Small Things--Good Things

Thinking tiny --working Kathleen Tracy's 2019 Mystery Quilt--

This is April's block--cut and ready to sew--I'm keeping up so

far.

If you look at my blocks--there is no room for 1/4" seam!

Guess these blocks will be sewn again--it takes perfect

measurement to get these tiny blocks just right!

Remembering Adelia: Quilts Inspired by Her Diary quilt book (Kathleen Tracy) is being used to make Peony Stars:   

Want to give it a go?  Check out Kathleen's Facebook group--

so many wonderful free patterns in the files

and you too can think tiny.

ONE of These Days.........................................

One of these days, I'm going to learn to Brioche Knit!  That's a fact Jack!  I have several brioche patterns that I would love to knit--I have two videos in my library--there are multitude more in Youtube library...........................
For some reason, my mind will not wrap around this knitting technique--I get carried away by distractions too easily..........................................Now, here is another opportunity to learn

and it comes from one of the master knitters--Franklin Habit of

Brooklyn Tweed

 Just look at this---BASIC Brioche- 101

What better place to begin.......

oh gosh, he even has Brioche 102--knitting with two colors in the round!

And if, IF, I can get through 101 and 102, I can graduate up

to Brioche 201--Oh Joy!

There are pictures--lots of pictures--

I Think I Can--I Think I CAN!

Summer Time! And The Living is Easy..................

Oh Yeah!  Summertime!  What a song!  Easy breezy!  Great listen!

Come along to this summer time quilt along from Moda Bake Shop--
Ocean breezes, waves crashing and sand between your toes--The theme for the summer is Seashore with Ocean themed QAL.  This journey begins on June 3 with fabric requirements and ends on August 26 with the reveal and one last 'bonus' block that can be used for the label.
Hard to believe we are talking about Summer time and June--time stops for no one!

Mark your calendars for this one--should be cool breeze as we sail through

summer time!

Unst Lace Shawls

Where is Unst, you ask? I wasn't too sure myself until I did some research.  Unst is one of the Shetland isles located north of Scotland--
  I love lace knitting and when I found these lovely Unst Shetland Lace shawls, I was in heaven!

Here is a lace knitting pattern you can buy from Sharon Taylor--such a lovely

garment!  These shawls are fine, you can pull them through a wedding ring!

Watch this video to see how these beautiful shawl are knitted but

first, you must do the spinning--my question--how can they knit so fast!!?

Enjoy the magic of creativity!

 

BBC Archive has a video from 1960's with more information--fascinating to watch!

Relax! Read!!

Haven't I told you how much I like to read?

I sure hope you like to read as well--

this is a whole new world out there when you

open a book.  You can travel to all parts of the

world as you lose yourself in the pages.

I'm always reading at least two books at the same

time--One book is on the bed stand--another

is on the coffee table in the family room.

Here is my latest reads....

We (hubby is a reader too) have discovered John D MacDonald with his

Travis McGee character--we've finished the first in the series--

"The Long Goodbye"--why it took us so long to indulge in this read,

I don't know!  So glad we began this series.

Elizabeth A Garcia--"One Bloody Shirt at a Time"--oh my, how

I love this read.  I've also finished the second ("The Beautiful Bones") in the series!

These reads take me back to Big Bend Texas and Terlingua--

I walk in Deputy Rios shoes....

"Luckenbach Texas--The Center of the Universe" by Becky Crouch

Pattison--daughter of Hondo Crouch, founder of Luckenbach--

We visit Luckenbach often--we attend the Cowboy Church on Sundays--

attend the afternoon or evening music concerts.

This book brings you the history behind the town, population 3--

a delicious read and music that comes out of the history

"The Lost Girls of Paris" by Pam Jenoff--

I learned about the lost girls of Paris through an episode of

"Foley's War"--an almost true look at WWII in Europe--

And now we step into secret agents lives

Mike Blakely's book "A Sinister Splendor"--a semi fictional

look at 1845 Mexican-American War--We know Mike and his

wife Annie through their music--they play many of the events

and functions around Hill Country Texas.  Imagine my surprise

when we were eating dinner with Mike/Annie and learned

he is an author--many times over!

Hope you will find a way to escape the mundane routine of

daily living.

Dyeing Gradients..................................

You seen these lovely gradient yarns--some very expensive.

I can understand why--it takes time to skein yardage to make

a smaller skein but continue to be in the same ball of

yarn.  I came across this tutorial on Simply Notable

web page--you can see it process with step by step

instructions.  She is using Kool-aide for her dye.

But, for me,

after Easter sales--give me a ton of those little

tiny dye tablets for egg dyeing--those will work just

fine--

In years past, I've dyed my silk roving with these

tablets--using the microwave to set the dye--spin it

up and knit a lovely scarf for spring wear.

Simply Notable has an April dye along for hand painted

yarn--using Easter egg dye--book mark this site as you will

find many useful tidbits of crafty things.

Decisions! Decisions!

Here is May!  Can you believe??  Summer will jump right out at us soon--

in the meantime, I'm sewing --sometimes!

It's the 'little' things that get in the way--

like a outside freezer door that was open just a tad and although,

it ran and ran for days on end, it also froze a ton of ice

and melted some of the products therein---

Surprise! when you go to the door and find it just a tad

open and peek inside--your heart sinks!  Oh No! 

What a mess!

Well, it did need defrosting--not now though!

salvage as much as we could and let the ice melt--

Or 

the blond headed daughter calls you up on

Friday evening as ask if you'll come to the ranch

Saturday AM to move furniture out of two rooms--

she is having tile laid in those two rooms--

okay, we can deal with that-- the next

weekend we'll be there moving furniture

back into the rooms!

  Life can get in your way when

you're having fun...............

The other day, I pulled out all my -un-quilted tops--oh,

bother!  so many to be quilted--what am I to do?

1.  I can stop making quilts

2.  Send the tops off to be quilted--big bucks!

3.  send the tops off to Quilts of Compassion --that's first choice!

4.  Learn how to machine quilt

5.  Hand quilt the smaller one

6.  Make table runners or lap quilts or baby quilts

In the meantime, I'm sewing these Blocks from Pat Sloan's I Love to Quilt series

"Flower Bouquet"

This journey began on January 2 and here is 

Block 14

These two blocks are Block 15

Pat has two layouts set up--

I'll decide later what to do with the blocks.....