Quilts and Books

No TBR post this month. I've not been reading as much as usual lately. A number of things have just sucked up my free time. Including this little quilt I made in just under a week back in July. I needed a gift for a co-worker who had quit her job to move to a new city. She went above and beyond last year helping me with a project and I really wanted to do something for her. So I pulled some fabrics in our university's school colors (purple and white) and made this: Sorry about the lighting. The whites turned out yellow in the quilt and background. I wish I'd gotten better pictures but these will have to do. It's not very big--about 21" x 16". A look at the quilting: I added a hanging sleeve to the back and it was all done. My 8th quilt of the year! 

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 ...

I've actually finished a few things recently. Two of them are lap-sized and all I need to do is get some photos taken so I can post them here soon. I also whipped out this little wall hanging that I gave to my husband yesterday for Father's Day. This is called Moonlight Moose  and it's from a kit by On the Trail Creations  that I bought through Keepsake Quilting (they have the BEST catalog). It's pretty small, about 11"x 16". It only took me 4 days to finish, but I worked on it for several long stretches during those 4 days. There's a lot of stitching and I had to keep changing thread colors and presser feet. It was well worth the effort, though. So here's the finished project: And next, here is an interesting view of the background, raw edges and all, before the applique pieces were added. This is a close-up of the stitching. I used some of my machine's decorative stitches, which is something I rarely get a chance to do. The ra...

I love history. Since tomorrow marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo , it seemed fitting to mark the occasion by reading this book. Now, I have to admit, it was only in my TBR e-pile about 12 hours before I began reading it, because it was just published yesterday. But I do have a couple other books by Lynne Connolly  waiting to be read, so this does meet this month's theme of "More than One [author]." With barely more than a day to read the book and write this review, it's a good thing it was relatively short. This book is aptly named. It opens during the infamous ball given by the Duchess of Richmond the evening of June 15. Hostilities would begin the next day, culminating in the final battle at Waterloo on the 18th. Amelia Hartwell is the daughter of a British officer. She's minor gentry; she and her family have been following her father ("following the drum") for several years. She knows Dr. Will Kennaway, an army surgeon, as s...