Books, Books, Books!!!

I missed blogging the last year and a half!! so I’m starting with my favorite books 

from 2024. I have been rating the books I read since 1985; when I read 74 books!!

I rate them 1-5 stars. I loved this system because when you get in a slump and

can’t find anything interesting … you’ve got 5* authors on a list, you can see if 

they’ve written a new book! I have to admit, I don’t rate 1 and 2 star books – I 

usually just quit reading them! Didn’t used to – but sure do that now!

AND 2 years-ish ago I had to start to check out only LARGE PRINT books. There 

are several drawbacks to be limited to only LP books. The spine labels do not 

number the series.  Usually, there is no list of books in order inside the LP.  AND

 you’re old!!! I know I can get many books electronically; but even 

making the fonts larger, the lighting still does a number on my eyes. So I 

struggle on. I’m thankful for our library’s network. I can easily request any LP 

book from 7 Coastal Libraries. (for free!) What a system!! And they are delivered 

right to my home library.

Today I want to start my list with my absolutely favorite authors. These authors

 have garnered many 5* on their writing – even 6*!! I've read them and to be 

honest, re-read them for years.  I love starting at the beginning and reading them 

in order and seeing the characters develop. Here in no apparent order -

John Sandford-   Love his' Prey' series, first book is Rules of Prey.  

Then his Virgil Flowers series. first book is Dark of the Moon

 As a friend once said – 'I love me a good cowboy!'  

Now, Davenport's adopted daughter, Netty, is grown up and is working for the

government. First book is The Investigator.  I love her character, this series is 

going to be G-R-E-A-T!

Nick Petrie is a new author to me. But once I found him, I read his series straight

through! – most of his books have 5*s. The series starts with The Drifter.

Thomas Perry has stand alone stories (Pro Bono) and his ‘one woman Indian

Protective service’ Jane Whitefield series. First book is Vanishing act.  I do love 

strong women characters and she is definitely one.

John Grisham is an oldie and goodie. His lawyer series are awesome, but he 

also has many stand-alones. Our Bookclub is reading the third book of the 

Camino Island series. (Our bookclub reads older books, not the new bestsellers

 – so we can find it and often request it at the library!!)

Carley Fortune is a ‘new’ romance novelist. I love a kick-butt woman and that’s

who she writes about. First book is:  Every Summer After.  There’s a new book  

coming out soon-ish. I can’t wait.

J A Jance has 3 strong characters each with a long series; 

 Lawyer- JP Beaumont; first book Dismissed with Prejudice.  

County Sheriff– Joanna Brady, first book Desert Heat

and Reporter– Ali Reynolds, First book Edge of Evil.

Sometimes the lawyer and sheriff work together! My favorite has to be Sheriff 

Joanna Brady.  But they are all good - read them in order for the full story.

Janet Evanovich – I know you know this author. I love, love, love Stephanie 

Plum from Trenton NJ!! First book - One for the Money and the series keeps 

going – last one I read was 31!!

Elyssa Friedland is another new author who consistently gets 5* from me.  First 

book is Love and Miss Communication

James Byrne writes about a ‘British’ Jack Reacher. I loved the series, a group of 

us read each book and passed each book on between friends. The first book is 

The Gatekeeper

Here are some of my new favorite books:

 Peter Heller: The River 

 I picture it set in the Great NW! The story of two friends on their annual river trip 

and what they run into.

Jane Harper: The Lost Man 

 Jane is an Australian writer and she can put you right there in the middle. She 

has at least 6 books out, each one worth it. The first book is The Dry.

Jennifer Weiner: The Breakaway 

 I love Jennifer’s new style and characters.  Bicycling Club in NYC!

JamesPonti: Let’s talk about Young Adult books. You know we all read Harry

 Potter and got hooked. Ponti writes City Spies series. About children working as

 spies for MI6. The covers are confusing – you’re not always sure you in the right

 order – but oh, so worth it!

Elizabeth Berg never fails to hit the mark. 

 Pull of the Moon was about a 40-ish wife who just has to make a change – yep, 

she runs away. Some of my friends weren’t as enthusiastic as I was, but make up 

your own mind??

David James Brown: The Boys in the Boat 

Our bookclub read this one, and the movie was on Apple TV. Our Bookclub trys 

to watch the movie after discussion if there is one. I ended up loving the book,

again most of the story was based in the Great NW. I even made my DH watch 

the movie, we both think it's great!

Here are some new (at least to me) romance authors. As I discovered them – 

their ‘kick-butt women’ characters were never disappointing!

Check them out: 

 Sue Henderson;          Katherine Center,            Kate Spencer, 

Sophie Cousens,          Lucy Gilmore,                 Kat Martin, 

Susan Mallery,             Phaedra Patrick,             Emily Henry, 

Erica Boyce                  Kasey Michaels

Next post is going to talk about 2025 books and 2024 quilts!  See you soon!!

Happy New Year! It's time for the 2022 Recap!

 

Good-bye 2022 Happy New Year! It's 2023

Let's start with good books this year.  Some of these books were published in 2022 - but I'm talking about books I've read.  I read 87.  That's a 'soft' number because I always find notes written about a book I read but didn't 'register'.

Some of my top Rated Books are:

6*!  Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt  An Octopus who lives in an Aquarium, maybe rules it??  Very entertaining.  Small town on the Coast - it sounded alot like 'home'!

5*  French Braid by Ann Tyler  She's one of my favorite authors.  So everyday, ordinary stories - but you can't put it down!

5*  My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan   Telling the story of a young American woman going to Oxford as a Rhode Scholar.  Very engaging 

John Sandford is a perennial favorite author for me and these are his latest books.

5*  The Investigator by John Sandford  Letty has grown up and is working as an investigator for the Senate?  I hope this is the first book in a new series.

5* Righteous Prey by John Sandford   Virgil Flowers joins Luke Davenport in an amazing story line.  And I love it when they pair up!

Of course, 2022 was filled with quilting too,   There were dog stockings; advent calendars, tree skirts and a fabric challenge made into a table runner.

Drawings of the new pets needing a stocking. The drawing was then turned into either a flap (don't ask) or sewn into a stocking.  Count so far:  5 stockings; 2 flaps.

This panel Advent Calendar was my second finished between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day.  Darn cute!

Cherrywood Lane

My Edyta Sitar Quilt Along: using her pattern Summer Village. She is a fantastic, organized fun leader.  I loved this project because it never got harder!! Three of us Brookings Quilters worked on it each week and all enjoyed it.

My version -  "Cherrywood Lane" was finished with some added trees and a skinny border.  You know I can't do something without changing it somehow. Fernwood Quilting long-armed it and I was thrilled with Lynette's quilting.  I entered in local shows.

 

I had fun playing with improv triangles - they make really clever NW trees.  I got carried away - Improv Forest and Improv Forestry.  There's a third top - possibly to be finished in 2023!  I'll keep you informed!

              

A Great-Nephew in Nebraska got married and I made a quilt for the happy couple. When my sister asked me to make a quilt, I asked what colors?  Grey.  Accent color?  Dark Grey!  What does she like?  Cows!  I cannot make an all grey wedding quilt.  BUT, she likes turquoise!  I can work with that!  I found a mostly grey cow fabric for the back.  I loved the finished quilt.  Fernwood Quilting long-armed it for me.  The couple loved it.  Mission Accomplished!

                          

I try to make at least one Quilt Of Valor every year - and P and I fell in love with Plaid-ish, a free online pattern.  So, we precut the pieces and at retreat we made a 70 x 90 quilt with RW&B.  It was presented this summer - QOVs are always a big hit with our Veterans / Serviceman. 

My last finished quilt was "Peek A Boo" from Missouri Star Quilts.  So fun to make - P & I each made a top at an April Retreat.  Here mine is - almost finished.  No that's not Bling on a quilt made by me - It's the binding clips around the edges!!

For more on this quilt (and others) - see the story on my blog on April 28, 2022

This year has been less quilting. I'm 70 now and my hands and eyes take turns slowing me down.  Then when I was raring to go, my EverSewn machine broke down.  Living on the edge of the earth ... it took far too long to get it back to par. 

But I have high hopes for 2023 - doesn't everyone??  No matter how many finishes I make - I love my quilting time.  Look forward to finishing a few favorites and of course, any new quilt that catches my eye!  Happy New Year and here's to all the inspiration; colors; quilts and ideas ahead for us in 2023!

 

THREE! I'm going for a new "Month's record"

 If you know me, you know I love to read.  Every day, my favorite time is to read an hour (or more) before bed and you can go thru a LOT of books - even more if they are so good you must read past bed time!!

AND I keep track of what I read!  Since 1985!! On an excel sheet!  Before you click me off because I'm crazy - I started keeping track because I rate them 1 - 5 and every year I look back at my 5* books and see if their author has written more. Don't worry - I'm a library girl.  Thank goodness!  I love our Brookings library.  They are the best!

Of course, now-a-days all you have to do is Google an author and you will get notices of all their books and anyone else they consider is like them!  Back then, not so much.  

Favorite books lately:

• Anything by Brad Parks   Interference; The Girl Next Door
• The Book of Lost Names by Kristen Harmel
• The Mother In Law by Sally Hepworth
• French Braid by Anne Tyler

You can always look back on this blog to the January entries.  I usually have 2 year's summaries and always include the best books that year.

If it's not too foggy - salmon season is full speed ahead.  Every day there is 20 -30 little boats at a time in the mouth of the harbor getting those salmon headed up stream.  There have even been some tuna (mixed up apparently) caught.  It's very exciting when our commercial boats are headed out.  Horns - get out of our way!!  You talking to me???  People who fish in little boats are crazy!

Here is the September gallery hanging in our living room.  And yes, I did clean the top of the bins to get to avoid a junky picture!  C, a good friend from the MidWest is coming this week.  She'll recognize all of these wall quilts.  She's the one that made me add "DS" to the schoolhouse.  We laughed and laughed at the smoke rings behind the school.

And C started the invasion of the Sunflower Quilts in Lincoln NE. Every quilter that saw her quilt, made one!  G made the same design in reds for a poinsettia - gorgeous!  I also have a sunflower king size quilt - this wall quilt is a remake of the king-size pillow sham. (It looked like a coffin cover!!!)

We saw this Red Wagon quilt and loved it.  But we both lamented that the applique or the piecing was too hard ... so I did the piecing for both quilts and C did the applique for both of us.  One of my favorites!

                            

So after C sees these, we will put up the Halloween quilts.  In fact, I have a whole list of what we should do!  Visit and walk the beaches is on the top!

More information next time.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start! In a calm way, please

 

Happy New Year – though I did hear ‘Mrs Maisel’ say that she’s just calling February 1 the start of the new year.  Let January shake off it’s ‘2020 vibe’.  

It's a New Year from sunrise on Rainbow Rock

2020 did give us lots of time … to waste, to discover, to read and even to spend HOURS on your computer devise.  I will never tell how many Wheel of Fortune games I played!!  Although I do have to point out, it’s one of the few games there are no ads every move!  Just saying!

I read 83 books this year!  The last two years my count was in the 40s.  And a LOT of them were excellent!  Here’s the ones I recommend.

A Small Town by Thomas Perry  I love his Jayne Whitefield series: a one woman Native American witness protection force.  Always excited to find a new book.

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn  Artsy woman trying to make a living and find a man ... good old romance for a bewildering year.

Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg  Not your typical book club group!

Virgin River by Robyn Carr  Beware there are over a dozen books in this series, you’re going to have to pace yourself!  And then there is the series on Netflix!  Oh, yeah!

Jane Harper’s series based in Australia   The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man.  Excellent series and The Lost Man took my breath away!  I hear there is a new book out soon.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett  She is usually a great read but she’s outdone herself in this one!  The cover is delicious and the story is even better.

American by Day by Derek Miller  Book 2 of a series from a Norwegian author.  The first book was Norwegian by Night.  I think I read it, but didn't log it.  I love a good strong woman character and this has her.

The Dressmakers Gift by Fiona Valpy  Generational tale centered on WWII

Year One by Nora Roberts  Set in an alternate reality, proving Nora Roberts isn't just a romance writer.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian  This was really good, kept me guessing until the end.  And the series on HBOmax is good even if the story is tweaked a little.  As usual, book first is the way to go.

The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg  Who doesn’t want to run away from home?  Yes, I’m talking to you grown-ups!

The Lola Quartet by Emily St John Mandel

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins  Excellent prequel to Hunger Games.  Learn how Snow got to be Snow.  I listened to the audio book from our online library and the narrator was awesome.  Got a lot of quilting done just listen to the book.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Mortimore  This was a real find, different plot.  I loved it, loaned it to my friend, told my daughter to read it and they both loved it!!  SciFi but not really.  Try it!

Beyond the Black Stump by Neville Shute  Written in the ‘40s (!)  another Australia author.  I really love his writing, I went on to read 3 more books in our library.  Definitely a winner.

Well, shall we talk about quilting?

I looked at my list and I was underwhelmed.  But then I remembered I made more than 300 masks!  Well, that explains it!   

 

My favorite projects this year were:

I topped the Road to OK that was a raffle block from Nebraska.  I wanted to win back then but I didn’t, so I made one block to remember it.  It IS a tricky block because the points of the stars are in the center of the block, not the outside.  There was ripping.  The star is made by the 4 corners together.  AND I really just loved the name for it’s own sake:  I wanted to be on the road back to OK (normal), didn’t you.  We still do.

Life is getting busier??? Or I just went into survival mode?

Hello All!  I hope you're safe and sound.  Sound being the questionable part!

I'm not playing the camera game with the grandkids.  It went a long time, but they were making fun of my photos - I was running out of things to picture!!  I looked online for something else that would work ... but we all just ran out of steam!  It was fun while it lasted!

I've been spending a little more time with Road to Oklahoma.  I need 80 of the 8" blocks to make my "go to" size of quilt.  60 x 80-ish!  That's a lot of scraps!!  I thought I was getting close but alas, components made - only enough for 50 blocks ... oh dear!

I have enough +/X blocks, just finishing what I have cut ... I love to put a row of blocks on the back - it always cheers me up!  Maybe blocks done by June 6???  We'll see.  I'm also working on our guild summer challenge, and 2 Mod Squad assignments for our scheduled meeting June 12.

Here are some +/X blocks I've made:

 

Christmas 3(?)                         Wild Animals

  

Fabrics bought in Japan                             Stars!!           

 

Graphic B&W                     Got the Blues!

 

Graphics Light                       Flower Garden

10" blocks for Quiltmania's Pandemic quilts for Hospital staff

I've been reading more now that the library allows us to reserve and pick up books.  I recommend:

The Flight Attendant  Chris Bohjalian

The Dressmakers Gift  Fiona Valpy

Year One  Nora Roberts (SF)

The Snow Child  Eowyn Ivey

The Most Fun We Ever Had  Claire Lombardo

I'm an avid reader and love mysteries, thrillers, SciFi, and even romance!  I love fiction!! 

 Last year was a slow year for me - 45 books read.  (I have to admit, ebooks don't always get counted.)  So far this year - 43!!  I think I'm headed for a banner year!!

So - keep on keeping on!  Stay safe, wear your mask!  And QUILT ON!

A lovely sunrise reflected in the Western Sky - photo by my DH

Suspended in Quarantine ... still

Sunset from our deck last week!

I don't know if you can see this - but yesterday, the St George lighthouse looked like it was levitating!!  Make the photo larger - look on the horizon about 3/4 across from the left side.  That lighthouse can look closer, farther, bigger, smaller and now flying!!!  Always entertaining to spot it's shenanigans!

My DS and his family is living in Central America, DDIL teaches for the American School there.  Quarantine in the United States and Quarantine in a Martial Law country are quite different!!

We have suggestions and they have strictly enforced rules.   No children outside.  Women can be out for 1 hour if shopping MWF.  Men out for 1 hour if shopping TTS.  No one can be out on Sundays!  They have 3 children  9, 7, and 3!  That's a lot of energy in a 12th floor apartment!!  But they are doing fine.  And have less chance of contracting the virus than we have.

I had big plans for my free time this month!  I was going to finish an UFO each week!  Clean the sewing room - again!  Walk and exercise every day ... And, well, insert your favorite unreachable goal here!

I joined Edyta's Mystery, and then there were calls for face masks!  So, I'm out of elastic; and 8 1/2 blocks behind on the mystery!  My sports loving husband tells me he's watching football games all weekend(?)  Apparently they are showing old championships ... since it's due to start raining again this weekend, at least reliving the victories will keep him busy.

Last week I was up early one day and he was watching Sports Center.  I kid you not ... they were doing the play by play of 2 Labradors eating!  DH was rooting for the Yellow Lab??  LOL!

Face masks:  The call went out and I opened up the stash and cut an 8 inch pile of 9 x 6.5 cottons.  Went to meet someone with QOVs to have quilted and pick up some group-ordered elastic.  We were early, and the gal asked if I had any masks ready.  Yes, I did!  I got them out of the car and she took them ALL!! Okay - that's sub-contracting at it's best!!

Then I picked up elastic for 30 masks and 60 fabrics that were scissor cut by our HS Leadership group. OYE!  They were every size!  Instead of putting them together, and sizing them way down,  I cut 60 9 x 6.5 of my light fabrics and sized each pair as big as I could.  33 masks were done, then I got a little more elastic and made 10 more.  I'm out again - and I'm taking it as a sign I should sew other things ... see list!

Jenny Doan has a good tutorial on Missouri Stars.  I adjusted it, of course, from hearing different ideas.  I cut the fabrics 9 x 6.5 because that's the size of my ruler.  I cut a twist tie, from the produce section of the grocery store, in half and zig-zag stitched it in the middle along the top seam allowance for mask.  It has just enough staying power to hug the bridge of your nose and keep your glasses from fogging over!!

I don't top stitch all the way around until I have my pleats in place.  I iron my pleats down after pinning, before sewing.

 

By the way, our little guild made over 400 masks in a week!!  Whoo-hoo!

We've binge watched NewsRoom on HBO, all three seasons.
We finished watching The Kominsky Method on Netflix, both seasons.
Got Yellowstone series from Netflix DVDs, awaiting the last disk for Season One.
What do you recommend?

I have also been reading. Thank goodness I was able to pick up 7 books at the library before they had to close.

My favorites have been:
The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Last Child by John Hart

Stay Safe and QUILT ON!

Time to Recap 2019!!

You sure didn't get "the rest of the story" on the blog this year!!!  Sorry about that.  I've been playing Wheel of Fortune - too much - and apparently boycotting the rest of the web!

P and I watched a new series on HBO (via BBC One)  Years and Years!  OMGoodness - it was so good.  Slightly in the future with the same political and earth problems.  It was fascinating and slightly scary!!!  One line got my attention.  Paraphrasing here:  "Remember when the political news was boring??  We used to go to the kitchen and get a snack!!!  Art imitates life!!!!

I taught Hand Embroidery last spring and I loved it!  The samplers turned out modern - just as I wanted them to!  Lots of personality in them.  I thought I would teach it again this fall, bought supplies and everything!!  But By My Hand tightened up their store space and there's no longer a classroom.  Sigh!  Oh well, who knows where I would have found the time!

I feel that I was a slacker this year in the sewing room!  The last of the dog-damaged quilts from Portland were made whole again.  And that sucked up alot of the energy in the room.  I am not mentally equipped to repair badly damaged quilts!!  And the dog-lovers have been warned!  Yes, I still love them, even the 4-footed ones!

My 2019 QOV program was ambitious!  We all worked on Sawtooth Stars and I ran an alternate block raffle each month - so making 17 alternate blocks or begging someone else to do it monthly!  We made more money than we thought we would and we did end up with plenty of quilts for the year.  And although I had my doubts about an 'inbred' selection of quilts ... that didn't happen!

Sometimes you couldn't even tell the same star blocks were in them!!  2020's monthly block is a string block aka StashLab's String star.  I'm loving it and the blocks have been coming in like clockwork.  At our December Open Sew weekend I put the first QOV top together - just to be sure it was working!!  And boy-oh-boy did it!!  Gorgeous!!

So my Finished list - 2019 included:

2 repaired quilts
6 wall or baby quilts
4 QOV quilts!!
5 pillowcases for GKids
10 Fabric Post cards for exchanges
1 Queen sized!!
10 ModSquad monthly projects

Not bad for an off-year!!

Just so you don't think I've slowed down too much ... I attended 6 Quilting retreats!!  Finishing School and Bayshore in Bandon;  Brookings Guild and 3 Amigos in Gold Beach; Sisters Week at Black Butte (2nd year!) and 3 Amigos Beach Bums in Crescent City over Labor Day Weekend!!!

P and I joined and worked on Jen Kingwell's BOM thru QuiltMania.  We were keeping up pretty well until they had the reveal ... and we didn't like it!  Darn!  We're going to change it up a bit - or get used to it!!  And oh, my! we bought a boat-load of her fabrics - probably enough to make 5 of the quilts!!!  Oops!

I read 45 books this year. (if I finish the one I'm reading!)  That number is probably a little soft - I have problems writing down the computer books I've finished!  Something about getting them ready to go back to the library helps me keep track!

Favorites:

The Day the World Came to Town  Jim Defede - The Broadway musical was based on this book.  I loved the characters, the story and how good you felt that even on 9-11 there were people in this world that did good deeds for strangers, against all the hate and fear that was blossoming.

Invisible by Andrew Grant  An Army Intelligence Agent goes undercover at the courthouse to solve a murder.

Relic by Alan Dean Foster  SciFi  The last human in the universe is telling our story

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose  - Fascinating story of the famous performance artist Marina Abramović, who staged a show in NYC.  She sits quietly at a table and audience members can participate by joining her at the table - no talking, no touching.

The Book Artist by Mark Pryor  A spy novel with so many twists and turns you can't put it down!

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen  SciFi  Set in San Francisco where a time-traveler gets stranded and has to live invisibly to save the future.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles  Our book club read this.  If I had known that Russian literature could be this charming - I would have read more a long time ago! :-)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  Another Book Club - fascinating to the last page!!

The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash  The description says '...23 tubs of fabric' and I knew that I'd like the main character already!!

We are experiencing a West Coast Winter Storm!  And I am up way too late!  So I may add photos to this later ... or not!  Here's to 2020 where we will do more of our favorite things and pass on the joy of living to everyone we see!!

Weren't summers long and lazy when we were growing up???

Well, summers aren't long and lazy now!  That was a busy summer!  My plan is to get caught up on the blog this week.  Write a memory each day?  We'll see, won't we! Tee-hee!

On Facebook I was tagged to share my favorite books.  No comments, just a picture of the cover ... you know me, oh, yeah, I'm leaving a little comment!  But here are the books I recommended:

 

Stephanie Plum (26 books in the series - so far!) is perfect for a rainy day and giggling.  Forty Signs of Rain is not recommended to read during a NW Winter storm!!  Just saying - good 3 book series, but read it in normal weather!!

 

Dies the Fire series (15 books) is based in Oregon!!  So fun to be able to picture the locations he mentioned.  Engines of God was printed in 1994!  Great space adventure that is all about the people, not technology!! Just went out to see how many books are in this series.  Now 8 - two I haven't read yet!!  SCORE!

But the big news this day is:   (insert suspenseful drum roll here)

Welcome to the Neighborhood has been accepted into the Santa Clara International Quilt Festival!!  It will be in the Traditional Category. Whoo-hoo!

Here's how it came about:  Quiltmania Magazine ran a BOM by Yoko Saito in 2012.  There were 6 blocks in that series.  But no schoolhouse!  That was the first block I designed and added.  I wasn't wild about the final layout of the quilt.  So I recombined the houses into new extra blocks.  Then I went to Yoko's "Houses, Houses, Houses" book and made houses out of that.  I DO have a collection of house patterns and other books, so I dived into them too.  I had to resize up and down to get them all to fit!  Just between us (wink, wink) there is a "cheater" house in it - cut from pre-printed fabric!  No one has found it yet!!

I absolutely loved adding the hand embroidery touches.  I could have done that for a few more years ... but I decided that this was the year - I was going to take this project out of time-out and finish it!  I still wasn't happy with the shape, it was wider than long.  I was trying to avoid making more squares, but I knew it would look better.  So I bit the bullet and made 3 more blocks (bottom row) and added top and bottom borders.  

Then I handed it over to my friend, Cindy Young, Riverjoy Quilting.  She had fun researching the other quilts from the BOM that were lo-o-o-ng finished.  And came up with the whimsical quilting that differs from block to block.  Cindy really made it come to life!  There are cobblestone paths leading to some of the houses.  She loved discovering all the little details as she quilted it.  And I loved all the details she quilted into it!  We had fun celebrating each other's work!!

It was very successful at both Brookings and Newport guild shows.  Two blue ribbons so far!  I'm not expecting a ribbon at an Intl Quilt show - but it's probably the only time I'll be accepted into one ~ so let's make hay while the sun shines!!  Let the party begin.

I'll be at the show, so I'll send pictures from there too!  October 11-14, 2018

But now for the scary part ... mailing it to them!

I have to share - you know I'm addicted to the free online game Wheel of Fortune.  The day after I got the news about Santa Clara - this was one of the puzzles I solved!!  LOL!  Everyone's celebrating!!!

February? Already??

The rainy days seem so long - how on earth does the month speed by??

Today I hung a show of last year's Mod Squad projects  in the library display cases.  And it's fabulous!

To recap ... I met Deborah Boschert in Houston 2016 and bought her book Art Quilt Collage.  Brought it home and talked a few friends into forming a group to study the layout designs.  Each month one of us led the discussion on the new design that we all made before the next meeting.  We gently critiqued each piece and tried to guess who made it.  That was harder than we expected!!

I started it off in February - with a 'Design to Quilt' exercise of "Line".  We each picked from precut magazine pictures and ads to look at the elements within.  It was eye opening to notice there was purple in the yellow beak of the Toucan!

The next two months were Landscape and Grid, easy choices.  Everyone is familiar with landscapes in photos or art.  And of course, quilting blocks are the ultimate grid for us!

One of my favorites was "Magic Threes"  M - the leader that day - brought Oreo cookies - 3 parts!!

We went on to One Amazing Line; Symmetry; Modular and others.  P and I were lucky enough to go to #CraftNapa in January and take a class with Deborah.

The library cases are enormous!  61 x 38 x 20!!  and there are TWO of them!

So let's talk about my favorite books last year!  I'm a library girl so most of these I'm sure you can find in your lovely local library.  I do have some books on Kindle, but still enjoy actually holding a book and turning the pages.

Funny story - my DH buys the new Stephen King book for me every year.  I devour it and then pass it onto my son who is also a big fan.  This year, I started reading his latest in bed and the next morning my shoulder was killing me.  Oh NO!  Can it be true that I no longer can handle reading Stephen King??  Not the content - the weight!!??  So next year, even though it goes against the grain, DH will buy it on kindle for me!!!

Breakthrough Series by Michael Grumley  Fascinating Science Fiction in the 'near future'

A Spool of Blue Thread by Ann Tyler  Who does family and ordinary life better??

The Old Man by Thomas Perry   I loved his Jane Whitefield series.  I hope to see more with this character too.

The Girl Before by JP Delaney  Who wouldn't want an opportunity to live in a quirky house in the middle of the city? But you might think twice after reading this!

The Chemist by Stephanie Meyer  Better known now for the Twilight Vampires, I really love her 'other' books.  The Host was an all time favorite of mine.

The Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor  An oceanographer revisits home even though she feels more at home with sharks!

The 37th Hour by Jodi Compton  Has her husband disappeared or is she losing her mind?

Piano Tide by Kathleen Dean Moore  I really couldn't put this book down.  Even though it is placed in Alaska - it was so-o Oregonian!!

Mr Penumbra's Twenty-Four Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan  I got caught away from home without a book !!  Gasp!  So I borrowed this one from my DDIL. So glad I did!

I also dived back into Faye Kellerman's Rina series.  I had a few to catch up with.

I love that I keep track of the books I read.  When I'm bored and between great books, I can look back and see what authors I loved back when.  THEN I can go look them up and see if I've missed anything new.  Try it - you'll like it!!!