I sadly finished The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield last night. Sadly, because I was so enjoying this book, and found myself completely sucked into the story and characters from the first chapter and I didn’t want it to end, but also sadly because the ending didn’t quite live up to the rest of the book.

The story begins in an antiquarian bookstore, where Margaret Lea works with her father. An amateur biographer, and confirmed bibliophile, she receives an odd letter requesting that she write the biography of Vida Winter, a world renowned novelist who has never told the true story of her life. Like many 19th century Gothic novels, much of the story takes place in rambling country manor houses, each with their fair share of ghosts, and if that fact doesn’t convince you of it’s Gothic status, the author repeatedly mentions Jane Eyre. I got the Gothic connection after the first eleven mentions of Charlotte Bronte’s heroine, thanks.  I did love the timeless feel of the novel, and was never sure exactly when it took place. The characters won me over quickly, and the interweaving of the past and present was so effectively done. My only problem with the story (other than the repeated mentions of Jane Eyre) was the last chapters, when everything is hurriedly and neatly resolved. It all came together too quickly, I thought, as if the author simply wanted to hurry up and finish the story.  I  also didn’t feel as if all the ghost stories were completely explained. 

If you like a good, Gothic mystery, I’d still recommend The Thirteenth Tale, it’s well-written and entertaining, and a good book for a rainy day, a cup of Mango Chamomile tea, and some oatmeal toffee cookies.

I’m going to call it 3.5 out of 5 stars, and I’m definitely looking forward to more from Ms. Setterfield. Other Gothic novels you might enjoy: anything by Wilkie Collins, such as The Woman in White, The Dead Secret or The Moonstone, Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca is also good. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I have a weakness for Victorian mysteries, I have to admit :o) 

I worked on some monsters yesterday. It was a good activity for the cold, blustery, rainy weather.


This one is on it’s way to Pengiun Publishing in Australia, where her pattern is going to be included in a book about softies. How cool is that? I’m pretty excited. I also recently got an e-mail asking me to apply to be in a new book from Lark Publishing about beads and quilts. I better get working on that this week! You know what is the best part about participating in these sorts of projects? Free books, of course! I’m really looking forward to seeing the Softies book.

I also have a blue monster and a green monster nearly complete, and I’ll be putting them in the shop, hopefully by the weekend.

Here you can see that the chickens are hoping the fuzzy pink thing is some new kind of food for them:


Poor chucks spent the day under the porch yesterday, it was raining so hard. I think we have a second layer now, though. I got two eggs yesterday, one was sort of pointy and blotchy, which makes me think someone laid their first egg! I just ordered 100 egg cartons, so they better all get to work soon.

Happy President’s Day! It’s a stock market holiday, which means I have
the day off. It’s pouring rain outside, so I’ll be inside working on
some fun things, one of which is my new Print Gocco.

I got myself a little treat with my bonus last month. While most of it went to exciting things like bill-paying and car-repairing, I found a print gocco on ebay for a really good price, and snatched it up before anyone else saw it. They’ve typically been going for well over $100, but I found a slightly used one for $55, and even with the shipping from Japan, it was still well under $100. I tried it out this weekend, and made myself some personalized note cards:


I love the way they came out, and it was so fun to do! To see how this clever little contraption works, here is a good explanation. It’s sort of a cross between screenprinting and stamping. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with it!




My next project here on the farm is going to be a couple of beehives, hence the vintage beehive clipart :o)

I have been on a self-imposed fabric diet for a very long time. I don’t think I’ve bought hardly any fabric in the past year, as a matter of fact. So when I got a little gift card to Joann’s for Valentine’s Day, I had to go spend it right away:

Actually, the fabric diet ended a couple weeks ago, when I went to the dentist, which happens to be next to a quilt shop. I was such a brave patient that I thought I deserved a little treat, so I got the tape measure fabric and the red floral underneath it in the top picture. It really helped with the pain in my jaw. Really, I recommend fabric buying for toothache pain. And then I also need to try out Superbuzzy, so see if they really were as great as everyone is saying. I ordered the green fabric with the words and the orange dot fabric, and I’ll have to agree that yes, Superbuzzy is all that. The rest is what a $40 gift card gets you at Joann’s when their quilting fabric goes on sale, 30% off. I had to get the chicken fabric after seeing it over at Alicia’s, and I love the apple and pear print, the colors are so pretty!

I love, love, love this quilt from the Tokyo Quilt Show, and I’d like to do something similar, so that’s what I was thinking while picking out a lot of the fabrics. I love how it’s a traditional pattern, but the colors and fabrics make it seem so modern and fresh.

I haven’t taken pictures of the chickens for a few weeks, so I attempted to get a few yesterday morning. They’re getting a little harder to photograph, because, like Pavlov’s dog, when they hear the screen door slam, they all come running, hoping that I’m bringing them a treat. So they get very very close to me, and it’s not so easy to get pictures that way. I managed a few decent shots, however:

They’re trying to get closer to me, hoping that the shiny silver thing in my hands is actually some food.

I don’t think there is much of anything cuter than a chicken butt:

A few more of the chickens have names now. The four Barred Rocks are named Ruby. I can’t tell them apart, other than the one is always the first to run to me when she sees me. When I don’t give her something to eat, she clucks indignantly and trys to stare me down.

This is Curly:

I can tell her from the other Buff Orpingtons, because her comb and wattle are much bigger and redder.

And of course, here is what Fuzzy Penelope Caramella looks like these days:

I have to try and get a shot of Bluebeard, so you’ll be able to tell where that name came from, and then there is the Free! Exotic chick, who is either Snow White or Snowball, I haven’t decided yet.

We’ve been getting one little egg just about every day. I found one of the Ruby’s in the nesting boxes twice, so I’m pretty sure one or two of them is the layer. They may be tiny eggs, but they are delicious! And, like Amy suggested in the comments, I blew out the first two eggs so the shells are still intact, and it turns out I had the perfect spot for them:

It’s hard to get a good picture in my dark living room, but you get the idea.

How about that, three years ago I started a blog. It’s been fun. I had big plans for a blog reader give-away, but that will have to wait for a few more days, as I am awaiting some supplies in the mail, so be sure to come back and see just what I’ve got up my little sleeve.

I don’t have any new and interesting pictures to share today, so maybe I’ll just post some of my old favorites:

Gigi’s sweet little paws.

The Free! Exotic Chick

A Room Makeover (only 5 more rooms to go)

Under the influence of Japanese craft books.

I love country Christmas’s

A favorite finished knitting project.

My Boys.

Scones and tea. I like to pretend I’m British.

An Etsy shop opened.

Some crazy fun socks.

I love flowers.

Thanks for visiting these last three years!

My love of making stuff, isn’t limited to fabric, paper, and yarn. I like going to the hardware store, and I even have my own cordless drill. So, since our 5 year old computer hasn’t been doing too well for the last few months, I figured it was time for a new one. With a lot of help from my genius brother, who picked out all the components on TigerDirect.com and then spent 90 minutes straight on the phone with me, downloaded the mainboard manual onto his own computer, and told me where to plug in all the tiny little cables, I built a fancy, schmancy new computer for about half the price a new one with all the same specs would have cost. Yes, my arm is very sore from patting myself on the back.

The husband then loaded all the memory-hogging, processor-using, super graphics-type games he could find on the thing, and it works great! It’s nice and fast, and while the insides may not be too pretty, all those cables and circuit boards are neatly housed in a slick, silver case. I don’t know if there are super geeks out there reading my blog, but this is what we’ve got: Intel Dual 2 Core 2.6 ghz processor, 2×1024 GB memory (RAM), a 320 GB hard drive and a GeForce 7300 graphics card with 512 MB memory. Also, the fan glows blue and the power box glows green, both of which serve no purpose other than looking very cool. And now, my brain is very tired from this exertion. I spent yesterday afternoon watching TV for many hours to recover.

Finally, the big day is here:

I was closing up the chicken coop last night, and looked over into the newly installed nesting boxes, and there was this tiny little egg, sitting all by itself in one. Isn’t it pretty? I was so excited I nearly cried. I wanted to hug all the chickens, or give the layer of the egg a high five, or something, but they were all on their roosts like nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.

I have a couple egg cartons saved, so I promptly put it in one and placed it ever so carefully in the refrigerator. I keep taking it out and looking at it. Since it’s the first egg, and I didn’t see who was in the nesting box, I have no idea who laid it. I loved the February 5th post on the hen blog (you have to scroll to it, there aren’t permalinks to the entries) about how different all the eggs look. Finally, the girls are earning their keep!

So, how should I cook it? Boiled? Scrambled? An omelet? Maybe a frittatta? I think I’m going to have to wait until there are a few more, it’s so tiny, it won’t make much of anything by itself.