Fixing Mistakes

First an update on the Taina Shawlette:

You may remember this from last week:

I got that far, then turned the page and discovered that I had misunderstood the directions. Then I went and looked at some of the photos of other people's versions of this project and realized what I had done wrong, so I frogged 84 rows. I'm not back to the row number I was on when I found my mistake, but now I understand the instructions. (As I always say, I'm getting to have that fun all over again!)

The second trailer rug is more than halfway done. I put cardboard strips between the two rugs, so with some luck, the borders won't draw in so much. I really need to get a temple.

Bye-bye's eyes arrived, and I sewed them in place. He tells me the world looks very different from 1975, when he lost his eyes. He's a Steiff bear, and these eyes are very close to what he had when he was new.

I cleaned another one of the Fisher Price My Friend dolls. This is Mikey. He was the cleanest of the four dolls, so he was easy to clean up. I used baking soda on a damp washcloth rubbed on his vinyl. Then he went into a lingerie bag and ran through the washer with a load of clothes.

Two more to go!

The proof copy of Emil came. After seeing it printed, I'm thinking of changing the cover. It looks a little plain, when compared with Mariah. I think it's because there's nothing in the background of the photo.

I'm thinking of using this photo of Emil.

I was also disappointed in some of the photos on the inside pages, which came out darker than I expected. I don't know if this is something they can fix when they print the copies or if I need to increase the exposure on the original photos. The printed photo on the left is the same as the photo on my laptop screen, to the right. 

I also discovered that I had accidentally used the wrong font type and size on the credits at the beginning of the book, and one of my chapter titles was a bigger size than I had used elsewhere, including the first book. It will be a lot of work to fix it, but I know I will be happier. I'm really glad I got the proof copy.

Our air quality has been very bad because of the forest fires in our state, but it rained late in the week and Saturday our AQI began to fall.

We were able to go for a walk on Saturday, our first walk in 10 days!

We started out with Rocky in the stroller, but he clearly wanted to get out, and he ended up walking more than half of the way. He has been getting around much better, and he has been off the pain and anti-inflammatory medications for nearly two weeks.

I'm not letting him go out at night without a flashlight and a leash (and someone at the end of the leash), so maybe he won't get injured again.

We finally got a set of matching kitchen chairs. We had two chairs at the table, and they didn't match. These chairs actually fold up, but we think they look nice enough for regular kitchen chairs. Now we won't have to "borrow" chairs from the dining room so more than two can sit in the kitchen.

The choir has been meeting for practice, socially distanced, masked and all vaccinated. Yesterday we sang in person. It's a lot more fun than recording an individual video for someone to put together.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Taina Shawlette.

What's on my loom: Trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: Mending.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little more progress again this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: thedollsstorybook.blogspot.com

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Deserter by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille on the Audible app.

What's in my wine glass: Red Diamond Mysterious, 2016, from Washington State. Another wine with a black label with red trim that I love.

What's my tip of the week: Mask wearing fog up your glasses? A tiny drop of baby shampoo on the inside of the lenses, rubbed around and then wiped off, will help you see clearly.

Where's my book: Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook is available from booksellers worldwide. If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment, and that's 50% of the price when you buy there. Other bookseller take a much bigger cut. The three stories in the book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. The stories (and links to them) are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Have a Seat

We finally straightened up the living room enough to get a photo of our expensive chairs.

The designer, Alvar Aalto, is well known in Finland. The chairs the vintage of ours are very expensive when restored and reupholstered, costing about twice what we paid to have ours reupholstered. They are literally better than they were when we bought them. Needless to say, they are going with us when we move. A lot of our other furniture is going bye-bye.

Much of the week was spent going through stuff and packing. I packed a few more boxes and we had a large pile of useable cast-offs for Multiple Sclerosis to pick up on Saturday. I finally threw Sunny's medical papers into recycling. It made me sad to let go of it, but it has been almost two years, and her sweet face still shows up on my phone when I turn it on.

Speaking of dogs....

My sweet boys are happy to get into the backyard again. No more snow coming off the roof, and we can open the back door. We still have our glaciers, but they will be gone soon. With milder temperatures the boys are spending more time in both the front and the back

Holy week included some fun. The girls got to see how I boil the eggs for Easter. Vroni stood in my prep sink, on the rack, (everything got washed afterwards) and Lotte stood on one of our kitchen stools. They liked my shortcut for coloring the eggs. (Imagine the challenge of finding brown Easter eggs in the bushes int he backyard!)

They have been busy. I've been teaching Front how to quilt. She's the only doll who can quilt, because she's left-handed. The two middle fingers on their right hands are stuck together, but their left hands have four separate fingers, so Vroni, as the only lefty, is the only one who can wear a thimble on her dominant hand. Mandy has no trouble knitting, because she uses the Continental method, with the yarn tensioned in her left hand. 

Her problem is she would really like to stick her tongue out a bit when she's concentrating, but her lips are sealed...literally. Lotte (whose lips are not sealed) was reading to the crafters as they worked. It's a good thing Vroni and Mandy can communicate telepathically, or I wouldn't know what they say.

We had a nice service Easter morning. We had some "helpers" who come in for special holidays. The music was almost entirely selections from The Messiah. (I'm the one in yellow in the back.) I like to be in the back, because I can hear myself better. That way, I don't get dragged off by someone coming in at the wrong time. I wasn't the only one in the back, though. We had two complete rows of singers.

After church, the Götz girls went out to the back deck to get official Easter photos.

In spite of all the sorting and packing, I managed to get some work done on my Spring Flowers quilt. I hope to finish it before we move out.

I've also completed a few more rows on the Coastal Skies shawl. It's my take-along work for riding in the car or sitting and waiting for something when I'm out.

Common Threads meets at my house this week...unless we have a blizzard, currently not expected.

Whew! After such a busy week, I think I'll sit down.

What's on my needles: Still the Coastal Skies.

What's on my Featherweight: Lots of stuff I’m sorting through. LOL! Hope to be back to sewing soon.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, but progress being made.

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is put away. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer, one of my favorite authors. Now listening to The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz, another favorite.

What's in my wine glass: Fisheye Shiraz 2016, the big bottle.

What's my tip of the week: Papers are time-consuming to go through. Get rid of everything you can as it comes into the house: junk mail you aren't interested in, receipts for things you know you won't need to return or don't need to save for taxes or reimbursement, letters you've answered (except love letters, of course) all should go right into the trash as soon as you're done with them. Stacked on your desk or a counter, they can end up some day in a bag or box of things you have to go through. (Do as I say, not as I do!)

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

No Term Limits for These Chairs!

But first: Mandy's Stavanger (Norwegian) Cardigan is finished.

The pattern is available for free here. I frogged the front bands twice before I finally got a version Mandy and I liked.

It's designed to teach steeks with a different kind of front steek finish and an option for knitting both sleeves together separated by steeks, and then seaming them before sewing them in place in the armholes.

I used Knit Picks Palette in White, Marble Heather and Pimento. The sheep motif is from Northern Lace's March of the Fibres Sweater by Elizabeth Lovick and is used with her permission. (I have this pattern and plan to make it as a cardigan.)

In other knitting news, I did a test knit for a doll-sized messy bun hat. I think the designer plans to make it available to the public, and when that happens, I'll provide a link.

I used Knit Picks Comfy Worsted in Peony. It took 21g, which is about 46 yards. I wish I could say I picked it because of its excellent stitch definition (which it has), but it was nothing so logical. It was one of the few worsted-weight yarns not yet packed up for the upcoming move. The only things color-coordinated in Lotte's outfit are her hat and slippers, and they don't really match, nor do they go together by function. However, it was what she was wearing, and she's cute anyway.

Vintage Stitchers met at Marilyn's on Thursday. I was hand-quilting my Spring Flowers Quilt.  It's coming along.

As usual, most of the ladies were sewing bindings on. Carol was sewing the binding on this sampler. Her quilts are always fun.

Barbara had this beautiful quilt she made from precut 2 1/2" strips and 10" squares. She's had the fabric for a long time, she says.

Marilyn brought out a big bin of yarn she wanted to get rid of. I was good; I didn't even look. I had just dropped off a big load at Saver's, the thrift shop close to Marilyn, and it was fresh in my mind. I have saved out about two years' worth of yarn just to get me through the time until I can open my boxes again. I really shouldn't be adding to it.

When Vintage Stitchers was almost over, I received a text saying that the chairs were done. We had dropped them off at Wardell Upholstery in Salt Lake City to be reupholstered in leather. We had to take them down to Salt Lake one at a time, because our car wouldn't hold both of them at one time, so since I was already there, I went by to pick it up. Here's what I saw when I got there.

The man who actually did the work said that our pair of chairs were the first and last he would ever do. It was expensive, but these chairs (much more substantial than the ones sold by IKEA, which are nevertheless nice) were designed by the famous Finnish designer Alvar Aalto and sell for a lot more than it cost us. They are actually better than when we bought them, because the upholstery is all leather now, instead of only in the front and the tops of the arm pads. They are also more comfortable than I remember. Extra padding was addedI should have taken a before photo. The best I could find was this:

Our lovely daughter and our lovely DIL holding our adorable grandsons at Christmastime 2012. The photo doesn't show the shredded canvas upholstery behind the headrest, and the cracked leather doesn't really show up much, either, but it will give you an idea. I never liked the off-white, and I love the new caramel.

I'm currently knitting another cataddict pattern, this time for winter sports pants. (She doesn't publish the patterns as pdfs, but she has great patterns. You have to copy and paste to a document and print that.)

I'm thinking they will look good with Mandy's Stavanger Cardigan.

What's on my needles: Mandy's Winter Sports Pants.

What's on my Featherweight: Nothing right now.

What's in my hoop: Spring Flowers quilt.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I gave up on The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf for now. I may go back to it later. I wasn't really in the mood for depressing, unhappy characters. Now listening to Miss Tonks Turns to Crime by M. C. Beaton. I really enjoy her books, and I have just discovered that she's a very prolific writer. My only complaint is that they tend to be short and they still cost just as much in credits. On my Kindle app I finished Miss Braithwait’s Secret by G. G. Vandagriff. It was an interesting story. I've listened to another of her novels and found that one to be better. It could be because I would rather listen than read. I haven't picked a new Kindle book yet.

What's in my wine glass: Terrain Vineyards Red Blend 2014. Excellent!

What's my tip of the week: When packing for a move, pack heavy items (like books or fabric) in smaller boxes so they won't be too heavy to lift. A few heavy items can go in the bottom of a larger box, if you fill it the rest of the way with something light, like down jackets or yarn. Be sure to write on the box with specifics about what is in the box.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.