Rayen

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...

I don't know why I started watching the Polish thriller series Signs on Netflix. Part of me wishes I hadn't, especially with how season two ended (and two seasons may be all there will be.) Yet it was so odd, intriguing and yet painfully out of step with basically every other thriller series in the world I thought I should write about the experience. At first you think the story is about the murder of a young woman in the mountain town of Sowie Doły. When another young woman is murdered the same way ten years later, newly-arrived police commissioner Michał Trela (bravely and interestingly depicted by Andrzej Konopka) opens an investigation, He knows his lead female detective's husband was having an affair with the dead woman, and there are obvious ties to the old murder, so do they have a very slow serial killer in town? No one really likes Trela except the female lead detective (played brilliantly by Helena Sujecka) and his sweet but haunted daughter Nina (also...

I found this petite point brooch in a bag of beads I picked up in a junk shop, and thought I'd try to clean it up a bit. This is always tricky with vintage pieces, but this one doesn't have a lot of issues other than some soiling and a bit of oxidation on the frame. The brooch is held together only by four tabs in the back, so it was easy to take apart. I'd say this is a mid 20th century imported piece, although it may be more modern. Just guessing, really. With some soap, water and a little silver cleaner I was able to remove 99% of the green oxidation residue on the front of the frame. Please note: this is just what I'm doing with something I got for very little money; anything of value should be taken to a vintage jewelry expert to be cleaned. The oxidation damaged the brass plating, however, so now there are black spots. I might be able to paint over the whole thing, but I'd probably lose the tiny beaded detail around the rim, so I'm still br...

Up until this year no one has ever jumped in and treated me like a doddering old woman while I was trying to do something. For one thing, I can manage on my own just fine 99% of the time. If I run into trouble, I will ask for help. Thanks to my arthritis (and my deafness) I am slow, but I'm not helpless. That happiness ended back in March when I went to Quest for my quarterly blood tests. I was standing at the kiosk reading the instructions when one of the employees came over and started helping me, which I didn't need. I've checked myself in a dozen times at Quest; I was just reading the opening screen to see if the instructions had changed (which they have in the past.) This young woman grabbed my appt sheet and started telling me what to do. I mentioned that I was hard of hearing, in hopes of gently discouraging her. She then started shouting at me what I needed to do, and made me so nervous that I had to start over halfway through checking in because the mach...

My guy and I took a road trip back in March to visit our favorite German restaurant, and had a lovely lunch there. We also stopped along the way to walk Daytona Beach. The spring breakers were out in force, and it turned out to be very windy, but we still had fun. To see more pics from that day, go to my album here.

For a change of pace I watched the French crime drama series La Forêt (The Forest), which starts with a missing teenage girl and ends up being an on-again off-again edge of your seat nail biter with some inexplicable parts. French films usually do puzzle me, so I was not surprised when this 6-episode series did the same. The premise: village police are called to investigate the disappearance of Jennifer Lenoir, a sixteen-year-old who vanishes in a forest in the Ardennes, Belgium. They're assisted (and sometimes hampered) by her teacher, a former nameless orphan who had some kind of traumatic experience in the same forest when she was a little girl. Then two more girls disappear and the case is linked to even more missing persons cases from the past. The plot is a bit all over the place, especially concerning Virginie, the female cop on the case (played very well by Suzanne Clément) and Eve Mendel, the very puzzling former orphan/present French teacher to the missing girls ...

Back in March my guy and I went on another road trip, stopping in Lakeland to check out the antique and thrift shops. It was there that I found this lovely old two-tier cake stand. I've been looking for one of these for a while -- they're table space savers with lots of uses -- and it kinda-sorta matches the cannister I'm using for my bagged tea. Another treasure was this small bag of beads. I found a lot of intact pieces in it, plus a gorgeous bunch of loose faux pearls and glass beads. The real eye-catcher for me was this petite point brooch. The outside needs cleaning but the needlework is in mint condition.

When I finished reading The Monstrous Kind by Lydia Gregovic back in March, I was on vacation and ready to go on another blind date with a book. This one I picked up at Christmas, but family drama prevented me from gifting it to the intended recipient. I'm not going to do that in March, so I decided to read it myself. Let's open it and meet my date. Beautiful cover art. I've never read Olivie Blake, so that's a bonus right away. Rather than read the blurb I'm just going to dive in and hopefully have a fun date. Stay tuned to hear my thoughts on this one.