Quilts and Books

One of my favorite weekends of the year is the one where I head for the hills with close to 40 other quilters for a weekend of food, fun, and fabric. This year, while the upper midwest was getting snow, we got ice. We woke up Friday morning to a mercifully thin layer of ice that melted off by mid-morning. Our afternoon of fabric shopping was able to proceed on schedule.  When we got back we were treated to the sight of this pretty hexagon quilt top. Some of our group still hadn't made it to the Lodge yet, so the ballroom wasn't quite full when this picture was taken. That's my stuff in the lower left corner. This is a striking rendition of a 1600 Quilt . Follow the link to a short video by Heirloom Creations  on how to make one of these out of a pre-cut roll of fabric stips. The 1600 refers to the 1600 inches of fabric in the roll. Four of these put together will make a queen-size quilt. Here's another one by QBFF A. It takes less than an hour to sew it tog...

This month's TBR theme is "Recommended Read." I couldn't find anything specific that really fit with the theme. What I do have is a pretty nice pile of old Signet Regencies that I bought thanks to years of participating in the Regency Yahoo email loop . I must admit that these days I just skim the messages, but there was a point when I was a regular participant in the group and I jotted down all kinds of recommendations and then went off to the UBS or eBay to see what I could find. Joan Wolf  wrote a couple of Regency trads that to this day remain favorite re-reads: The American Duchess and His Lordship's Mistress . Fortunately much of her back list is now available in e-format. Today she writes for the Christian market. This particular book is one of her earliest books. Here's the blurb: Only a girl as captivating as Catriona Maclan could have overcome the scandal of her birth to shine as the most sought-after young lady of the London season. Only...

I was commissioned last summer to make a t-shirt quilt for a young man headed off to his freshman year of college. As you can see, he was active in sports, band, and Boy Scouts. This is now my 3rd t-shirt quilt and I've gotten quite comfortable making them. Once I figure out the layout it goes quickly. The recipient was supposed to get it to use in his dorm room. His mother took it up to him and promptly decided that dorm living would be too hard on it and brought it home. I'm glad she treasures it, but I'm sad it's not being used. When B. saw his quilt, one of his first comments was "I wondered where that shirt went." Pretty funny. Fortunately he really likes it. He just has to come home to use it. And a close up of the quilting. I just did a quick all-over meander: From the 2011 issue of Best Fat Quarter Quilts  comes this pattern called Circle in a Square . The original pattern makes up into 12 blocks. I made two smaller units instead of one...

For the last two months I've largely been focused on my quiltmaking. I had a couple of quilts I needed to finish for Christmas that I showed off here . I finished two more quilts in January that I'll show off shortly. And I'm busy working on several others. All that sewing hasn't left as much time for reading. I still read a lot, but I see that my recent reading lists (see sidebar) are full of shorter categories and novellas. So, in the interest of catching up, and acknowledging that I can't come up with 10 books that really stood out as above average from December and January, here are five: 5. A Hometown Boy by Janice Kay Johnson. Johnson is no stranger to tough topics, and boy did she tackle one here. In one of those odd--and in this case extremely sad--coincidences, this book about the aftermath of a mass shooting was published within weeks of the Newtown school shooting. David Owen is called back to his small hometown in eastern Washington when he learns t...