Threads and notions

Friday night, Tom and I ran out to do some errands, including a trip to Jo-Ann’s so I could pick up a few things. I’d been creating a doll kilt pattern, and I realized if I planned to do many kilts, I’d need more snaps. I’m also using hooks, eyes, and loops, but I had plenty of those.

Later, as I sewed, I needed black thread and couldn’t find any. I couldn’t understand this; I have a lot of thread, and it should have included black. Today, I started a list of other stuff I might need from the craft store, but I again questioned how I couldn’t have black thread. I decided to check Lindsey’s Aunt Gwen’s sewing case, because I knew it had some thread–but no black. Then I decided to reorganize all my thread so I could add other missing colors to my shopping list. That’s when I realized that looking at my thread in the sewing/craft room illuminated by sunlight rather than ceiling fan lights changed everything. I ended up having six spools of black thread that I’d seen as dark green, navy blues, and dark grays last night. It still gave me the incentive to better organize my thread cases, this time, red to purple in the order of the rainbow, then the other colors like whites, tans and browns, pinks, grays, and BLACKS.

I moved the spools that have almost no thread on them to Aunt Gwen’s case so I can use them first when I need those colors.

I never get rid of wooden spools, and I took the one that had been gnawed on forty years ago by my dog Hamlet, wrote his name on it, and put it in the curio cabinet where mementos (and ashes) of our dogs are.

I’m glad I explored Aunt Gwen’s sewing supplies again. Remember how we went to Jo-Ann’s for snaps? These are the snaps I got there.

The card of nickel snaps was $6.99 and the card of black snaps was $3.99.

Then today, I found all these snaps from Aunt Gwen in her case. D’oh!

I don’t know what decade Aunt Gwen bought her snaps, but it must have been the years when people sewed because they had to and not because it’s a hobby. The nickel snaps were still more expensive–they were twenty cents a card!–but the black snaps were only ten cents a card. I guess I’ll be set for a while. From now on, when I go thrifting or antiquing, I’m looking for old snaps.

Aunt Gwen also had cards with hooks, eyes, and loops, so I’m definitely good on those.

And now: Ta da! Below is my first attempt at a kilt, with new fabric I got when Lynne was here; from today’s shopping, some new black suede strapping I wove into a belt, and I added a kilt accessory I found amid my jewelry making supplies, a crafting charm flower petal pendant, along with Mattel’s shirt, socks, and shoes.

If you’re curious, nope! He’s wearing nothing under that kilt. =) I don’t plan to make underwear for my kilt-wearing dolls, but I am going to use Mattel’s socks as a pattern to make more of those in different colors.

Fun times at Houndstooth Hall!

Button Sunday

Lynne arrived for a visit last Tuesday and stayed until today. I will miss her SO much. We had a lot of fun running errands and cooking and eating. One of our outings was to Jo-Ann’s for fabrics and things. While she did some hand sewing on a couple of quilts she’d brought with her, we talked and talked about the Neverending Saga, what’s left to tell of the stories, and whether I could get it all done in only two more novels, bringing the total number to eight. It remains to be seen, but we sure did laugh a lot–and maybe also teared up a time or two, because we do love these characters so much, and they go through some stuff before the series closes.

I’d mentioned a while back that I wanted to use a Vogue pattern to create about twenty shirts for my male Mattel dolls. (I shared a photo of the first one I sewed on September 23; the doll on the right in the photo below is wearing it.) I did another shirt while Lynne was here, and then between us, we cut out the patterns for eighteen more. She also gave me a ton of pointers and suggested some sewing products I could pick up to make my sewing a little easier.


I didn’t like the collar on that first shirt at all–too large. I tried making it smaller on the shirt on the left and thought it was much better. Lynne modified the pattern piece to make it easier for when we cut the fabric for the rest of the shirts. (I’m betting that first shirt will bother me so much that I’ll tear out the collar and replace it.) If you look closely, you may also see on the newer shirt the tiny blue buttons from the supply I ordered from an Etsy seller because I thought they’d be much better for doll clothes. They’re perfect!

Lynne also helped me go through all the Christmas bins that have been sitting in the office since May, when Lindsey and Tom purged and reorganized the Lean To (the storage space on our property). Since we don’t have a garage, in addition to storing stuff, it’s where all the yard equipment and supplies are, along with other random items helpful to homeowners. It also provides Tom workspace for fix-it projects. I’d wanted to reorganize and purge our Christmas decorations before we put the bins back in the Lean To.


As seen from outside, the Lean To is through those double doors and is about seven feet wide. I think I talked about the space but never showed the photo of it after they finished. Everything is so tidy and easy to find and manage, because Lindsey is an organizing wizard.


Looking in from the outside.


Some of the Christmas bins.


Writers’ stock of Timothy James Beck, Cochrane & Lambert, and Cochrane novels. Anyone need something to read?

Now all the Christmas stuff is back out there; Lynne took a few things she liked to add to her own holiday collection; I set aside some ornaments to donate to Goodwill; and my office space is back to normal.

Thank you Lynne and Minute for sharing a great mini-staycation with us! The Hall dogs have looked around for you both a few times today.

And now I sew. And write. A LOT of writing.

Wednesday’s tree was full of woe


I took this photo in July of 2022 to show the state of our grass after a summer drought. I’ve put a dotted line around the large tree that was about mid-point against the back fence so you can see how green and leafy it was last summer.


A second winter freeze and a second summer of drought left it looking like this.

And this, with a palm, also dead, in front of it.

Then the tree guys came, and the photos tell the story.

It always hurts to lose a tree (the dead palm is gone, too, but I’m not a big fan of palm trees as part of the Hall’s landscaping. We’ve actually had four removed, and another one died after one of our big freezes over the past few years). Several years ago, we let our next-door neighbor take down one of our trees because its roots were invading her water/sewage system. I remember that we did a major pruning of a tree at The Compound, and lost a tree there during a hurricane. But this Hall tree had been so healthy and weathered many storms, until two winter freezesĀ and two summer droughts were more than it could take.

Losing it was sad. And it took so many tree guys and chain saws to cut it all up so it could be moved to the street and hauled away.

I’ll miss having it as part of the view. The birds will miss it, including the crows who I regularly try to engage in conversation. The dogs will miss the camouflage it provided when they explored the back fence area on the hunt for possums, squirrels, maybe a raccoon, and even the occasional cat.

More to come on the state of Houndstooth Hall’s grounds.

Tiny Tuesday!

When I was staying with Pollock at Tim’s recently, I needed a clothespin and opened his junk utility drawer to look for one and found these. So cute!

He thinks they could have been made by a contemporary of his parents who he knew growing up. Very crafty! I just used the plain clothespin that I found to close a bag of chips, but I took a photo of these so I could share them here on some Tiny Tuesday. And now I have.

Back home

Life’s been a little nutty since the first week of the month. Tom traveled (so he could be with his family for special events!) and then upon his return, he worked from home and quarantined (for caution’s sake, as we know several people who tested positive for Covid, some after travel, some not), and I mattress surfed thanks to friends and family. Then Tuesday, after he got his second negative test, he got to go in to work, and I got to come home.


I may be a bit of an overpacker. That’s like a bin of groceries, a bin of cold foods, five or six bags, my purse, my pillows, and my laptop table, and it doesn’t show the oversized fan I took along for the night noise that helps me sleep.

It’s good to be home with husband and dogs again, and back in the sanctuary to work. Meanwhile, I’m feeling grateful the new Covid vaccinations are available. Half of the people at the Hall are vaccinated, and the other half have appointments to be. Flu shots, too. =) I don’t believe in the integrity of some state politics, but I still believe in science and medicine. And art of all kinds. And that there are vastly more good people than bad people. And good dogs. I definitely believe in good dogs.

A little mellow country for your Wednesday.

Tiny Tuesday!

Yesterday morning I stepped outside just after daybreak and looked toward the tall trees on the other side of our back fence. First, I noticed the dance of tiny hummingbirds in and out of the top branches. Then I saw one of my favorite sites: a tiny sliver of the moon. This one’s a waning crescent moon, which makes me think of fall (a welcome prospect).

I mentally began composing a poem to that moon, but when I came inside, there were dogs to feed, meds to be given and taken, and the busy-ness of the day at hand. By late afternoon today, hopefully I can remember my thoughts from yesterday morning and get that poem on paper. If not, maybe I have a moon collection of magnetic poetry to dip into.

ETA: Though I wished him a happy one in messages, today’s Jim’s birthday, and I will always happily celebrate him. I love you, Jim! ❤️

Mission: Accomplished

Examples of what I was working with.


Lots of rust stains and tears in the white fabric.

Smaller squares pulled apart and fraying, many with rips in the fabric.

First step was to sew down the 38 squares I’d cut to cover the white.

I counted around 50 small squares that needed tears mended and to be resewn together. I also sewed seams around the edges of the quilt to stop any more fraying on the border, and mended a lot of tears on the border and on the quilt back.

Finished repairs last night!

Ironed it this morning and put it back on the sofa. Hopefully, the dogs are old enough now that they’ll use it for sleeping and not in games of destruction. No one’s on the sofa now because they’re too keyed up after a couple of hours of plumbers in the backyard.

This chewed up spool that’s in one of my thread boxes is from my dog Hamlet, who was with me from 1978 to 1985. I won’t be the one who throws it away.

Tiny Tuesday!

I’ve been working on the dog quilt today while I listened to my Jimmy Buffett iTunes collection after a bit of errand running and bill paying. I think I began trying to repair/mend/enhance this quilt around August 18, and with luck, it’ll be finished Wednesday morning. It cracks me up that I’m doing this for a quilt the dogs use so they can get on the office sofa. As much time, energy, and even a little blood that I’ve put into it, you’d think it’s a family heirloom and not some cheap quilt I bought many years ago at Garden Ridge Pottery or a similar store.

While I was thinking about that this afternoon, I remembered a post that showed up in my feed on Instagram the other day.

Some of the answers were wonderful. “My grandfather was a carpenter. I have his hammer!” “I have an old prayer book in ancient Aramaic that belonged to my grandfather.” “I have the lantern used by my great GREAT grandmother when she was a slave. It is cherished by my family and protected.” “I have my grandmother’s bread board and sugar spoon I use daily.” At last look, there were 3,890 answers (I didn’t read them all!).

I do have photographs of all my grandparents, possibly some great-grandparents and other ancestors.

I remembered immediately some things I have from my paternal grandparents.


This bell and slate belonged to my father’s father. The ring, which isn’t gold, maybe another metal dipped in brass, was in a trunk that belonged to my father’s mother and held some of her things. That grandmother died when my father was around 19, so we never knew her. But when my grandfather died in the mid-1960s, the trunk was given to my sister. She still has it and some of the things that were in it. Maybe because I didn’t get a trunk, she let me take the ring.

My mother was the youngest of twelve children. Her mother died when my brother was two, and her father died when David was ten, Debby was seven, and I was two. We lived in Colorado then, and she couldn’t afford to go home to her father’s funeral (Debby remembers this broke Mother’s heart). Mother would have been twelfth in line and possibly not even present to get many mementos of things that had belonged to her parents. I think David and Debby may have some dishes, but I can’t be sure of that.

When I took pictures of the above items today, I racked my brain for anything I might have that had belonged to my maternal grandparents. I began writing this post thinking I had nothing. Maybe my mother nudged me, because I finally remembered that I do, in fact, have something that belonged to her mother.


This is my grandmother’s wooden butter mold. Butter molds were used to shape and mark churned butter before it hardened.


This is the stamp, probably hand-carved, that marked the butter. I know it was my grandmother’s, but it’s possible it was even my great-grandmother’s, as these molds began being used in the U.S. in the nineteenth century. I’m so glad I remembered it was in a glass-front cabinet in my dining room.

Do you have anything that belonged to your grandparents or great-grandparents?

By the way, all those items were photographed on that dog quilt. =)