July Amigurumi Roundup

My favorite is the white rabbit ami. I found the 'I'm Late' clock charm at Hobby Lobby. Just perfect for the worrying rabbit.

Second favorite is Sans from Undertale. The jacket was a work in progress. Lol I just crocheted until I got something that resembled a jacket.

I used sparkly yarn for the sushi ami as I had run out of white and didn't have enough black. It's a snazzy piece of sushi :)

Off to the convention tomorrow! Can't wait to have a break from real work.

Until next time >___<

Afternoon in London and Flying Fairy Finishes ♡

Good evening once again! I have two finishes this weekend. I finished up Afternoon in London this afternoon. The only thing I didn't stitch was the grass border underneath the motifs on the top. I think the only change I would have made to the pattern would be to stitch the house in maybe a blue color of some sort because it seemed to be a lot of green in the pattern. I still like the pattern though :)

Pattern: Afternoon in London by Country Cottage Needleworks
Fabric: 32ct water lily linen by Wichelt
Threads: recommended DMC
Start/Finish: 5/14 & 21 & 31 and 7/7-8 & 16/2017

Pattern: Flying Fairy by Tamar Nahir-Yanai
Threads: recommended DMC
Stitches: backstitches, French knots, lazy daisies, and satin stitches
Start/Finish: 7/11-16/2017

For my birthday, my friend Kristina got me an Etsy gift card, which I really wanted in order to buy embroidery and/or cross stitch patterns with :)

One of the patterns I bought was Flying Fairy by Tamar Nahir-Yanai. The pattern only took two weeks to get to me from Israel. I had fun stitching on it; it's such an adorable motif.

My only complaint is how the fabric is cut. You can't completely stitch the motifs because you can't fit it in a bigger hoop. I would imagine you could stitch the motifs if you hand stitch them, but I'm not good with stitching without a hoop.

No worries though. I plan on pulling the rest of the fabric behind the hoop. As of now, it and Afternoon in London is in my box of 'unfinished' patterns. One day I plan on finishing them as framed pieces.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! I plan on crocheting one more amigurumi this week before the convention.

Until next time ^____^

Saturday Antiquing ~ Books

On Saturday morning, I went by the library and then thought I'd stop by the Book Nook. I came away with two antique books and a copy of volume one of Arabian Nights, which amazingly I have never read before (I know, boggles your mind, right?!)

The two antique books I found are from the turn of the 20th century. The first book is The Girl I Loved by James Whitcomb Riley, an Indiana poet. The book is illustrated with lithograph illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy. The book was published in 1910. The illustrations are done in red with decorative borders in gold.

You may remember that earlier this year I had bought a Baedeker's travel guide to Great Britain. At that time, they had a volume for Belgium and Holland, but I didn't buy it. Well, that book was still on the shelves when I was browsing. I felt sorry for it and decided to bring it home with me. (My sister shook her head when I told her why I bought it, but what can I say....it looked lonely!) The guide was published in 1905.

Hope you liked seeing my book finds :)

Until next time ^___^

Birthday Package from CA

Good evening, everyone! On Friday I received a belated birthday package from my friend Amanda. I actually like belated gifts; they make an original day a special one.

The package that Amanda sent was HUGE and heavy. I couldn't think what was inside it to make it so heavy. Upon opening it, I found out why it was so heavy. She had sent me a lovely sewing box decorated with kokeshi dolls that was stuffed with lots and lots of goodies. 

She sent me lots of candy, which my sister and I plan on bringing with us to the convention this month to snack on while at our artist alley table. She gave me two more Gail Carriger pins and a new brooch to add to my collection, a lovely butterfly. She also sent me some lip gloss, a bunny tape measure, a nail kit, and a set of plates and a bowl.

Amanda always sends the most beautiful handmade cards! This birthday she made a gorgeous card decorated with a bunny and a starry sky. Inside the card was a three-dimensional scene with another bunny sitting in the grass with a row of houses. I love that the bunny is gazing at the sky which shows the Gemini constellation. 

I absolutely love her cards. She puts her heart into her creations!

Thank you for the amazing birthday package!!!

Until next time ^___^

Yarn stash and Afternoon in London Stitching ♡

Good morning everyone! I hope you had a good weekend. On Friday night, I went through my stash of linen to see if I had fabric for the ice cream ladies and the Eiffel Quaker design and guess what?! I actually had fabric for both. Don't you love it when you have things in your stash to use and don't have to buy them?! 

I know I do.....especially since Hobby Lobby seems to be getting rid of a lot of their cross stitch fabrics, at least a good majority of the evenweave and linen. I'm hoping they don't try to make their own brand. I've noticed their brands of other items aren't as good as the name brand.

On Saturday, I was getting things organized for the convention later this month. One thing I didn't have were treat/gift bags to put my amis in when people buy them. So I ended up going by Michael's to see what they had.

You know me, I wandered over to the yarn section to admire their Caron cakes and 'lo and behold they had a new range of colors! They have cotton cakes and baby cakes.

(You can tell I don't get to Michael's that often, can't you?! Maybe this line has been out for a while and I just didn't know it....it's completely possible.)

So the cakes were new to me. I love the colors!

I was tempted by this color, ballerina, and ended up buying one of the cakes. My aunt asked what I was going to do with it.......I have no idea. It was an impulse buy, I blame the soft, pale colors of that yarn. I couldn't resist it.

In the end I didn't get any bags. I had texted my friend Amanda a picture of the Caron cakes and was telling her I was on the hunt for bags and she offered to go by Daiso and get a bunch of bags for me. Gotta love the fact that I have a friend in CA with a Daiso store nearby. Part of me wishes we had one here, but then again, I would be broke all the time by the awesome kawaii-ness that is their selection of goodies. LOL

I took an ever so slight break from crocheting on Friday and Saturday. I had finished making my sushi amigurumi on Thursday night, but didn't want to drag a bunch of felt, etc. to work the next day in order to finish it up. So I brought my Afternoon in London cross stitch instead.

When I started on Friday, I was missing a lamp post, two clouds, and a double decker bus.

And by Saturday night at 9pm, I was finished with the top half of the pattern. I apologize for the bad photo, but I was trying to photograph it without getting shadows in it.

I am using the DMC colors that the pattern suggests so the colors aren't strong, more of a muted soft palette, which I find to be quite lovely. I like that the double decker and the telephone booth aren't a glaring red as they are in real life.

The motifs were quite fun, though it makes me giggle when I see the guards on either side of the British Museum. There are no guards at the museum.....at least not dressed like the guards at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere. Who knows, maybe there are guards like that now. I know there weren't any when I was in London in 2007.

With the top half finished, I'll be able to start on the second half in August! I haven't decided on whether to make it my Frolicking Friday project or maybe one of the other patterns like ice cream ladies or CCN cakes.....hmmm....

Anywho, I hope you guys have a lovely week! Hopefully a nice, cool week with less heat and humidity. A Southerner can dream, right?!

Until next time ^____^

June Amigurumi Roundup

June Recap

Recap:

Read:
1. Blood Vow by J.R. Ward
2. Lucile by Owen Meredith
3. The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest
4. The Japanese House: Architecture and Interiors by Noboru Murato and Alexandra Black
5. Fiddlehead by Cherie Priest
6. The End of Magic by Amber Benson
7. Truth Dexter by Sidney McCall

Crafts:
1. Totoro steampunk amigurumi
2. Unicorn amigurumi
3. Mini potted amigurumi
4. Kappa amigurumi
5. Kokeshi amigurumi
6. Lucky kitty amigurumi
7. 2 onigiri amigurumi
8. 3 soot sprite amigurumi
9. 6 star amigurumi

Good afternoon everyone! I can't believe it's July already. Where has the month gone? In my case, it's gone to reading and a bunch of amigurumi crocheting.

As you may remember, I had bought two of Sidney McCall/Mary Fenollosa's books in May. I didn't want to take the chance that I would destroy the hard copy book I had bought and luckily I was able to find Truth Dexter on Amazon for the Kindle.

Surprisingly, it was a good book. It centers around a Southern girl named Truth Dexter and a Northern lawyer named Craighead Van der Weyde. The novel is what we would call a typical romance nowadays. I can see why the book was popular during the time period.

Hmmm....what else?....ah, yes, amigurumi crocheting. I think my favorite is the kappa amigurumi. I love fairy tales in general, but the Asian cultures have interesting tales that you don't find anywhere else. I decided I wanted to make a mythical creature amigurumi so I went with a kappa. Mine is a cute version of the creature :)

What else? ~ you already know my plans for after July, lots and lots of stitching. So what are my plans for July? I might finish a few more amigurumi, but I also need to get some boxes together to display my amigurumis at the con later this month. Last year I had gone to post office and got a bunch of those free priority boxes, cut them down, and wrapped them in paper. That way I could make 'shelving' for my amigurumis on my table.

I had gone by Hobby Lobby and Target this morning in the hopes that I would find some wrapping paper that wasn't smooth, but had a rougher texture so my amigurumis wouldn't slide off the paper like they did last year for the majority of the convention. No such luck.......I did however see that you could buy postal shipping paper which is a coarse paper. I wonder if I should get that and decorate the boxes with washi tape or something?!

Hmm....I'll have to consult my sister about it. She's the artsy creative type. I'm not good with art at all...that gene skipped me entirely. LOL

I hope everyone has a lovely 4th of July weekend. And to all my Canadian readers, I hope you have a fabulous Canada Day today :)

Until next time ^____^

Stitching plans :)

Good afternoon. It's been a quiet weekend here especially after our week of rain from the tropical storm that swept through the Gulf Coast. I think the majority of the coast had forgotten about tropical storms and hurricanes since we have been lucky enough to not have any major storms for the last couple of years.

I know I had forgotten how boring and mentally draining the rain can be, at least with tropical storms/depressions. For some reason, there is rarely any thunder or lightning with those systems.....I don't know why. It makes the storms a bit unnatural.....at least for those of us in the south because we are used to summer storms with thunder and lightning. To not experience it with tropical weather is bizarre.

It was raining just a tiny bit yesterday, but I still managed to get my errands done. I dropped off books at the library (in the book slot instead of waiting for them to open....which would mean checking out books instead of reading what I had at home O-o"), went by the post office to mail off a tiny envelope package to Amanda, and then headed off to Hobby Lobby.

After all these years of having a Hobby Lobby, it still cracks me up that they start putting their fall stuff up in June/July and by July/August, they have their Christmas things up as well. (I won't complain about the fall things because it's my favorite time of year and it makes me think of pleasant weather....even when it's 90+ outside and humid.

While browsing through their fall section, I noticed these adorable turkey buttons. I ended up taking a photo and sending it to my friend Kristina because their little picket signs are hilarious! I think it would be cute to make a cross stitch design with a few fall motifs with the lettering 'Presidential Turkey Pardon' and then put those buttons underneath the lettering.

Makes you wonder if Trump will do the turkey pardon this year. He doesn't seem to care for tradition in the White House so who knows if he'll do it or not?!

Since it's almost July, it got me thinking about my stitching plans for after the end of July when I'll be free of crocheting for the convention my sister and I are attending in New Orleans.

The first item on my agenda is finishing Afternoon in London by Country Cottage Needleworks. (I apologize for the horrible photos.....my cell camera doesn't like overhead lighting....and I've got shadows all over the place!)

I left off with the buildings finished in the pattern. I need to work on the double deckers and other motifs in the pattern and then move on to the lettering. I love working on that pattern....it's very soothing, but it makes me miss living in England.

Another pattern I would love to start and finish this year is the Cinderella Sampler by Willow Hill Samplings. I had bought this pattern on eBay earlier this year...............prior to stumbling across their Etsy shop. The owner of the company got rid of her website and as far as I know doesn't sell hard copy patterns in needlework shops anymore; and moved onto Etsy instead where she sells digital patterns and a few hard copies.

She has a few other fairy tale patterns which I will definitely buy....my second favorite is her Little Mermaid pattern. Loreta at All the Beautiful Things blog had stitched the mermaid pattern a few years ago and I fell in love with it.

This is another pattern I would love to continue to stitch. I have already finished the Neapolitan girl, the strawberry girl, and the green tea girl. I really want to finish stitching the last two girls in the series.

I love Soda Stitch designs. They are super cute, full of vibrant colors, and the backstitching involved adds a lovely dimension to each design as it's completed.

I am hoping I can find some cute frames for the designs. I would love to frame them in either an oval or circular Rococo/Baroque filigree sort of frame. I have seen a few such frames at Hobby Lobby, but they aren't big enough for the designs. I might have to search on the Internet until I can find something :)

The last pattern I'd like to continue stitching on is the Cottage Cakes by Country Cottage Needleworks. I have finished the blueberry cake and the cherry cake....I would love to finish the other cakes in the series :)

In other related stitching news, I've been watching a bunch of Flosstube videos.....mainly Floss Candy, msleftwich, CoffeeStitcher, and A Delcat Stitches. Since I'm trying to crochet amigurumis during my down time from work, I can't watch their videos all the time.....I mostly wait until after dinner before watching a few videos.

I love seeing what everyone is working on. A Delcat Stitches makes me want to buy more Soda Stitch patterns. She has some seriously cute designs that she has stitched.......but I gotta resist the temptation to go out and buy a bunch of patterns since I have some I'd like to finish first :)

In non-stitching news, work is just work.....I don't like my assistant. She's nice, but there's something about her that I don't like and I can't put my finger on why. We started our main project this week and on the second day she started mentioning interns. I tried to calm her down and tell her that we weren't even a week into our project and that if we were going to do it the way we were told to do it, it was going to take time. So we shall see what happens.

I need a break......so I'm actually happy for the end of July when my sister and I go to New Orleans even though it will be hectic like all conventions are, but at least it isn't real work......which has caused me to have a serious burnout....which isn't good because I need to stay in my field for another 8 years to pay off student loans.................the loan gods are cruel.

On that note, I hope everyone has a great week. Remember to Stay Calm and Carry On! (I'll try to keep that in mind as well!)

Until next time ^____^

Sonia Roetter ~ illustrator for Peter Pauper Press

Hi, everyone! I had bought this book a while ago on eBay. I had bought it primarily because one of the authors of the fairy tales was Lafcadio Hearn. Added bonus it was fairy tales and Japanese fairy tales at that.

When I received the book, I fell in love with the illustrations. I even brought the book to work with me so I could share it with a coworker. The illustrations reminded me of origami and I knew my coworker would like that as well since he is always folding an origami creation in his spare time.

Initially when I tried to find out about the illustrator, Sonia Roetter, I hit a dead end. The most I could find out was that she had worked on several books for Peter Pauper Press, the company who published the book I had bought. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had an entry for her Chinese Fairy Tales book in their catalog, but all they had under her name was 'American, 20th century'.

You know me, history nerd, lover of research, I had to find something out on her. One of the greatest resources you can use in my opinion is Ancestry. I know that sounds odd when you aren't working on genealogy, but trust me, it is a lifesaver when you are in the academic world, even when you are in the offshoots of that world like I am.

So off I went to see what I could find and here's what I found:

Sonia was born in Winnica, Russia (now Ukraine) on October 12, 1904. She and her family moved to the United States; they arrived in Baltimore, Maryland on December 20, 1913. 

At some point she had married a photographer named Frederick Roetter and lived in Chicago. She became an American citizen on December 29, 1941. She died at the age of 87 on September 15, 1992.

She was an illustrator who worked for Peter Pauper Press, a company founded in 1928 and which still exists today. She even entered exhibitions, such as the Chicago Artists Exhibition in 1957 and 1958. I would love to know what her actual style of art was. Did she use the same style she used for her illustrations? The same medium, silkscreen? Or was she a painter?

From what I could find, she had illustrated the following books for Peter Pauper Press:

1) Hickory, Dickory, Dock: And Other Poems of Childhood, 1950.

2) Mother Goose Book, 1946.

3) Japanese Fairy Tales, 1948.

4) Chinese Fairy Tales, 1946.

I hope some day to at least find a decent copy of the Chinese Fairy Tales book. From the images I have seen online of it, she illustrated the book in a similar style to that of the Japanese Fairy Tales book.

The Japanese Fairy Tales book contains 78 pages featuring twelve stories that are illustrated with silkscreen images using a repeated color scheme of pink, blue, and white. On each page of text, the midsection is illustrated with a long motif, such as a monkey, fish, willow branches, or a woman in a kimono.

On my searches, I noticed that Peter Pauper Press also published other fairy tale books using different illustrators....I think there was a Russian and even a Turkish fairy tale book.

I wonder if I could contact the company and see if they had records on the various fairy tale books that they published in the 1940s? Hmm........my bookworm brain never shuts down!! LOL

I hope you enjoyed learning about a forgotten artist. Who says you can't learn new things?

Until next time ^____^

National Best Friend Day Package ♡

Good afternoon! Two posts in one day? Why yes, yes indeed. It's been a crazy work week. We had meetings everyday with the longest being yesterday, which clocked in at 4 hours. With so many meetings, which took up my regular work day, I was feeling cranky, antsy, and drained.....even to the point that I was crying in one of the bathrooms! I was joking with my friend Amanda that the introvert in me wanted to go hide in one of the stairwells to avoid any meetings.

Needless to say, today couldn't come any faster for me. On Monday, I decided that I wanted today off. I didn't know that I would be facing a week's worth of meetings beforehand. It just happened that way.

So this morning, I slept in as long as my brain would allow, which wasn't too late.....around 7:30am or so. I got up, ate some oatmeal.....pumpkin spice by Quaker.....wasn't impressed with the supposed pumpkin spice 'flavor', put some laundry in, walked outside to see if we had gas for the lawn mower, came back inside for some sunscreen lotion, and mowed the lawn for about 2 hours. 

The weather was beautiful today. Warm with a cool breeze. An added motivation for mowing the lawn was that every time I passed the blueberry bushes, I could snag some berries ;) After mowing the lawn, I went back for seconds, but don't worry, I remembered to leave some for the birds. I would have picked some to freeze, but we didn't use last year's berries so it wasn't worth the extra time.

After laundry and lunch, I wrote my first post on Lucile, went out to check the mail, and found a package from my friend Amanda. She had texted me earlier that I had a small package coming :)

She sent me an assortment of goodies: a beautiful Korean bookmark featuring a woman wearing traditional costume, a Starbucks card (YES!!! Feeding my addiction to their midnight mint mocha frappuccino), a roll of adorable bunny washi tape, some colored UV resin (can't wait to try them!), and two pairs of bunny socks (can't have too many cute socks....even if you are the only person who sees them!).

She sent me a long letter in reply to one I had sent earlier in addition to an absolutely beautiful handmade card. She knows I've been going through a rough 'patch' so this card is a reminder that nothing is as tough as it may seem and that there are people who care even though you may have forgotten it along that rough patch of life.

In December I had bought a journal, one of those question/answer types. One of the questions was what would you do if you won the lottery. I know I would definitely help out my friends for sure.

I always thought it would be lovely to have a bakery and next door Amanda could have a specialty stationery shop where she could sell her creations :) And next door to that my friend Kristina could have a cross stitch shop! LOL That would be amazing!

Thank you darling for this lovely 'Best Friend Day' package! It brighten my day :)

Until next time ^____^