Busy Book, c. 1980

 Back in 2012 when Anna was born (that makes me feel old btw), my sister and I made her a small busy book (you can read about it here).  It was inspired by one my mom made for us back in the 1980-82 era which I've always wanted to share, but never got around too.  While updating my filing system last weekend I realized I had a folder of photos in the not-yet-blogged-about folder and figured it was time to share.

My mom is the most awesome of crafty moms anywhere (my sister definitely follows in her footsteps), and the ABC busy book is exhibit A.  It was well-used for many years and remains one of my treasured possessions.  I've always meant to mend the bits that need repair after so many years of play, but haven't ever gotten around to it.

It's covered in this raggedy Anne vinyl that is super cute and has held up really well.  

A is for Airplane, with a fun propeller that spins around.

B is for Banana with velcro peel to open and close.

C is for circus with a tent that zips and unzips.

D is for dinosaur with spikes to lace.  I remember lacing them in all sorts of weird non-spike patterns.  And those strawberry shoelaces are very 1980s in the best way.

E is for earring and taking on and off that big jump ring was one of my favorite parts!

F is for flowers that grow and shrink

G is for game, sadly all the little pieces are lost (they're supposed to velcro to those spots on the left). 

H is for hands, sadly the hour hand has become detached, so I need to repair it too.

I is for igloo-all of those ice cubes snap on and off, very fun to put them in the wrong places.

J is for jack in the box,good practice with buttons to open and shut his lid.

K is for kite and bow tying

K is for laces (and the other strawberry shoelace

M is for mirror, more practice unbuttoning the eyes in the face to reveal a mirror!

N is for nose- I loved making all kinds of weird shapes with the chain nose.

O is for owl whose eyes open and close

P is for pelican (who has also lost a few parts)

Q is for queen- her crown velcros on and off and her scepter is made from a Sonic corn dog stick!

R is for rabbit who goes in and out of the hat

S is for spiders with pipe cleaner legs to shape as desired

T is for trees with acorns that unsnap and hid in the trunk pocket

U is for ukelele, love to strum the elastic

V is for valentine with weaving ribbons

W is for wings that flap up and down

X is for Xmas with ornaments to take on and off and put in the trunk!

Y is for yarn and braiding hair

Z is for zebra- I love the key on a chain to shut him in and the gate that opens and closes and the red and white striped zebra.

I'm so grateful to my mom for all her crafty arty goodness over the years!

 

I Like #179

 All day yesterday my brain was sure it was Thursday, and now that it is Thursday my brain completely forgot it was time for an I Like post.

I didn't get many pictures this week, we've been very busy at work the last few weeks and I've been getting home late and leaving early in the morning.  But I was home and got to sew this weekend so that was good.

The pups are doing good.  The footstool is no more so they've gone back to napping on the sofa.

I made a quick baby quilt for a work friend this weekend.  She's having a boy, and I realized how much I don't really have fabrics for a boy's baby quilt, but I pulled it together.  

The flowers are continuing, we had rain this week which was nice, but also bad thunderstorms which broke some of my dahlia stems. 

I blogged this week about a donation quilt I finished earlier in the spring and then forgot about, you can see more about it here:

I hope everyone is hanging in there and for people in fire areas that you are safe and the air quality isn't too terrible.

Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

Red White and Blue Quilt

 Some years ago I inherited a bunch of small squares, HSTs, and flying geese from someone (I can't even remember who).  They were clearly a started-then-abandoned project, but I don't think I had all of it.  I couldn't let the piecing be permanently abandoned, so back in April I pulled them out and decided to use them up in something.  I didn't really want to make any more blocks, it was definitely a design-with-what-you've got thing, but I did make a few more HSTs with some of the squares and added some of my own fabric for background.  

I've made red white and blue quilts before, including a very early (c. 2007) cheater lone star made out of HSTs (the mismatched stripes in the center drive me bananas) and a real lone star I made for Mike a few years later in 2011.

But I really much prefer bright clear colors for piecing, and all the fabrics in this set were sort of shabby chic style (by which I mean everything was faintly beige).  Lots of fun prints, just not my color style.  In the second picture below you can see two brighter blues on the bottom to HST stacks, that's only because I didn't have anything in that beigey RWB colorway and needed to add in a couple more HSTs. 

Here's what I put together,  it's kind of a weird shape, ~55"H and 38" W, but you could use it as a baby or lap quilt.  It's a little ruffly on the edges since I didn't block it, but quilting it was fun.

It's now folded up in my donation cupboard waiting to find the right place to donate it.  I'm glad to have gotten all those pieced blocks out of my stash!

I Like #178

 Welcome to another week of things to like.  

My dahlias are still blooming but many are now being afflicted by the same leaf mold fungus that has just killed almost all my zinnias.  I had problems with it last year too, and I need to figure out a solution because the plants all just look terrible.  This plant, so far has been spared,  This was an almost dead six-pack of something I rescued off the 1$ clearance rack about a month ago.  I wasn't sure how it would do in the middle of the summer, but it's flourished and now has fun yellow blooms!  I love how different the texture is from my other flowers.  I feel like every time I post that I don't know what something is, you guys come through for me, so if anyone knows what this is, feel free to let me know.

I'm a lefty, and I just had to sigh when I went to use a new-to-me microscope the other day (the scope is on an air table so it doesn't feel vibrations or bumps when you use it.  Even the microscope table is for right-handed people!

My work geranium is blooming again!  I rescued this when a former mentor moved away.  It doesn't bloom often, so I'm always glad when I see it flowering!

I finally found a use for my grandmother's cranberry depression glass compote!  I inherited a bunch of depression glass from her, and enjoy routinely using a lot of it, but I never had anything to do with this piece.  I  guess originally it was for serving fancy desserts, but I'm more of a cake and pie dessert person so this always sat moldering away.  I got it out this week though to store my clean masks!  I wear a clean one to work every day then wash at the end of the week and needed an official "place" to store the clean ones that was sufficiently prominent I wouldn't forget to grab one in the morning.

We have lots of big toads in the backyard, but this little guy was new!  I found him while cleaning up, he's only about an inch or so long and a completely different color from most of our toads.  Not sure if he's just a juvenile version of the regular ones or something different but it was fun to see him.

While outside on Saturday I saw this gorgeous (and gigantic) grasshopper.  That green and speckle pattern is just fantastic and he sat so still for me.  He was very big (much longer than the toad above actually).  So cool.

I got a watermelon from a roadside 4H fundraiser out in the country the other day.  I don't usually buy watermelons since I live alone, but I wanted to support the fundraiser, so I stopped.  Turned out to be delicious and orange!  I've never seen an orange watermelon before!  Really like cantaloupe in color.

The pups are loves as always.

I made a couple of ear-loop savers this week.  Most of my masks are the tie kind but I have a couple ear loop ones.  I know there are patterns out there, but I just sort of made one up.  I think they're actually a bit short, I may make a couple more that are longer.

While walking the dogs on a new path, I saw this amazing sunflower tree!  So huge! So pretty!

My mother of thousands is loving being outside.  She does ok inside through the winter but always comes outside in the spring feeling a little fragile and anemic but by this time in the summer she's just flourishing.  I always love when the babies start sprouting babies.

I'm not much of a selfie person, but after months of sweats/shorts and tshirts at home and only slightly more effort (jeans and tshirts) at work, I finally went through my closet, dug out my cute clothes, and started to make an effort for some cute outfits (including mask pairings). 

I also posted this week about my latest knitting project which I finished,  click over here to see more.

I hope everyone is hanging in there in the year that just keeps on (now with horrifying forest fires and a hurricane).  Click over to Lee Anna's for more things to help stay positive!

Magic Shell Shawl

 This weekend I got around to blocking my Magic Shell Shawl, and I'm so excited to be able to share it with you guys.  The pattern is by Lefted Knits and is available on Ravelry.  Overall it was an easy knit, the pattern was straightforward and didn't have too many complicated stitches.  A lot of design interest for fairly straightforward knitting.   

I did have some problems with chart VI, I never could make my number of stitches fit the pattern, so I wound up with double the number of triangles in that section and as a result double the number of final points and double the number of stitches. It took over 4 hours to bind off, but the end result was worth it.

I used two yarns, one was a  single ply hand-dyed rainbow lace-weight wool that I bought many years ago on a trip to Austria, and apart from using it in this quilt, I never knew what to do with it.  There was just enough to be the contrasting color in this project, so I was thrilled to use it.  There's only a tiny bit left that I'm sure I'll incoroporate into something someday. It was tricky to knit with, there were lots of breaks in the yarn and lots of thin places, but since it was a nice fuzzy wool it was fairly easy to splice together.  I just had to be super cognizant of my tension when working with that yarn.

 The main fuschia yarn is a beautiful bright but-not-neon pink, really thin lace-weight yarn I had on a giant cone.  It was part of the Georgia stash and it knit really well.  Not sure what the fiber content is but it was great to work with and I still have lots left.

Here are a few in-progress pics

This is what it looked like after the bind-off.  There were well over 1100 stitches (!!), but of course it was pretty rumpled and shrunken.

And here it is nicely blocked out.

It had a new-to-me crocheted bind-off that I really liked. It added a little interest to the edge and I found it very easy.

Blue of course wanted to help with the outside picture taking

I've been knitting quite a bit more than usual during the pandemic, largely because I'm home more and because I usually knit during zoom meetings provided I'm in an easy section of the pattern.  I've just cast on a new shawl with more Georgia yarn, but it remains to be seen whether it's something I can work on while zooming.  Lots of short rows which aren't hard but require counting....

I Like #177

 This week has been fine.  With everything going on in the world right now, I'll take fine as a win!

As always, there are things to be grateful for.

The dahlias are going well, and after a few really hot days, we're back to a really really unexpected cool streak.  Temps here have been in the high 80s/low 90s, about 10-15 degrees cooler than normal this week.  More importantly, it's been getting unexpectedly cool in the evenings/nights and last night it was cool enough to sit outside and stitch on my back porch.  Of course this comes at a time when many places far north of us are having massive heat waves, so the crazy just continues.

One less than exciting thing-  the pups have now completely completely destroyed the footstool.  Long time blog readers will know this is a recurrent problem,  This time it had been out for two weeks without being molested and then after two days of tearing up, it is completely destroyed.  This was after I came home late on  day one, day two was ten times worse.  I guess I really have to give up on both this footstool and the idea of having one in the living room.  Alas.

Other than unstuffing things, my pups are fine, but I didn't take any pics of them this week.  I did get this snap of Logan; he's a gorgeous service dog belonging to a student currently working in my lab.  He can't go in the lab when we have mice in there, so for those short periods he has to stay in my office.  He's wonderful.

I saw this sign on my colleague's lab door.  It made me laugh, so many things in science are like this, but we all keep trying!

I finished knitting my latest project this week.  I still need to block it but I'll do a full post on it after I do that.  It had a new-to-me crocheted bind off that I liked.

I have some knitting projects I'm thinking about starting, but in the meanwhile I'm working on embroidery and hand stitching during zoom meetings.  I've finished all the small embroideries for the summer reading and stitching club, and now I'm hand piecing them together using EPP.  I made that little bag for my camera a few years ago, but now that I never take my camera anywhere, it's the perfect size for a carry along project.

I was excited to send my Lord's Prayer quilt off to the Liturgical and Sacred Art show in Springfield IL.  This got rescheduled from the spring and I'm just so glad it wasn't cancelled (like so many other things have been).

I've been listening to more Dresden files books this week (by Jim Butcher).  I ran out of things that I was in the mood to read, and I knew there were several of those I hadn't read, so it was fun to get back to them this week.  They're a lot of fun, the main character is a wizard detective in modern Chicago.

I hope everyone is staying safe!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more stuff to like!