Old Books

Half Hours with the Best American Authors.

American Lands and Letters:

Works by John Locke

Virgil in Translation

Songs and Occasional Poems on Various Subjects by Captain Hall of the Indian Army:

Two sets of more recent books, works by Somerset Maugham and Louis Bromfield:

An assortment of other titles:

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Some others:

In all, 4 1/2 to 5 boxes of books, including The Dialogues of Plato, a Dictionary of The Bible, The Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible and some of the classics, like The Last of the Mohicans and The Pickwick Papers, mostly from early to mid-20th century.

The Days of Wine and Posies

Vintage Stitchers met this past week.

You may remember this quilt of Janet's. She had custom quilting done on it, and it turned out great. As is often the case, you can see the quilting better on the back.

Rebecca has continued to work on her Borboletta BOM quilt blocks. She was working on this one.

Julie had a new embroidery project. It has batting and backing. We wondered why and decided it was to hide the traveling strands, although we all said we don't travel across the back with their embroidery floss.

Janet is making progress on this "Sunny Side of the Street" quilt from Davidene's. (On the website, you will need to scroll down to see the quilt.)

Marilyn had finished this quilt in her usual bright primaries palette.

Diane had finished this Redwork quilt.

I continued to work on my Spring Flowers quilt. I've been making some progress, between packing and knitting. I packed away my whole cloth quilt, which is perhaps 30% finished. It went into a Chewy (online dog food) box with some other quilts. More on that later.

I finished Vroni's Russian Dress, a test of the pattern, which is now available in more or less completed form here (in blog post form) and here (as a downloadable pdf from Ravelry). I made Vroni's with the balance skirt, rather than the swirled version of the original. My sewing machine was packed away and not available, so I didn't make a petticoat. I used two sets of dpns to do the skirt, so I could tell people it works. (It does.) I had two panels on each of 9 needles and knit with the 10th. Some of my needles were 6" and some were 7". I found the 6" needles acceptable, but I had to be careful not to spread out the sts too much. (If you're wondering about Cleo the goldfish, who is usually on that little dresser, she got packed, too.)

Someone on Ravelry used my pattern to make the dress for one of her dolls, the Asian Hannah. She made hers with the swirled skirt. 

Now all three girls have one of these dresses. I want to make one more for Lotte with the more fitted bodice when I have a chance. I think her dress will fit Dolly or Gabi, or I could send it to Miss Daphne for her doll.

I had planned to take a group photo outdoors, but it turned cold again and rained for several days. 

Speaking of Dolly and Gabi, they and Alister are on their way to Bend in a climate-controlled vehicle. When they arrive, they will have climate-controlled accommodations until we find a house. They (and most of our boxes and small stuff) are packed away in large boxes or pods, which were picked up on Friday and taken to Salt Lake City to be loaded into a semi. They should be there in a few days.

The Götz girls will go with us. It's Lotte's turn to be the traveling doll, and Vroni and Mandy will sleep in their "coffins" under the bed in the trailer. (They refer to them as "coffins," because they hate the boxes they came in.) Lotte is hoping to pick up more pine cones, ever since I tossed her the tiniest one from our collection, which I was dusting and packing in plastic bags around the girls' dining room chairs.

We continue to go through things, doing some finishing up on the downstairs bathroom and getting ready for our garage sale. On Saturday I went to the Acorn Antique Fair in Ogden to collect cards of antique dealers who might be willing to come to look at our stuff. I gave DH a list of what I was willing to part with. He scratched off some things, and we now have a list of furniture and other antique items we agree to part with. Anything the antique dealers don't want will go into the garage sale.

For some cuteness this week, granddaughter Daphne and grandson Zachary completed their year of dance lessons.

They tried out for the Alice in Wonderland ballet and were accepted. They will play snails (how do snails dance?) and hedgehogs. It's good to get experience performing in front of a large audience while you're still too young to get nervous.

Happy 8th birthday to Miss Daphne today! I hope you love your Götz Katie doll!

ETA: Daphne has school and dance practice today, so she opened her presents yesterday. She has named her Katie doll Bella. You can see that doll and clothes had already been out of the box when this photo was taken, but Bella is looking around at her new home.

What's on my needles: Still the Coastal Skies, a little more progress made, and the Cabbagetown Jacket for Matti.

What's on my Featherweight: On its way to Bend.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, coming along slowly.

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is still in hibernation. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Young Clementina by D. E. Stevenson. I haven’t had much time to listen this week, but I’ve listened to most of it, and it’s very good.

What's in my wine glass: A Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Petite Sirah, 2016.

What's my tip of the week: Geranium plants in a box can be pruned and kept for many years. You can bring the box in when the weather is too cold outside and keep them near a window where they can get plenty of light, then take them outdoors when the weather warms up and leave them outside all summer to brighten your porch or patio in a spot with not too much sun. Bring them back in as needed in the fall. We have had ours for about 15 years. We will be leaving them behind, but they are going to a good home.

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.

Out with the Old

One week ago today it snowed.

The next day was Dusty's birthday. I was afraid it would be too muddy at Run-A-Muk dog park, but it wasn't too bad, in spite of the snow the day before.

It turned out to be a lovely day. I think we have finally turned the corner, and springtime is here. The hummingbirds sent some early scouts the day before the snow, and they have returned now in the usual numbers for this time of year.

The daffodils are up and blooming.

The daffodils and crocuses have a hard time, because we planted them right where we throw the snow from the driveway. Often the first shoots come up under the ice and can't break through, so when that glacier finally melts, we have pale leaves lying flat on the ground. They're hardy, though, and by the first week of May they usually are as happy as daffodils and crocuses can be.

I skipped Common Threads this week so I could continue to pack. We had some young men come to help us load the U-Haul boxes. They do this professionally, so they know what to do, and they're young, so they're unlikely to have medical issues as a result of lifting heavy things.

I still have some packing to do, but this is what my fiber studio looked like Saturday afternoon.

It looks like there's still a lot, but the closet, the cupboard and all the drawers and cupboards are EMPTY! The box in the middle of the room is stuff to give away. The pile of Nike boxes is to use to separate things so they don't rub together, then to recycle whatever is left over. (As the mother-in-law of a Nike employee, there will always be more Nike boxes.)

Here's something old that came out from hiding: We keep finding things, like this old photo of our two older children showing off their new Christmas gifts in 1974. Tim is playing with the cabin we made for him for his Big Josh doll. 

Karen is carrying her Baby Ann in the little baby carrier I made from the same fabric I used to make the one I used to carry her around in and later to carry her baby brother in.

Speaking of Baby Ann, you may remember her from the makeover I gave her last summer after I found her in a box.

At the time I looked for a photo of Karen carrying Baby Ann around right after she got her, but I couldn't find one then. So when you least expect....

Speaking of dolls, I didn't have much tine to knit this past week, but I'm working on another Russian dress, this time for Vroni. I wanted to test the pattern I wrote (and I've been finding lots of mistakes), as well as finding out if the skirt could be knit with dpns instead of circular needles. The best way to find out if something works is to try it. I'm hoping to be able to get the final 414 sts on 9 dpns, leaving one to knit with. That means 46 sts on each needle. This is what I have so far.

It looks like some kind of torture device, but Vroni doesn't complain.

Dolls are so much easier than children...or dogs. Our granddog Louis needed emergency surgery on Saturday for a blockage. It turned out to be the foot from his elephant (in one place) and a small dinosaur that belonged to one of the boys (in another).

He has a lot of medication to take and has to wear the dreaded "Cone of Shame" for 10-14 days. Otherwise, he seems to be doing OK.

The correct way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. There is no correct way to eat a dinosaur unless you are another dinosaur.

What's on my needles: Still the Coastal Skies, a little more progress made, and the third Russian Dress.

What's on my Featherweight: Put away in its case. I've decided to move it with the furniture. I gave away my zigzag sewing machine and plan to replace it when we get to Bend. The replacement will also be able to do straight sewing, so I won't really need my Featherweight until I get back to quilting, and I'll have access to everything by then.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, no progress made this week.

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is still in hibernation. I may set her up in the fiber studio after we clear out all the stuff, just to make the room look like a home.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Miser of Mayfair by M. C. Beaton. Her books are always fun. Now listening to The Young Clementina by D. E. Stevenson, one of my favorite authors.

What's in my wine glass: Another Charles Shaw “Two-buck Chuck” Shiraz. We're trying to use up our stash, as we will be moving what we have left. I guess we need to have a party. 

What's my tip of the week: Drop a tiny piece of egg shell in the egg? The best way to get it out is with a larger piece of the shell. 

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.