Quilts and Books

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 su...

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.