Gathering Dust

Bottom of the Bird Cage & Potato Chip Knitting

It's been so long since I've written a blog post, I'm afraid I might have forgotten how.  And why has it been so long?  Well, sometimes I just don't feel like I have anything new to say.  I've been blogging for over four years and I still do pretty much the same stuff:

*Accounting, three days a week- but I only blog about that in my ACCOUNTING BLOG...just kidding, I don't really have a blog about accounting, but when I get done writing this post, I'm going to Google "accounting blog" to see if someone has one.

*Estate sales and auctions- at least two or three days a week.  I still schlepp a good deal of stuff in and out of my house, but, by definition, the "once in lifetime" finds are fewer and fewer.

I did have a great estate sale find a few weeks ago- in a big old house, in the basement, back behind the furnace, sitting among stacks and stacks of Gourmet magazines and canning jars, I found a bird cage- and stuffed in the bottom of that bird cage was the holy grail of vintage floral corsages. I did a quick count of the flowers and stopped when I got to 30- it's amazing how many old flowers will fit in the bottom of a bird cage when they're really smucked down. 

I did some quick math and realized that even though I didn't care for the bird cage, the flowers alone were worth the price.  I toted the bird cage upstairs and on a lark asked if I could buy just the flowers.  The lady running the sale looked at me like "why in the world would someone want those old flowers?", and said "sure".  I can't tell you how little I paid, because you would think I was a thief.

But the most amazing thing about these corsages-the SIZE- they are HUGE- some of them are over a foot long when you include the stems...note how I slipped a ruler into the picture so you can see for yourself.  Also- the pink flower in the middle has PINK stems, too.

(Back to the list...)

*Crafts- I'm still making little fabric and paper collage things using vintage linens,laces and papers- but my most EXCITING craft project lately is that I found a pattern to knit a ruffled scarf.  I've wanted to knit ruffles for a few years but haven't been able to find a workable pattern. The one I found is fondly known as the "Potato Chip" scarf.

Some one asked me if that was because Ruffles are potato chips, but I think it's because you can't eat just one potato chip and you can't knit just one of these scarves.  I'm on my third scarf in a week.  I don't plan on wearing them all at the same time like my styrofoam friend, though.

Those knitting  needles are clicking at me to come back and start ruffling...

UFOs

In the current knitting vocabulary, UFO stands for "UnFinished Objects".  Yesterday on Facebook Lion Brands yarns posted "Click Like if you are working on 3 or more projects". 

Three or more projects?  I have more than three projects just in my living room by my "craft chair".  For me, knitting is more about the process than a finished product.  I knit to relax, and sometimes the most relaxing thing I can do is to experiment with new yarn, a new combination of yarns, or trying a new stitch pattern- most projects eventually get finished..or frogged.

(Frogged is another technical knitting term- it means unraveling what you've stitched, in other words "rip it, rip it" sounds like the "ribbet, ribbet"- the sound a frog makes.)

One easy and fun project I'm working on is a "stash buster"- I'm using all the little bits of leftover balls of pastel yarn to make an afghan.  I have another UFO stash buster afghan in darker colors, too- but it's in my UFO closet.

It's knit on the diagonal and  the same pattern you use to make a knitted cotton wash cloth- Cast on 3 stitches, knit 2, YO knit to the end of the row.  That YO (yarn over) makes the each row of the afghan one stitch longer than the row before and gives you the little tiny eyelet on the edge of the afghan. 

When you can't fit any more stitches on your needle, or it gets so heavy that you need help moving it- you decrease a stitch every row.

This is a cotton scarf with a pretty easy lacy pattern.  When I get tired of knitting on this....

...I move on to this scarf.  This is something I haven't knit before- an "inset panel".  The pattern is for the nine stitches in the middle.  I've "inset" them into a scarf, but the inset could be in a cardigan, vest, poncho, or afghan. 

The little knitted strawberries are stitch markers to let me know when to start and stop the pattern.  I'd really never used them until Karla gave me a bunch of cute ones for birthday and they help so much.

So that's THREE of the projects I have "on the needles".

By the way, 5918 people clicked "Like" on the Lion Brand post-  I guess I'm not alone.

Knitting From a Galloping Horse

 
 
I've mentioned before how much I love to knit- but it seems like all I knit successfully is scarves.

I've shared some of my knitting mishaps:

The Giraffe Size Cowl Scarf

 

The Purse That Felted Into a Flute Case

 

I've wanted to knit clothes- a sweater, a poncho, a wrap- but considering my high failure rate, I'm afraid!  An adult sweater can take 8-12 skeins and at $5-$8 (or more) a skein, that's a big investment, both in money and time. 

 
Then I saw a back to school picture of my great niece Grace, and though- ah ha!  It should be easy to make something for a four year old fashionista.

So I spent this weekend knitting this kimono wrap.

 
It knit up really fast and I really didn't have any problem following the pattern- even shaping the sleeves and adding the little eyelet around the neck. 

The back is a little bit longer than the front...and the side seams are...a little lumpy.  But I kept remembering what so many people told me after my last post about my "imperfect" stitching:

"Imperfections don't matter if you can't see them from a galloping horse". 

As far as I know, Grace doesn't spend a lot of time hanging out with cowboys, so someone might notice.  If the little problems bother Grace, I told her Mom to give the sweater back to me, and I'll take it apart and just reknit it into more scarves....

Party Crasher

 
Today is the third annual Where Bloggers Create party, and once again, I'm party crashing.  There are hundreds of bloggers attending the on-line party, but I'm kind of shy about big parties- and my craft room is...messy.

But I haven't posted in awhile, and I know there are at least three people that miss me if I don't post, so here's a "checking in post", and a peek at one little place that I do some crafting.

Although I have a whole bedroom that I can use as a craft room, I looked around my house and realized that I do a lot of my creating in "my chair" in the living room. Just like how Archie and Edith had there own chairs, hubby and I have always had reserved seating- we always sit in the same place- me in "my chair" and he's on the couch.

 My knitting basket is on one side of my chair, and on the table next to my chair is a pin cushion and a little basket of trims.

The embroidery on the chair is a dresser scarf that had some holes, so I've done a little patching and stitching and I'm going to turn it into a tote bag.

 
This is a wrap I'm knitting out of a soft fuzzy yarn and a very thin yarn with little bits of sparkly ribbon every few inches.

 
I sew all my ditty bags in this chair- I have some new ones in the works that I've added images printed on fabric.

 
This little guy is sitting on a heart shaped candy box.

 
Sometimes, I do some cutting and pasting in "my chair"- I have a little lap tray that I use as a desk.

But no matter what I'm working on you can count on finding evidence of it - in the form of slivers of paper, snippets of thread or bits of yarn scattered on the floor around my chair- all signs of some pleasant time spent in "my chair".

I'm Knitting and I Can't Stop

 
Ever since I found a pattern for knitted gift bags in Last Minute Knitted Gifts I've been obsessed with making bags.  I've knit them in cotton, wool, boucle, and chennille, but I think my favorite are these satiny pastels that I've added a knitted flower to. 

I can knit one in an evening, and once you get past making the eyelet for the drawstring, you just knit- no counting or looking at a pattern.  Knitting for dummies.

 
The pastels remind me of an Easter basket or May Day basket for grown-ups.  I have them for sale in my Etsy Shop- SugarPinkMoon.

 
I did stop knitting long enough to finish a collage book- no theme this time, just images, colors and fonts I liked.

 
Fashion, Bingo Cards, Birds- the usual subjects.

 
On the right side- florals printed on dictionary pages- a trick I learned from Mary.  Yep, that looks like phlox right on top of Benjamin Franklin.

 
 
Available in my other Etsy shop- Gathering Dust.

 
If you'd like some good collage backgrounds, I found several penmanship books at an estate sale and have them listed here.

 
This picture doesn't have anything to do with anything else, I just though it was SO CUTE and it made me smile- it's my great niece Grace at Princess party for four year olds. Grace is the pink princess in the middle.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice....or Anything Interesting...

 
My husband talked to his mom this morning and she said "Tell Beth she needs to post on her blog".   It has been over a week since I posted.   I guess I just haven't had much to say.  Usually I don't have any trouble finding something to write about or show.  I'll make something, buy something or see something and think- THAT would be a good blog post.

 
The past week has been spent finishing up on last minute presents- like these cotton dish clothes that I knit.  I love the feel of a good cotton yarn.  I think that half of the fun of knitting is seeing a pattern develop and the other half is enjoying the texture of the yarn.  I've tried knitting with all sorts of weird things- strips of cloth, string, pieces of plastic bags- but if they don't feel good on the needles, a good part of the pleasure of knitting is missing for me.

 
I finished up a little pillow made from an image printed on fabric, an old damask napkin and some embroidery.

 
Do you ever start picking up around the house and instead of getting organized, you find yourself playing with things instead...rearranging and fluffing and leaning and draping?  That's what happened last week with my knitting needles.  I put all the old wooden knitting needles in this violin...thing.  I don't know what to call it- it's a violin that's fallen apart and I only have the bottom.  I originally was going to use the violin "shell" as a wall pocket, but ended up propping it in with this pitcher and bowl.  It looked a little bit monotone- and then the mail came with a package from Claudia with this patchwork heart- and it was just the pop of color the violin needed.

 
Then I started sorting the rest of my knitting needles- aren't they purty?

On second thought, maybe if you don't have anything to blog about besides your knitting needles, you shouldn't blog at all.

Thanks for all the positive feedback about the Cuttlebug ornament box tags.  The same day I posted about them, Mitzi had a similiar post about making tags from boxes- she had originally posted  it a year ago, and I'm sure that's where I got the idea.  I emailed Mitzi to tell her that I didn't intentionally copy her without giving her credit.  I had made the same tags last year, but didn't remember where the idea came from.

Mitzi's reply to my email expressed just how I feel about our blogging world:

I think all these ideas get swished around, and often I wonder if I am the creator or if I'm copying something I saw elsewhere.  The whole point of sharing is to inspire someone else to try something similar, so I'm good with that.

Mitzi always has interesting posts about crafts, collectible and combining the two- if you don't already read her blog, check it out.

On a completely different subject, one of many things that's fun about having a little dog is that he can wear clothes- he won't wear a hat- I had to add that digitally- but Button does look ready for a walk in the snow.  Button and I both wish you a "Merry Christmas".

 

Pre Dreaming of a White Christmas

 

By popular request (oh, I've always wanted to say that...), Karla and I are putting together another on-line crafting and decorating workshop zine- the theme will be something romantic, and something holiday and probably a lot of shades of white.

 
 
I've been digging through vintage postcards and made a preliminary trip to Michael's for some supplies.  Even though today is a beautiful fall day, pulling together some pretty sparkly holiday goodies has put me in the mood for some Christmas crafting.  More details soon...

 
In other crafting news- I have a FINISHED knitting project- a self patterning baby afghan for Karla's soon to be here grandbaby.  I tell ya, that self patterning yarn is  a no-brainer; you knit, and the design magically appears.

 

 

This Is Making Me Very Happy....

 
For some reason, this silly little pin cushion has made me very happy.  I bought it at an estate sale last week-   it was plain felt and bright  Christmas red.  I soaked it in bleach water until it faded and got kind of fuzzy, and then sewed on the lace, buckle & tape measure.

I realize I spent a lot of time on a quarter pin cushion, but I had fun "altering" it, and it's big enough that so far, I've been able to keep track of it and have always had a needle handy when I needed it.

 
On the other hand, this has made me sad.  It's the cowl neck hood with the ruffled edge that I thought was going to be so pretty, and keep my neck warm this winter.

 
It's been on the top of my knitting basket every since August, and I've finally come to realize that I have to "frog it".   In other words, "rip it, rip it".  I've started to pull it apart, and the yarn will live to see another project- hopefully one more successful than a turtleneck for a giraffe.

Even my dogs rejected it as a sleeping bag.

 
But after all, why would Button want to sleep on an itchy sweater when his big sister is always willing to snuggle with him?

...and the sight of them together brings me back to something that makes me happy.

Zoned Out in the Crafting Zone

 
I have a {small} stash of yarn- really, it is small compared to a lot of knitters- but it would seem huge to a non-knitter- and I could very well knit for the rest of my life without ever buying more yarn.  I've been taking some of my yarn, winding it into balls and gathering it by color in wooden bowl and baskets.  I've got the baskets and bowls on several tables throughout the house.

This bowl of blue and purple yarn sits right next to my chair in the living room, as does the book "Knitting Patterns for Dummies".

When I saw this picture and that bowl of yarn, I had to start knitting, right away.  This was the weekend with the heat index of 115 but that didn't detour me.  I loved that ruffle, and I loved plucking balls of yarn randomly from the bowl, combining them in different ways to see what kind of pattern developed.  

I was in the legendary knitting crafting zone....

I finished it and was so excited- the ruffles were in the very last rows and I was thrilled at the way they folded and rolled when I pulled the cowl off the needles.

I pulled it over my head, anxious to see it drap around my neck, imaging it peeking out of my white wool coat.

But wait-  why is it all bunched up?  Why doesn't it fit?  I followed the directions exactly.

Oh...it's because it was made for someone with a 15" long neck.  

Maybe if I pull it up over my head it will keep my ears warm.

Uh, no...this isn't going to work for anything except possibly robbing a bank- and even then it wouldn't be a good idea-it's too memorable- witnesses would tell the police "the robber was wearing a lovely blue ombre cowl that didn't fit well"  

What can I say, I was in that crafting zone, so caught up in the process that I was really blind to the outcome.

That's me pretending my camera is a gun.

Just an observation:  It's hard to take a picture of yourself with neat hair while wearing a cowl-but it's easy to take a picture of yourself with your hair all mussed up.

So, what happens to a cowl you can't wear?

 
It makes a dandy little sleeping bag for a dog....

Or even two little dogs....that's Rosie, Karla's puppy and Button's sister.  Rosie is staying with her brother while Karla is out of town.

I don't want to leave out my other boy- Buddy.  Here he is doing what he does all day- sitting perfectly still in the yard waiting for a rabbit or squirrel. 

I can look out the window at 9 and see him like this in one place, and then look again at 930, and he's sitting exactly the same way- he's just changed where he's sitting.  
  

The same weekend that I went on my knitting binge, I made my projects for Karla and my on-line class Romantic Gothic Ghosts.  Luckily, I'm a lot happier with those projects that my doggy sleepy bag.  The actual classes don't start until Monday, but the blog is open and full of images and videos for you to check out now.  We'd love to have you join us.

How Dare You Call That Redecorating? (and a contest)

Ok, I admit, when it comes to redecorating, rearranging a shelf of books is a pretty bold move for me.  When you start talking about painting and moving furniture, I'll be looking for a medal at the end of the project.

So, you may not think my mermaid redo of my bathroom qualifies as redecorating- but I'll still show you what I did.

This is the before- a shelf with hands holding crowns, some plastic shoes that used to be pin cushions and some framed magazine pages. (I added the mermaid to see if she would feel at home...)

Now- a collage on burlap, my sea pixie, a pail full of shells, my sea siren pillow and a framed picture of mermaids- all courtsey of my Les Sirenes weekend.

 
This is the wall over the commode. The only reason I bought this oval portrait was that someone told me it looks like my husband.  Looking at it here, I'm not sure that was a good enough reason.

The portrait was replaced with these mermaid prints by Danita.

I've had this sign in my bathroom for a while, too- I think its funny because my bathroom is so small.

I added this Atlantic City beauty pagent picture above it.

A piece of burlap, a shell "B", postcards and my keepsake project book are on back of the toliet.

While I had the hammer and nails out, I hung this antique picture of cupid in my guest room.  To the left is the beautiful collage that Lisa made for me, and the wallpaper collage that Karla made.

I probably don't deserve a medal for my redecorating hanging pictures, but I would like a gold star.

 
Estate sales this morning only get one gold star, too.  Part of the problem was the heat- I just got tired of getting in and out of the nice air conditioned car and facing the heat and humidity.

The butter pats are Meakin ironstone; the silver is quad plate- I love the etching; the books are a history of Opera and a history of composers- I bought them because they go with the red and blue cowboy boots I got a few weeks back; the bottle with a stopper came from a priest's estate and still had some liquid in it- I spilled it on some other books I bought- it was probably holy water, but not very lucky water.

This was probably my best buy- a boxful of yarn shop yarn for only $6- some yarns still had the labels, and most of them would have been at least $6 for a single skein...and knitting a nice warm cuddly scarf is good way to pass a 90+ degree July day.

THIS is a "what's it" I got this morning.  Can anyone guess what it is?  It's monogramed,  made of sterling silver and about 1 1/2" tall.

*****WE HAVE A WINNER!!!  Sandy correctly guessed that it is a PHONE DIALER for the old rotary phones.  It saved a lady's manicured nails*****

Leave your guess in the comments, and the first person to identify this not so common object will win this pretty blue rhinestone flower pin. 
  
Thanks for playing!