New Toys

I went to the store for pencils last weekend and by the time I was done, I had all kinds of new toys.  I'm excited to be doing some new kinds of fun.

This is why  I needed pencils.  I recently bought myself some drawing notebooks and I didn't have any pencils except the ones you use to write up your grocery lists.  I decided to get two kinds of notebooks - the one on the right is for sketching.  Then I figured if I really liked what I drew, I could do the same thing on the multi-media notebook (with heavier paper) so I could paint / color / embellish it.

It took me a half hour to pick out these two pencils  This was my first time and I didn't know what I was doing.  Some pencils are encased in wood, some aren't (and they were naturally all broken), and some had metal sheaths.   I finally realized some pencils were graphite and some were charcoal, and that helped narrow the search.

Choosing an eraser and a pencil sharpener took another who-knows-how-long.

I like this pencil sharpener because it keeps all the shavings and graphite dust nice and tidy in a little container that you twist to open and close, until it's full enough to empty.

Then I found this book with different knitting patterns.  I'm not much of a knitter, but I kept seeing books on knitting things for your home.  That seemed much easier than knitting something for me.  Surely I can knit a flat little something and find a place for it.

Knitting on the Net is a website that has free instruction on nearly 200 knitting stitches (twice as many as this book has), but for me, the Knit Stitch Guide book is more convenient.  

I really don't have much yarn, so I picked up a few skeins.

The top row is Caron's Sheep(ish) by Vickie Howell, 70%acrylic and 30% wool.  Vickie was the host of Knitty Gritty, a knitting/crocheting show on HGTV and DIY Network.  She is the new host of Knitting Daily TV.

I was going to use Sheep(ish) with Patons' Melody (bottom left), but now I'm having second thoughts about combining yarns of different sizes.  But part of being a beginner is not knowing any better, so I just might go ahead.

I think I'll pair Bernat's cream boucle (bottom center) with Deborah Norville's pastel Serenity (bottom right.)  That's a different color palette for me.

The Painted Home is a decorating book, full of color.   I just started reading it yesterday, and it seems like all the photos in it are of her home.  Dena is a designer of fabric, bedding, home decor, gifts, greeting cards, and more.

If you like color in your home, check out the books by Susan Sargent.  All of them are available in your local library system.

I'm pretty sure my days of sewing clothes are behind me, but I'm still interested in looking at them.  The Vintage Pattern Selector combines a history of fashion from the 1920s - 1970s with current interpretations of those styles.

And this is for the times when I feel like sewing, but not making a quilt.  Stitched Whimsy is full of 3-D projects.  The first one I'm going to make is the house.