Keeping Entertained

Zachary's quilt is with the quilter. I dropped it off on Thursday.

I forgot to get a photo of the backing fabric, but I think this is it (website photo).

I have the binding sewn, pressed and ready to go.

To go with the quilt for Zachary's birthday, I have the Ruby Red Fashion Friends doll, Alex. I'm making him some clothes, including pajamas. I made him a sweater using my free pattern Pippa's Wonderland Turtle.

It's a quick and simple pattern. I used some Essential (Stroll) sock yarn from Knit Picks in "Flint Tweed." I've had it a long time, since before they changed the name. They still have Stroll yarn. It's basically the same, but they changed the name shortly after I bought what I used for the sweater.

Dolls don't like to have clothing pulled on over their heads, so it buttons down the back. This way, it can be used as a cardigan, too.

I finished Clue #1 in the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along and started Clue #2 on Wednesday, when it came out. I really like how the beads look.

Saturday I finished the second clue.

I can't work on the MKAL project until the next clue. This means I had nothing to knit, so I wound up the yarn for the Milk Thistle shawl on Saturday and CO on Sunday. The kit was a nice present for my birthday. The herringbone stitch is proving to be a challenge. I frogged and started over again more times than I can count. It has I-cord edges, so it will take a while for it to look right, I think, but I'm not planning to start over again...again!

The pups were still wearing their sweaters until the weather warmed up a bit. Here they are, working their shift at KP duty, where they are pre-rinse specialists.

Because it warmed up, I've taken the sweaters off. We have snow melting, a muddy backyard and wet streets, but it's noticeably warmer. To keep out of the mud, we have been walking around the block or along the streets instead of on the trails.

There's still ice in some places. When we find that, we step over into the street and walk around. I expect we'll get more snow. After all, it's still January.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

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

What's on my needles: Still the Happier Days Shawl, the Mystery KAL for the Rose City Yarn Crawl 2024. I'm waiting for Clue #3 on January 24th. The Milk Thistle, for which I have the kit, newly started.

What's on my loom: Still folded up

What's on my sewing machine: Ready to put on the binding when I get Zachary's quilt back. Need to start some pajamas for the doll Alex.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In A Visit to the Mesozoic, Billy gets some help from Mandy when studying for a test.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to Ginny by M. C. Beaton. Now listing to Another Time, Another Place , #12 in "The Chronicles of St. Mary's" by Jodi Taylor.

Also still reading Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens by Joanne K. Rowling (in German), the physical book, which I received for my birthday.

What's in my wine glass: Pleno Voo vino tinto 2021 from Portugal. It seems very nice, but I still don't have my sense of smell back, so I'm not sure I can really vouch for it (or any wine, for that matter).

What's my tip of the week: Just sewing a strip of cloth along one edge of a quilt top for a border until you run out quilt top may seem a way to save time, but you can end up with a quilt that looks like a potato chip. It's best to measure the length of the middle of the quilt. I sew the longer border on first, so I measure the length of the quilt top from top to bottom, then cut two border strips exactly that length. I pin and work in the ease as needed. Then I measure again for the width of the quilt, which is now larger by the width of the borders. I sew the top and bottom borders on the same way. I end up with a quilt top that is flat.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

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.

<a class="blsdk-follow" href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/highfiber-7365001" target="_blank" data-blsdk-type="button" data-blsdk-counter="false">Follow</a><script>(function(d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) return;js = d.createElement(s);js.id = id;js.src = "https://www.bloglovin.com/widget/js/loader.js?v=1";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, "script", "bloglovin-sdk"))</script>

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7365001/?claim=kkvctsdtf4n">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>   

Blocks, Boxes and Boxtrolls

There has been lots of progress since my last regular blog post. The latest quilt top finished:


The border gave me a little excitement. This is what I had planned:


It would have been fine, but after cutting out most of the pieces for the outer border, I discovered...oops!...the "2.88" on the remnant tag was the price, not the yardage. It was Monday, and Davidene's (our local quilt shop) was closed, so I made a quick trip to Elaine's Quilt Block in Salt Lake City, "quick" being relative. I came up with this.


Elaine's has a great selection, and their staff is so knowledgeable and helpful. This was one of the fabrics a staff member pulled out for me to try. I wanted a similar color to the first fabric, and a pattern that would disguise the seams required to make the notches.

I've decided to call the new quilt "Crystal Stars." (I was going to call it "Ocular Migraine," which DH thought was perfect, but I that was rather negative for such a pretty quilt.) Friday I picked up backing for it, this time at Davidene's.


The backing reminds me of toffee. The top is based on Connecting Threads "Sumptuous" quilt kit. The colors in the kit don't exactly go with my bedroom, and it wasn't available as a pattern, so I reverse-engineered it from photos. Most of the fabrics are from Connecting Threads, though, so I don't feel too guilty about copying. If I had it to do over, however, I would have made the double Flying Geese (the ones that point at each other) as quarter-square-triangle units. These are the units I used:

There were also some plain blocks.

The Habitat For Humanity quilt went off to the Overall Ball, held Saturday night:


The label on the back ended up looking nice:


I haven't heard what it went for, but the person who invited us to make it ended up with it. She said someone from out-of-town was bidding on it, and she couldn't have it leave Park City! They were going to have a professional photographer there to take photos. I'll post one if they share them with me..

In knitting news, I've made two squares for an afghan some of us are making for Susan's family:


Knitters/crocheters, there's still time to participate, if you want. My Mr. Foster is also coming along. I caught him monkeying around, even though his brain is still just a bag of fluff in my knitting bag. Not that all that fluff will make much difference.

I had a rough time with the mouth, but cherylbwaters on the Knitting Community had posted a link to a video by Cat Bordhi showing how to do a wrap-and-turn (W&T) that's less visible.

Tuesday I got to chauffeur Joanie around. She had a hair appointment and also wanted to visit a friend who was in the hospital (the one who usually drives her around). We stopped in at the Wool Cabin to make some small purchases.


I picked up some yarn to augment my leftovers that will be used to make a couple of bunnies from the patterns from Little Cotton Rabbits. You can see some of the FOs from their line of patterns on the left wall in the photo. There's an elephant, a fox and a bunny. (We also both fell in love with the Aran pullover on the wall!)

Vintage Stitchers met at my house last week. Barbara had this cute baby quilt:


Marilyn and Brenda had taken a class using their embroidery machines. They made tissue-box covers. The stitching reminded me of Sashiko. Here's Marilyn doing a Boxtroll imitation:


Common Threads met at my house the following week. (I'm trying to do my hosting duty before the snow falls and we can't park our cars on the road in our neighborhood.) Ginny showed off this skirt she made as a gift for a dance teacher.


Sunday we had the Blessing of the Animals in honor of the Feast Day of St. Francis. Rocky and Sunny bless us in so many ways, so they deserve a blessing. All the nonhuman participants this year were canines, so it was a Dog Day Afternoon for all of us.

We got to use our fireplace for the first time this season. Rocky says it's sweater time, and he's enjoying the sweater I made for him for last winter:


We went to see DS2's film "The Boxtrolls" the day it opened. I'm biased, of course, but I think it's the best movie Laika has produced so far. Great for kids and adults, with good messages throughout. Some critics have said it was too scary. For them, perhaps, but several friends of mine who took grandkids as young as five said the kids were excited, but not scared. Here's a photo of the crew. DS2 is on the far left in a lime green jacket.

We stayed for the credits, of course. It's blurry, but if you find the longest title (left side), DS2's name is to the right of that. His title is listed as "Senior Technical Director."

However, this is the best thing he has produced so far, IMHO. (Also our DDIL2, who, I assume, was taking the photo.)

(Our sons love their mother so much, one of them married a quilter and the other married a knitter. Like our daughter, also a knitter, they're so much fun to talk to and share ideas with. Lucky me!)


What's on my needles: Progress on my Mr. F.

What's on my Featherweight: The backing to the Crystal Stars quilt.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listened to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. (I kept seeing Bogie, Greenstreet and Lorre in their respective parts.) Just started listening to Julie Klassen's The Dancing Master. Still reading Joseph Lallo's The Book of Deacon from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: BackTube. I haven't had much time with it yet, but you can download videos (like quilting and knitting) from YouTube and play back over and over offline. There's some advertising, but otherwise it seems to do what it's supposed to do.

What's in my wine glass: Trader Joe's Petite Reserve Merlot 2011. I've rarely had a bad wine form TJ's, and this was as good as it gets.

What's my tip of the week: Nothing takes out a stain caused by red wine like a slosh of white wine. While we're on it, if you're quilting and prick your finger, you can get the dabs of blood out with your own spit. (Only if it's your blood, so I hear.)

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 were harmed during the production of this blog post.