A New Stash

I've discovered a new little passion - pre-1980s craft books! One of my favorite places to find them is a shop called Book ReViews in the city where I work. It's a used bookstore whose proceeds all go to local charities. They've got a nice little section of craft related books that I stop in to browse now and then. I mostly look for sewing and crochet books, but now and then something a little funkier might catch my eye!

My most recent trip turned up the three books you see above. The first two were published in 1980 and 1978, respectively, and are full of sewing projects. I love these types of books because although the projects seem kitschy at first glance, some modern fabric and few little tweaks bring them right up to date. Besides, retro is in, right? The third book was published in 1972. It's full of art projects for kids. I love the layout of this book. It's spiral bound and each page is a card with a different project on it. I figure they will make good rainy day projects someday!

I think the main reason I love these books so much is because they remind me of my childhood. My mom had a collection of craft books that I would pore over as a girl. I found so many projects I wanted to create, but of course, didn't have the supplies or skills necessary. As an adult, I can come up with the materials for those projects and give them a try! (It's one of my favorite parts of being a grown-up!)

Now that I have this new little hobby, I can hardly wait for garage sale and auction season to come. I've got new prey!

Something for me!

scarf 005, originally uploaded by BeckyKay Designs.

My crochet skills are definitely improving and that makes me very happy! I am currently working on this scarf for myself. I love the yarn; I love the pattern; I love the way it's turning out!

It's a fairly dense stitch so it's making a nice thick scarf that I think is going to be snuggly warm to wear. I bought the yarn on clearance at Hobby Lobby months ago and decided to break it out for this project. Love the way it is making its own stripes!

Here's the pattern if you want to make one of your own!

Back in the game

I took the last year off from crafting for profit. Sally was born last September, sales were down, and I was TIRED! Then my sister who is my craft show partner announced that she is having a baby in November. So, it made sense for us to sit out this fall's craft show season.

But, after attending a handful of craft shows this fall, I am starting to feel the bug again! And I've started creating. My latest is the Book Corset that you see above. It's a fabric book cover that can be adjusted to fit books of various thicknesses. I've always been hesitant to buy book covers, because I didn't understand how they could possibly fit a number of different books. After some measuring, I discovered that most trade paper books have a pretty standard size for height and width. It's the thickness that varies.

It was actually my very smart husband who suggested using lacing to tighten and loosen the spine of the cover. We worked together on the prototype which had to be stitched and ripped and re-stitched several times, but finally got it right! I'm very excited about this, and plan to also make corsets for mass market paperbacks.

So, come visit my shop! I'm starting to fill it back up with goodness!

The Famous Schmidt Cookbook

My dad comes from a family of nine kids. I have lots and lots of aunts, uncles and cousins! I have first cousins who are closer in age to my parents than to me. I have first cousins once removed that are closer to my age than my kids' age. (And, yes, I'm using that first cousin once removed thing correctly. I looked it up.)

Back in 1986, my aunt collected recipes from all our family members and combined them all into a cookbook. The original Schmidt Cookbook is full of all our favorites. There are little remembrances and quotes interspersed amongst the recipes, and handrawn artwork on the section dividers. This book was so popular, that even people who aren't Schmidts have copies of it.

However, after 20 plus years of constant use, those yellow cookbooks were starting to look a little ratty, and an original family of nine kids can do a heck of a lot of multiplying over 20 years! There began to be dreams of a new cookbook.

Putting together a cookbook is a big task! Or at least it was back in 1986. Fortunately, I found a company that does all the designing and layout for you. You just check the happy little boxes on the order form! So, for the new Schmidt Cookbook I used Morris Press Cookbooks. It completely simplified the entire process and they are very nice people to work with!

All I had to do was collect the new recipes and type them into their system. It was time consuming, but not hard. And, since everyone's old keepsake books were falling apart, I agreed to put all the recipes from the first book into the new one, so we could preserve our first book.




And, this is what we ended up with! Such a pretty book, although not as unique as the version a couple of my cousins and I first envisioned. We wanted it to have an outhouse on the cover. My husband wanted me to call it various versions of "Tastes Like Schmidt", but I lost my nerve.

The most important thing is that all of our family recipes are again preserved. There are 409 of them (recipes, not books). I know, because I typed each of them myself!

We "unveiled" the new book at the Schmidt Reunion in July. Everyone was thrilled with it, although a few were disappointed that I didn't go with Roger's more colorful title.

There are still copies left over, so let me know if you want your own! They're $6.50 a piece. That's only 2 cents per recipe!

Yarn People & Bears

I have been a crafting dervish the past couple of days!! I've been in a crocheting mood, so I finished this bear for Sally:

And, I made this doll for my husband's co-worker Lydia who collects "ugly dolls".

I'm most proud of the curly hair on the doll, because I used the instructions from another pattern and did some project specific tweaking to make it work. And it did! My crochet skills aren't perfect yet, but hey! Look at me go!

Last night, I sat down and worked on a fabric pennant banner for a baby shower I'm hosting on Thursday evening. It's looking pretty good! I was very glad that I went ahead and purchased that equilateral triangle quilting ruler last year. Made cutting out the triangles for the banner much, much easier! I'll try to post pics of the finished banner later.

Or, I may just disappear for a couple months like last time!

Robot Battle

I've been doing quite a bit of amigurumi crocheting lately. (Not much blogging, though, obviously!) Everytime I make something, Mr. Kay says, "Can I take it to work?" Apparently, his co-workers don't quite understand what I do. This "making stuff" thing just doesn't make sense to them! I'm pretty sure they think I wear long skirts, no shoes and quilt all day, possibly while wearing a bonnet.

I finally decided that I should make something that he could take to work, so I crocheted him a robot for his birthday. The robot was a sweet little thing, unfortunately, after being at my husband's office for a couple weeks, something bad happened...

Latest Addition

I've recently discovered that I am totally in love with vintage sewing machines. Unfortunately, sewing machines are kind of a large item to collect! So, I've begun a collection of vintage toy machines. Mr. Kay collects tin toys, so these little machines fit in quite nicely with that collection, too. I have my machine from when I was a girl, and I've been keeping my eye out for others to add to my home.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Kay and I were browsing in a local antique store, and I ran across this little cutie. I ended up paying about $10 for her. She's missing her hand crank, and I haven't tried putting batteries in, but it doesn't matter if she works or not! I love her!