that I really liked was the individual pics that followed the listing main photo. All of the skeins are still labeled, which allowed me to look up the retail for almost the entire lot before I bid. The two peachy Yarn Bee skeins on the left here are even marked $5.49 each. The Patons silk bamboo is $6.99 retail. Yarn Art Jeans cotton yarn is $2.59 new. The fibre, weight and color variety of the yarns also intrigued me. Here's baby, worsted and chenille skeins. I saw Caron One Pound Yarn for $14.99 a skein over at Wal-Mart the other day. There are two of them in this lot. The main reason I bid on this lot was the big skein of white yarn on the right here, which I need to finish my granny square throw...

Melo Movie is actor Park Bo-Young's latest Netflix romantic drama, and since it didn't deal with the mentally ill like the last one I decided to watch it. I really like her, and she can be hilariously funny. Yet once again there wasn't much to chuckle over in this short series, just a lot of sadness, regret and way too many tissue-necessary moments. The ten episdes follow the story of Ko Gyeom, a somewhat looney aspiring actor (Choi Woo-shik) and Kim Mu-Bee, an assistant director (Park Bo-young) who fall for each other almost instantly on a movie set, only to abruptly lose each other. Gyeom, who initiated everything, simply vanishes. Mu-Bee is left wondering what the heck happened. Five years later they're reunited when Mu-Bee puts out her directorial debut movie, and Gyeom attends the premiere as an up and coming film critic. Sparks fly from there once again, but when you discover what separated them the series takes a very depressing turn from which it ...

There were only two images of a yarn lot I bid on back in March, which is probably why I won the lot with only one other bidder giving up after a single try. What I wanted was the big Caron one pound skein of white in the very front; that retails for $13.00. I need white yarn like crazy these days. That single skein made it worth bidding on the lot. I also counted three labelled Latte Cakes (they retail for $13.49) a Big Twist skein ($12.99 retail, and a brand that will now no longer be produced due to JoAnn going bankrupt), and a Mandala Sparkle cake ($8.99 retail). There's also some chunky yarn, chenille, baby yarn and I think some wool blends, but I'll have to wait until the lot arrives to be sure. Just the six yarn skeins and cakes with labels I could price are worth over $75. Adding the other 14 unlabelled skeins I can see in the pics (there may be more under them) at $5 per skein resale, that's another $70. The total value is about $150.00. I paid t...

One year when I was an elementary school age kid we went to the county fair. I don't remember why; it was my first time at a fair and the whole experience was a muddled rush as my mom tried to keep all of us together. On our way out of the fairgrounds I passed by an artist's booth. There was one painting of a forest waterfall spilling from earth into outer space that enchanted me (not that I had any money to buy anything.) I saw it only for about thirty seconds, but for over 50 years that one painting has remained branded on my brain. I've looked for it everywhere, but never again found it. It inspired me to no end as a writer just thinking about it. People have very little good to say about AI art, but one thing I've discovered is that it can put bring my memories to life. This is the first time I've seen anything close to what I remember, and I actually generated it with an internet search. This is about as close as I can get to the original imag...

I'm writing this post on the morning of March 27th -- yes, I'm seven weeks ahead of myself on the blog now -- and I'm quite upset. I have to go see my doctor in a few hours and if I don't calm down he's going to think I've developed high blood pressure. I walk each of my dogs twice a day, and I go from our house to the front entrance to our neighborhood to stay away from people. I wave to other dog walkers to let them know I'm approaching, and move to the other side of the road to stay away from people. I will wait and let other dog walkers, runners, or people out walking in the same direction go ahead of me and put distance between us so I can stay away from people. Note the common goal here? Why I stay away from people: my dogs are not friendly, other dogs scare them, and I'm basically deaf. I am not a morning person, and in the evening I'm tired, so I'd prefer not to deal with other people. I like being left alone with my dogs whe...