Craft night

I think it's interesting how just beginning something can start ideas flowing, and cause momentum to grow. It's true with writing, and most other creative endeavors. Since I've started sewing again I've been going into fabric and craft stores a lot to pick up thread and ribbons and other things, and also, since it's Christmastime, I go there for Christmas ideas and inspiration. I've also been looking at paper crafts. I probably love paper even more than I love fabric. I've never started the whole scrapbooking thing for a couple of reasons. Mostly because it's sort of twee, and also because I know I would never stick with it.

So I occasionally buy some beautiful paper, but I've only really used it as backgrounds when photographing my jewelry. Which is fine as far as it goes. But then a week or so ago I stopped in to Archiver's, which is a scrapbooking store, to look around, and fell in love with this line of paper products, particularly some snowman paper that I don't see on the site.

Also recently, I had run across this site, and loved the idea of making a Christmas mixed paper book. But again, I restrained myself because while I might actually make one, I doubt if I would really use it. But then I remembered that I had a blank book that I'd bought at the Border's closing sale (sadly, the Borders store where I go the most is closing, but "the most" is kind of an oxymoron anymore since I buy mostly digital). It's a Paperchase "multi" notebook with plain, lined and graph paper interspersed with pockets, sheet protectors and photo sleeves, and a zipper pocket at the back.

So last night I took the notebook, sheets of paper, stickers and stick-on tabs and made my own customized Christmas notebook. I used a glue roller that lays down strips of glue--much neater and gives a much more professional look than regular glue or glue sticks--and lined both sides of the first and last pages of the book with the paper. I also glued paper onto each of the divider pages, and with the scraps I made a bunch of tags and some bookmarks.

My plan is to record things like what gifts we gave, who we sent Christmas cards to, and special things we did like going down to the Plaza to see the lights. I'm going to glue in pieces of the fabric that I'm using, photographs of things I make, maybe an example of "to and from" tags; ooh---the recipe for sweet potato casserole that I made for Thanksgiving! That kind of thing. It's mostly for fun, but it's also a nice record of what happened, since my memory isn't all that reliable any more ...

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Thanksgiving Weekend

I had a nice, long Thanksgiving weekend. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house; my parents didn't want to go out, so my sister and I took dinner over to them after we ate, and chatted with them briefly before heading home. Bob worked on Thanksgiving day, so I took dinner home to him, too. He had to work the entire weekend, actually. While I was out on Friday, I went by Boston Market and picked up turkey dinner for him; we're planning on doing a turkey dinner ourselves sometime between now and Christmas.

I've been sewing! I think I mentioned that my mother had asked me to hem a couple of pairs of jeans for her, and in the process of getting out the sewing machine I got interested in sewing again. I've made a couple of trips to the fabric store, and I made another one on Friday, which ended up being something of a mistake. I got some nice material, and got a good price--I had a 30% off everything coupon--but had to wait around about an hour and a half to do it.

Jo-Ann is about the only fabric store left in town, which I don't totally understand. When you want to get fabric cut there, you have to take a number and wait until you're called. When I got there, they were cutting for number 11, and I pulled number 65. They move pretty quickly depending, of course, on how much each person needs to have cut, but judging by the traffic every time I've been there, I would have thought the town could support a few more fabric stores. Of course, I haven't really paid attention except for the last few weeks, so the holiday season is probably busier than normal.

I'm making most of my Christmas gifts this year, so I don't want to talk about what I'm making, but I'm kind of excited about it. I'm also thinking about quilting again. I've never--and probably will never--made a full size quilt, but I enjoy playing around with it and have made a few miniature quilts before. I always remember a dress I made when I was in high school. I cut out squares of fabric and sewed enough of them together to make a piece of fabric that I cut a "maxi dress" out of. It had an elastic neckline and elastic cap sleeves, and a ruffle on the bottom. It probably would have been a large enough piece of fabric to actually have made a bed-sized quilt. But the dress was more fun.

I'm trying to get over the fact that sewing is so messy. My dining room is even more of a disaster than usual with a cutting board, rotary cutting board, pressing board, piles of fabric, thread, pins, etc., everywhere. I went to Target yesterday and bought a clear plastic storage box that I've put most of my new fabric in, and I've tried to organize notions and things in baskets. It's still mostly a mess, but it's a little better. I went out to my folks' house a couple of weeks ago, and ended up coming home with a big banker's box full of fabric, mostly cottons. My mom has a ton -- probably literally -- of fabric in the basement. Lots of it is doubleknits, which I don't have any use for, but I was glad to get the cotton. I just need to go through it and figure out what I can actually use.

Dinah and I spent most of Friday on the couch watching old James Bond movies. The Syfy Channel had a James Bond Festival or something, and we watched "From Russia With Love" and "Diamonds are Forever." I say "we," but of course, it was really only me. Dinah kept me company. I covered myself up with a big fleece throw, and she burrowed underneath it. It reminded me of the time we spent on the couch while I was recoving from my gall bladder surgery in March. I roused myself in the afternoon to go out and make the aforementioned trip to Jo-Ann.

On Saturday I got my hair cut and colored, and I've been sewing pretty much all day today. I made quite a bit of progress. I'm happy with it. While I was out yesterday, I discovered that the Borders store where I usually go is closing. Everything in the store was 30% off or more, so I grabbed a few Moleskine notebooks, some Christmas cards, and a beautiful book of French General sewing patterns. Lots of wonderful inspiration.

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Cozy Christmas

Over the last week or so I've been downloading book samples to my Kindle and creating a "Christmas" ebook folder. Here's my Christmas reading list.

• Bah! Humbug - L. L. Bartlett ($.99 Kindle book)
• Blue Christmas - Peter Robinson ($1.99 Kindle book)
• Candy Cane Murder - Joanne Fluke
• The Con Artist of Catalina Island - Jennifer Colt
• Crewel Yule - Monica Ferris
• Fleece Navidad - Maggie Sefton
• Gingerbread Cookie Murder - Joanne Fluke
• Holiday Grind - Cleo Coyle (Coffee House Mystery)
• Holidays Can Be Murder - Connie Shelton
• A Merry Little Murder - Mary Welk
• Miracle and Other Christmas Stories - Connie Willis (Favorite Christmas book EVER!)
• Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime - Steve Hockensmith ($2.99 Kindle book)
• Overtime - Charles Stross (Free Kindle book)
• Plum Pudding Murder - Joanne Fluke
• Sugar and Spice - Joanne Fluke
• Sugar Cookie Murder - Joanne Fluke
• The Undead That Saved Christmas - Lyle Perez-Tinics
• Wolfsbane and Mistletoe - Charlaine Harris

Books that I have read that belong on the list, but that I don't own as ebooks:

• This Year it Will be Different - Maeve Binchy
• A Cold Christmas - Charlene Weir
• Shakespeare's Christmas - Charlaine Harris
• Ghost of a Chance - Yasmine Galenorn
• Hogfather - Terry Pratchett
• Last Night at the Lobster - Stewart O'Nan (one of my favorite books of all time)
• Midnight Clear - Kathy Hogan Trocheck
• Mistletoe Man - Susan Wittig Albert
• Murder is a Girl's Best Friend - Amanda Matetsky
• Murder With all the Trimmings - Elaine Viets (Mystery Shopper mystery)
• The Spy Who Came for Christmas - David Morrell
• The Stupidest Angel - Christopher Moore
• Visions of Sugar Plums - Janet Evanovich
• Blue Christmas - Mary Kay Andrews

There's a great list here of cozy mysteries set at Christmastime.

This weekend I read Blaize Clement's Raining Cat Sitters and Dogs, which isn't set at Christmas, but it it set in Sarasota, Florida, which I love almost as much.

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Everything's okay

When I was out at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago, my mother asked me if I would hem up a pair of jeans for her. She said there wasn't any hurry, and I said I would, of course, thinking I would do them by hand, since I hadn't had my sewing machine out in forever. But I realized that I couldn't do them entirely by hand, I'd need to turn up the edge and sew it by machine so they wouldn't ravel, and I'd been putting it off.

Today I finally dug out the machine and set it up. I probably hadn't had it out in, I don't know, ten years? Maybe. I used to have a sewing station set up where my desk is now, but I put it all away. When I got it out today, I also got out a big box of fabric, some of which I'd cut up into quilt squares, and some that I'd already started putting together, and which I'd forgotten about. I used to do a little quilting--mostly decorative stuff--but sewing is so messy, really. To do it right you have to have a big table to lay things out and cut, and the only big table I have is the dining room table, and while I can't say that it's always cleaned off--it definitely isn't--I don't feel like I can leave a big cutting board on it indefinitely.

Before we left on vacation I had gone to JoAnn to get a circular knitting needle, and while I was there I saw that they had a bunch of Christmas fabric on sale, so I bought some, not really knowing what I was going to do with them, but I loved them, so I bought them anyway. I was thinking maybe some kind of quilt, so I bought a half yard each of about 6 or 7 prints. I know there's no way that I'll be able to sustain my interest long enough to make a full size quilt, but a little one would be doable. Or maybe some ornaments or something. Anyway, since the sewing machine is out, I'd better do something.

I bought a pattern for a sewing machine cover, so I might make that, and I bought a pattern for something that might be good for Christmas gifts, if I will actually do it. I have a lot of ideas that don't actually make it to fruition, but I suppose that's better than not having any ideas at all . . .

When Bob came home tonight he asked me what I did today, and I said I went to the library and returned some books, and got out the sewing machine and cleaned off the desk so I could set it up, and went to the craft store. He said, "I like it when you go to the craft store," and when I askd him why, he said, "because that's who you are, and when you do craft stuff, I know everything's okay."

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Books and yarn

We went down to Bennett Spring State Park for four days last week. I was delighted to have my first opportunity to go out of town with my Kindle, and I had a brand-new book to read--Connie Willis' "All Clear." "All Clear" is actually the second half of a book that was started in "Blackout," which was published earlier this year. I read "Blackout" when I was recovering from gallbladder surgery in March. "All Clear" isn't actually a sequel, it's actually the second half of the book. "Blackout" just stops, and "All Clear" just starts. It's as if Ms. Willis delivered a huge pile of pages, and the publisher divided them into relatively equal stacks and made each stack it's own book. I suppose "All Clear" could be read without having read the first part, but I wouldn't recommend it. Before I started it, I decided to go back and buy "Blackout" (I had read it as a library book) so I could read the last chapter or so before I started the new one.

The two books are set in Willis' time travel universe, the same one as "To Say Nothing of the Dog," that is, it is set both in 2060, and in the 1940's, i.e., World War II.

In this newest installment, three Oxford historians have traveled back in time to observe certain events of World War II in Europe--one to the Blitz, one to research heroism, and one to witness the evacuation of children. Their visits to London were supposed to be short-lived, but something happens, and none of them are able to get back home. There are supposed to be "drops" that open, doors back to their starting places, but they can't find the drops, and when they do find them, they won't open. All three begin to wonder if they may have affected history by their actions, and whether by doing so, they've marooned themselves in history forever.

I love Willis' writing, and I loved these books. They focused mostly on good, compassionate people, people who were brave and noble, and who thought of other people before themselves. I don't, as a rule, read historical fiction, but these are the exception, I suppose because the main protagonists are actually modern day people trying to fit in in a historical setting.

"Doomsday Book" is also one of the time travel novels, but this time the destination is (accidentally) Europe during the Black Plague. I would never have thought I'd enjoy this novel, but it's one of my favorites.

The picture above is of my "spot" while I was sitting on the bank of the river while Bob fished. My bag contained the Kindle, my knitting (you can see the scarf I was working on peeking out of the bag), my iPhone, my camera, a notebook and pen, and a knitting magazine. Oh, and hand cream and sunglasses -- all of the small things that are vital to me and that make my life happy. If I can just have a few books and some yarn, my life is pretty much complete. Well, and Bob, of course. That goes without saying.

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