building houses

House #1

I learned a lot about this project in my first week. For starters, the scrappy look is all well and good but I am more pleased with the result if a wee bit of care is taken making the selections.  I liked how, on day one, everything fabric-wise went together so easily. On day two, I grabbed scraps at random and went at it again, with less pleasing results.

Lessons learned:

House #2

1. Bold prints are best kept for the walls of the house and the sky, or the roof OR the sky, but not both roof AND sky.
2. If you decide that the door and the window should be made of the same fabric to indicate that the door is open, you can't also make the roof and the window the same without thereby indicating that the roof is open. (I'm telling myself that day one's house has a cathedral ceiling with another big window.)
3. The chimneys are sweet and little and must have some distinction from the rest or they are just blah.

I have also, in the wake of my scrap-happy-ness, laid a few ground rules.

House #3

1. On Sundays, when I make my block, the door and the fabric will be the same, indicating that the door is open. We almost always have friends over (or go over to their house) and it is a sweet memento for me.

2. Roofs (did you know that "rooves" is proper but "outdated"?) will be brown or red, unless there is snow on the ground in which case they may be white.
3. Care must be taken with white and it should probably be used only for snowy roofs or lit windows.
4. Skies should be blue, gray, or black if indicating night.

House #4

House 1: I was thrilled with how this house came out. I woke up thinking about the project and made myself do a few house chores before starting - great motivation for work! It was a Saturday, we stayed in and watched football (bad football day) and Julian did work.

House 2: Woke up at 7am thinking about my little house. I struggled with this one because the block is so small that I am tempted to make tiny seams or else there is a tremendous amount of fabric on the back, but then my seams come undone - I had to redo the front by the door. Made up rules listed above. Julian went to coaching clinic and I prepared for company. First apple pie of fall made today.

House #5

House 3: I confess. Our friends didn't come over on Sunday so, after I baked the pie, I made another little house while I listened to my audio book. No friends = closed door. The roof is very challenging and even when I know what the mistake is, I still make it. Twice... thrice. For the second day in a row, sundown has come too early for me to manage dinner and have a bike ride, so this house has a dark sky.

House 4: Monday's house. A great many things had to be done before I could sit down and make my daily house. It was shopping day. Julian spent the afternoon "at the office". It is better for him to work in his own separate space in the house lest I bug him constantly.

House 5: I pulled out a different bin of scraps and got a very different house. I suppose it will go quite nicely when there are 300 houses that are all different. I am struggling with letting it be scrappy and spending too much time trying to pick out coordinating fabrics. As much as I try, I cannot keep myself from tidying it all up in my brain. I am looking at sashing options and maybe the sashing will help bring it all together. This was also the first day I used a solid (roof) - jury's still out on that one. Morning rain kept me from

House #6

doing some gardening with EM (and the sun came out as soon as we cancelled) so we have a rainy sky in this block.

House 6: Today is a beautiful day. We've had a cool front these past few days - or maybe it's just fall coming on strong  - I don't quite trust that it is here to stay. Can you tell how much I love this little yellow floral print? I bought it recently, paired with completely different fabrics, but it is at home here with the oldies.  I have learned that if I don't try to short cut things, the roof minds its manners. Perfection still evades me but I have to keep telling myself the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Yarn Along - a big adventure

My new kitting project hit the road with us this week as we headed camping to Holly River State Park. I only had a little bit of time to work on it in the truck before the roads became too swirly for me to be able to keep it together.

We planned to tent camp but hunkered down in a cabin for the first night as the rain poured all through the evening and into the night. The cabin boasted a bent twig rocker that I swear was made to fit my aching back. Julian read and I knitted by the light of our fire. It was a lovely getaway.

I have decided that, for my next project, I'm going to do the Light and Up pattern but finish it with a picot edging like the Eiku (both found on Ravelry). I wasn't really sold on this yarn, but I added it to my stash when it was on clearance about a year ago. I must say that the longer I look at it and the more sunshine it gets, the more I fall in love with it.

The pattern uses sock weight yarn on a #8 needle, so I am struggling a bit with feeling like it is coming apart in my hands, since I am usually a tight knitter. It is so soft and smooth in my hand though, even just the little bit I've got going, and it is working up very quickly.

This week's outing has inspired me to check out A Walk in the Woods. We are in need of a new bedtime reading book and we've gotten into quite the habit of reading about food and thinking of how woefully hungry we are! So, perhaps we can change that this week.

Linking up with Ginny.

Monocle Man

Julian and I went to eat last night at our new favorite Mexican place, which we discovered after we kept getting stuck with one particularly unpleasant server at the old favorite Mexican place. We walked in and were seated immediately. We were put in a booth with this guy on the wall, and at the same time we both said, "Oh this is my favorite one!" The server grinned as he walked off to retrieve our chips. How can you not love him? He has a certain je ne sais quoi about him and we have named him 'Monocle Man'.

We talked about how it seems everyone has a food blog/cookbook; how I get my feathers ruffled by people who are self professed excellent bakers; the combination of basil and chocolate; other things.

We had our shopping night and I was on the prowl with ready money but nothing wanted buying, it seemed. I hate it when that happens.

On a better note, Sam's Club has some really good melons right now and thanks to learning how to choose them from the best of the best, it seems it may be possible to win Julian over to muskmelons in the end. Only time will tell...