Quilts and Books

My Phillies won the East--stole it right out of the hands of the Mets. It doesn't get any sweeter than this. I am not going to sleep all week, I know it! And there he is, the NL MVP, J-Roll.

So I bought this circle tool at guild 2 weeks ago and tried it out right away. It was so much fun I made another one. And I have fabric laid out for a 3rd, only this one will be larger--16 circles instead of 9. It sure is a fabric hog, but they are so cool looking. The smaller ones will make nice table toppers. I'll make a new runner for the top of the entertainment center in our family room, too. Someone(s) will be getting one of these for Christmas!

I think Jo Goodman must be the best writer no one ever talks about. I am in awe of the way she uses dialogue to reveal character, advance a plot, and let us see how and why the h/h come together. Her books are lengthy, yet I never feel as if a word is wasted. Indeed, if you don’t read closely you could easily miss a key detail. Her books are to be savored and are best read in lengthy chunks of time when you can relax and engage.

Her latest book, If His Kiss is Wicked, is another excellent read. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now, but postponed picking it up. Because now that I’ve read it, I can’t look forward to another new Jo Goodman until next year. Just like Jo Beverley. It’s worth the wait for a new book by one of the Jo’s. IHKIW begins with a prologue where the heroine, Emma, is persuaded by her cousin, Marisol to keep an assignation on Marisol’s behalf. Chapter 1 opens several weeks later and when I met Emma again I was totally unprepared for what had happened in the interven…

I get more sewing done during football games. I can choose between quilting the 2006 retreat mystery quilt or piecing the kid's gecko wall hanging. Not that you can tell, but there's Archie Manning on the tube. I'm rooting for the Saints, though.


Hmm, colors on this one don't look quite right. It's not really so washed-out. I wish I were better at using the flash on my camera.
Back to the game!

One of Julia London's historicals has an epilogue that takes place some 50 years after the end of the book when the heroine is on her deathbed. I read on AAR once that lots of readers hate that epilogue--they don't like the idea of ending a book with a death. I think it's a wonderful epilogue and I prefer to think of the book ending with a realization that this couple had a wonderful marriage and happy life together. Anyhow, that book made Julia London one of my favorite authors and I've enjoyed her contemporaries as much as I've liked her historicals. In fact, I think I like the contemporaries even better.

So all this to lead into the fact that I pretty much devoured American Diva over the last 24 hours. AD is the 3rd and final book in her Thrillseekers Annonymous trilogy. Hero Jack Price accepts the job of bodyguard to pop singer Audrey LaRue while she goes on a nationwide tour because she's been receiving death threats. Don't be mislead, this is not a sus…

About the same time we were getting new carpet installed in the family room, I saw a folk art pattern in the May/June 2007 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting. The pattern, designed by Pat Sloan, struck me as simple, but bold, and an easy way to make something that would let me coordinate with the color of the new carpet. This was the result. It's 20" x 24" and made from fat quarters in my fabric stash. I managed to purchase some special yellow silk thread for the background quilting at the NQA show. Boy, was that stuff fun and easy to quilt with. I used normal 50 wt. cotton thread for the border. The border is free-motion leaves and flowers. That kind of thing is getting easier for me to do and the result is smoother and less jerkey. It feels good to have finished something again.

Back when I first rediscovered romance novels, I stumbled across Lynn Kurland's books and it wasn't long before I read most, if not all of them. I wasn't aware of terms like "wallpaper history" and her "lite" approach to medieval life didn't bother me. And it still doesn't. Because I sure do like the way she tells a story. I'd probably embrace these common criticisms of her work if I didn't find myself enjoying her characters. And I especially enjoy putting myself in her characters' shoes as they make such improbable, logic-defying journeys through time. What the hey, call me shallow. Over the last few years as I've hung out on review sites and blogs I've learned that the book many of her readers consider their least favorite, is one of my top favorites--The More I See You. So there. This fact alone probably invalidates anything I have to say .

When I Fall in Love is the story of the 4th and final McKinnon sibling, Jennifer, a…