Quilts and Books

Series, series. Everything is part of a series. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, as has every other blogger, probably. Several months ago I discovered that my local library has the entire Psy-Changeling series by Nalini Singh available in audio. I've been listening to them at a rate of about 2 per month and I just finished Blaze of Memory , the 7th book in the series. First, I'm extremely glad I decided to do this re-read. It's been almost nine years since the 1st book,  Slave to Sensation , was published and over the years I've forgotten as much as I've remembered. Some books have been more compelling, and thus more memorable than others. Some, like Blaze of Memory  have not been so memorable. Case in point, with BoM -- as I listened I knew I'd read it before, but honestly couldn't remember any of it until near the end. And this is kind of important because Singh has carefully built the Psy-Changeling world and each book is full of clues as...

It's been a very productive year in my Quilt Cave. This is the 7th quilt I finished so far in 2015. I should point out that I didn't actually start  all of those quilts this year. The one I'm about to show you I started last fall for the baby daughter of a friend. Because my friend N. is a very patient woman, I ended up finishing several projects before finally finishing this one. When N. announced her pregnancy I was often found salivating over Elizabeth Hartman's modern quilts. So I picked the pattern called Solar Eclipse and chose these bright colors that I hoped would complement the peach and grey of the baby's room. Don't those bolts look pretty stacked up? I texted the picture to N. who gave the thumbs up and I got to work. Here's the end result. I quilted simple straight lines horizontally, vertically, and then diagonally. Once again using my favorite Aurifil 40 wt. white thread.  Those blocks are 16", so the quilt is rather large (...

Meredith Duran's Fool Me Twice  is up for an RWA RITA award  next weekend in the "Historical Romance: Long" category. I cannot tell you if it deserves to win as I've not read any of the other nominees in this category, but I will say that I liked it well enough that I would be perfectly happy to see it win. The blurb: A lady with a secret... All Olivia wants is the chance to make a home for herself. When she realizes that the infamous Duke of Marwick might hold the key to her freedom, she boldly disguises herself as the newest and bravest in a long line of the temperamental duke’s housekeepers. Little does she know that the wickedly handsome Alastair de Grey has very different plans for her. . . . A man with a passion . . . for vengeance Alastair de Grey has suffered a betrayal so deep that he will use whatever means necessary to destroy his enemies -- even his brazen and beautiful housekeeper. But his vengeful plan fails to account for his single weakness: an...

Five years ago I did a paint chip challenge with my sister and the QBFFs. It was so much fun I decided to do it again. As president of my quilt guild this past year I got to issue a quilting challenge to members so I went to Home Depot, picked up a bunch of paint chips and passed them out. (If you're interested, I  wrote about it back in October  so you can see the rules I passed out with the paint chips.) This is the paint chip that I got: And here is what I made: This quilt is from a pattern called Geometric Gradation that I purchased from Geta Grama, a quilter from Romania . She does the most amazing work. I have two of her other patterns I hope to get to one day. My quilt is smaller than the original pattern because I only collected 8 blue fabrics in the right shades of blue (that pattern calls for 11 rows). This is a great quilt for snuggling on the couch, although right now it looks pretty awesome hanging on the wall. I quilted it with white 40-wt. Aurifil ...