Tag: novels

Button Sunday


October 22 is National Nut Day, created to encourage healthier snack options.


My favorites are pecans, cashews, walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. Other than in peanut butter, I like peanuts best when I can eat them roasted from the shell. My college roommate used to bring back bags of peanuts after a weekend working in her parents’ grocery store and roast them for us as a snack to eat throughout the week. As a kid, I liked boiled peanuts (a snack discovered by a Yankee character traveling through the South in the Neverending Saga). I probably still would like them, but since I no longer drive rural Southern roads, I don’t get opportunities to buy them.

Showing support for the home team in tonight’s game by eating a few of these later.

What are your favorites?

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!

Pick One, No. 10

Question 1258: Violin or harp? (and why…)

I don’t know much about the harp. I’ve known two people in my life who played harp, and both of them were gifted. That being said, I’m picking violin. For one thing, I find its use in Western classical music beautiful, passionate, and haunting. But the violin is also used in country, jazz, blues, folk, Americana, and rock and roll, even if it’s called a “fiddle” in some of those genres. And a player can’t pick up a harp and dance around a stage but definitely can with a violin/fiddle.


Violin at approximately 1:4 scale.

Because of the violin’s versatility, I wrote a classical violinist turned blues fiddle player into the Neverending Saga. =)

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.

the attack on reading

Now that I’m back, I’d wanted to post something yesterday about banned books. Last week was Banned Books Week. Though none of my published books have been banned to my knowledge, I’m sure at least some of them would go on a list of challenged books if any of the groups determined to police and suppress books were aware of them. That’s because all of them, whether written as Timothy James Beck or Cochrane/Lambert novels with my writing partners, or my own two contemporary romances, present a diverse set of characters, among them gay, lesbian, and transgendered folk, as well as characters of different races as part of the stories.

I follow an account on Instagram created by a musician who features banned and challenged children’s books. He might show some of their pages (if picture books), read brief excerpts, and describe what the books are about. Consistently, teachers respond to share how some of those books have been the ones their students most enjoyed because they learned new things or saw themselves or their situations represented. Other commenters ask why these interesting, funny, informative, or historically accurate stories are being challenged, and the answer is invariably the same: They feature characters who are different from what’s regarded as “mainstream,” whether because they are Black, Indigenous, reflect a non-white or first generation home or situation (for example, parents or grandparents are Asian or Hispanic), or whose lives are perceived as somehow “less than,” perhaps because of a one-parent home, or two of the parents are same sex (which means not only, for example, a gay couple, but even a dad and a stepdad, or mom and a step-mom). They may also feature stories set in periods of history or accurately including events that make people uncomfortable (e.g., school desegregation, World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans).

Groups of people who intend to limit what other people can read have placed themselves on school boards and in community groups, and are determined to get these books off the shelves of schools and public libraries. I agree with those who say, “You have every right to decide what YOUR CHILD can read, but absolutely NO RIGHT to decide that for the rest of us, whether as readers or parents and grandparents of readers. These groups’ methods are fear-mongering and perpetuating outright falsehoods on social media and in town hall meetings about children being forced to read age-inappropriate books. Of course, they don’t simply target children’s books, they also go after young adult books and books read by adults from college level and well beyond.

The books on my shelves and in my eBook shelves are full of titles I’ve read throughout my life deemed inappropriate and even dangerous. I’m grateful every day for the teachers who introduced me to books, librarians who found books for me, booksellers who recommended books, a kind minister who encouraged me to read by buying me children’s classics, and for my parents whose shelves were full of all kinds of books and who, rather than censoring my reading, turned my choices into opportunities for us to talk about books.

Historically… well…

Runner up

I had a post planned for today, and when I ran errands, I was even in a location where I could have gotten what I needed to complete the post. AND I FORGOT. It’s because I was happy about something I unexpectedly found there and let myself get distracted.

However, I picked up some fabric, too, because even though the writing will now move forward on the Neverending Saga, I always want a “thinking” activity between bouts of writing. Sometimes it’s coloring or painting, sometimes it’s writing other things (songs or poetry), and sometimes, like with the quilt mending I completed earlier this month, it can be sewing.


I already had some prints I wanted to use to make shirts and other apparel for Mattel Ken etc. dolls that I thought could work for the decade I’ve been writing.

Since not all my characters are groovy or trendy, I also picked up some solid cottons today for other shirts. These will all need to be washed and ironed before I can use them.

I cut out the first shirt, determined to follow the instructions, because back when I was sewing a lot, shirts were often a challenge (shown here: the fabric I chose, shirt front panels and collar, shirt back with yoke, and sleeves with cuffs).


Isn’t it ironic? Ken looks like the iron is holding him up (in a criminal way). But really, the wee ironing board I borrowed from Tim is doing that (in a helping him stand way). The shirt back is done, the collar’s attached, and now I need to sew in the sleeves and add their cuffs, finish the front, hem everything, and sew on snaps and (decorative) buttons. Tomorrow’s soon enough for all that.


This doll really does represent one of the characters in the saga. Not one of my favorites, but an important part of the story nonetheless. Playing with dolls: fueling my imagination since I was nine years old.

ETA: Here’s the finished shirt.

Button Sunday


I’ve been thinking a lot about bridges lately because of something I wrote. Many titles containing bridges drifted through my musings…

Songs instantly familiar to me included “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “59th Street Bridge Song,” both by Simon and Garfunkel, “Love Can Build A Bridge,” The Judds, “Under The Bridge,” Red Hot Chili Peppers, “The Bridge,” Elton John, and “Seven Bridges Road,” The Eagles. I did a Google search, and found so many more! (And lots of songs that feature bridges, too, like “Ode to Billie Joe”.)

A few movie/book titles that I’ve seen or read also came to mind: The Bridge On the River Kwai, The Bridges of Madison County, Bridge to Terebithia, Waterloo Bridge, A Bridge Too Far.

Bridges can be treacherous, beautiful, meaningful, sad, hopeful. I guess it’s all in one’s perspective, so I found a few buttons online with varying takes on bridges. I eliminated any buttons about the game of Bridge, about which I have no concept because I’ve never played or watched anyone else play.

Now that I’ve brought up the subject, it’s a safe bet you’ll start seeing bridges or hearing about them, too. The bridges were always in front of you or inside your brain, of course. This post is just helping you remember or notice. Maybe bridges are like cows, and we see one every day…