Today I bought Will a $0.25 bucket at a garage sale (he’d just been saying this morning that he needed a bigger bucket for sand castle building) and a $1.50 shovel on clearance at Target, and he has spent the last 3 hours in the sandbox. That works out to a babysitter at $0.58 an hour. Rockin’ deal. 😉
Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School
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Off Topic Rambling I’m not gonna lie–this post almost didn’t happen this week. In addition to shooting four weddings in 9 days (which is nothing compared to our previous wedding seasons, but when you’re out of ‘wedding shape’ it’s a shock to the system), our house was struck by lightning while I was at the final wedding! Nic and the kids were safely downstairs when it happened, thankfully not in the kids’ bathroom (where it actually blew out a small section of the beadboard, sending splinters everywhere) or Will’s room (where the controller box of an unplugged strand of Christmas lights actually exploded, sending bits of melted plastic and wiring all over his room, even melting bits to the walls). I also lost my desktop computer, and will spend most of Thursday and Friday getting a new one up and running. But I’m writing this Wednesday, when I’ve done all of my cleaning for the gathering I’m hosting tonight and have done all of the wedding photo sorting my brain can handle for the day. Supplies The other major bummer this week is that I’d been wanting to make Ellie’s book from the Children at Play fabric line, which I am totally obsessed with and stalking like a creeper (as I may have mentioned before a time or two), but it’s still not out so I’m going to move ahead with a different plan and save Children at Play for a few other zillion projects. I’ve pulled this rainbow of fabrics together:
I found this bamboo felt at Crafty Laine and knew it would be perfect for this project. It’s so pretty! (I might need to spice up my pink fabric selections to tie into the bright pink felt, though.)
In this planning stage I’ve been keeping an eye out for closures and little tidbits that I might need or want to incorporate into the book. I’ve been collecting them all in my Quiet Book Basket along with any patterns or fabric I plan on using.
Quiet Book Theme I’ve decided to go with an unthemed book, but in brainstorming quiet book ideas, and seeing so many great pages around, I’ve come up with a few ideas that I think would make very cute themed quiet books:
Page Plans I’ll be using the Piece & Quiet book pattern for the cover and overall book construction, which means my pages need to be 10.5″x12.5″. I’ve roughly sketched out my current plan for pages. Here they are!
Until Next Week This week I’m planning to start with the vegetable patch page. Do you have your plan in place? If you blog about your Quiet Book this week, please link it up below! We also have the flickr group if you post pictures on Flickr. 🙂
My Castle Peeps quilt top has been done for a few weeks and is patiently awaiting its backing. We will be headed to the renaissance fair soon so I need to get cracking on this one! (Or accept defeat. Either way.) These giant pluses have 7″ finished squares at the top and bottom and 7×21″ rectangles in the middle. Wow! This is beautiful. I am terrified of quilting, especially with weird shapes like this. You are definitely brave! Oh fun! Giant plusses are awesome! Ooh, I love this! What a great way to showcase such fun fabrics. I may have to copy it with my Castle Peeps or 1001 Peeps. I love this. I just made two quickie peeps quilts myself. All done on the machine. If you would like to see them, they are on my blog. grammieq.blogspot.com At bedtime I have been signing “love” to Ellie as I say “I love you.” She started signing it back to me a few weeks ago, which I was very excited about. This morning I could tell she was ready for her nap about an hour and a half ago, but she was playing nicely so I let her keep going. She was reading stories at my feet when she stood up, pacifier in hand, and signed “love.” “Nap time?” I asked. “Yeah.” she said. I picked up her and she snuggled into my arms as I carried her upstairs to her crib. While I am absolutely thrilled that she asked for a nap, I’m a little sad that to her the love sign means nap time, not love! This is what the internet does to you. You’re cruising along, minding your own business and then BAM! All of a sudden you have to make a project. First it was quiet books and now it’s a doll house. When I saw Sarah Jane’s blog post, I thought “darn it! I want one! It will be a perfect prop for little girls and will be so cute as studio decor!” and decided to add that to my Craigslist/garage sale treasure hunting list. Will and I are big into Friday morning garage sale treasure hunting this summer. He loves it as much as I do. He is on the hunt for a pogo stick, which I have promised him I’ll just go ahead and buy at Target when garage sale season is over if he hasn’t managed to find one. I am on the hunt for American Girl doll items, pyrex…and now, a doll house. We are pretty awesome at garage-sale-ing. We know all the tricks now. Like, if a garage sale says it opens at 8 and says “no early birds” they are fat dirty liars and the Restoration Hardware puppet show will be long gone if you show up precisely at 7:59. And that Ellie can go to precisely 4 garage sales before losing her cool. And that you shouldn’t even bother with a garage sale after 10:30–that’s for chumps. And, if you spy a vintage set of pyrex nesting bowls without a price tag and quiet the thumping of your heart and ask casually about the price of the generic ‘bowls’ the guy holding the cash box might just say $1. Not even $1 each–just $1 for the set. And then the hardest part of the transaction is just holding your victory dance in until you make it home. So I figured this little doll house hunt would be a fun addition to our summer treasure-ing. I didn’t realize, when I plugged “doll house” into Craigslist 30 seconds after reading Sarah Jane’s blog post, that I would find the doll house of my dreams TODAY at a ridiculously cheap just-get-this-out-of-my-garage price. It was meant to be!
What’s crazy is that now that it’s home, it’s too good to fix up. According to the former owner, the dollhouse was in his wife’s family and built in the 30s (just like my house!). It’s got some signs of wear (the stair railings missing are the worst of it), but the way the paint is worn on the exterior is too cool and crackled to paint over. (But then I start to freak out about lead paint and consider giving the thing a fresh coat.)
It’s the exact colors of our house, green roof and all!
Even the windows are constructed in the same way–right down to the fact that only some of them open! 😛
I feel like if I paint the exterior I’ll be guilty of the same sort of misguided destruction that my poor actual house has seen in its many many many years of ‘remodels.’ Luckily I feel okay with messing with the interior–the paint is a little sloppy and there’s not too many details to ruin.
I’m considering whether to leave the windows empty or fill them in–one window on the house gives a little clue to the fact that they were probably filled in with plexiglass at some point in their history.
So there it is, the fastest find in the history of my treasure hunting. Now to get some dolls for it before my next portrait shoot with a little girl! I can’t even tell you how jealous I am of this house!!! I’ve been on the search for a house too, for the girls “big” Christmas gift this year. My jealously completely blurred my thoughts. I was also going to tell you that if you’d like, I can keep an eye out for American Girl stuff for you in this area. The HQ is right down the road from here, so it seems AG stuff is EVERYWHERE!!! What are you looking for? sooo adorable! When I first saw it, I right away thought that it looks so much like your house! what a great find. It looks just like YOUR house! (Without the rochies.) So stinking cute!! Adorable, and what a great idea for your photo shoots. Thank god I have a daughter so that we can get ourselves a dollhouse too. dxx who made this house. who paid such attention to its every detail. who was the twinkle of their eye. this is lovely! Love it. I just got my doll house out of the attic at my parent’s house for my daughter and started to redecorate it for her. Yours is so cute! |
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Mary - I will not be participating in the make-along but I am very excited you’re doing this. I have a new nephew coming and it will be nice to have something to make for him when he becomes a toddler. There are only so many quilts you can push on other people before they start giving you the side eye, ya know?
Susanne - That’s so scary. I’m glad the every one was safe downstairs : D
I’m already behind on my quite book : (
randi - this book is going to be wonderful! can’t wait to see your progress.
glad to hear everyone is OK! lightning is a bit scary sometimes!
April - Just found your website over the weekend – what a great idea! I’ll be joining you, even if I’m a bit late. I’m going to make 2 quiet books for Christmas – one for my BIL’s kids and one for my sister’s kids. Is there a way to grab your button so I can put it on my blog?
Shelley - Thanks for the inspiration. I have also just collected fabric and cute things for my grandson’s quiet book. Now I have some more ideas about pages. I’m wondering how you plan to put the book together at the end. Do you use rings, or do you cut the pages twice as long, then sew it together in the middle? This is my current dilemma.