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February was a very good reading month. There weren't any books that were disappointing. My favorite was Demon Copperhead. It lived up to all of the great press that it's received since publication. For something lighter, I really enjoyed Factory Girls. What books do you have to recommend this month?  The Nix By Nathan Hill, Read By Ari Fliakos I'm not sure I know how to describe this book except that it's long and rambling and I really liked the ending. It's kind of about a mother and son relationship but it's also about decisions of the grandfather that ultimately affected the mother and son. But it's a lot more than that. It's incredibly detailed and goes off onto a lot of other tangents with other characters. I know I'm rambling but I seriously don't know how to describe it. There's a lot of detail about many of the supporting characters that, frankly, could have been edited out. It's 22 hours long and should have been about 15 max but I enjoyed it and I'm glad I read it.  The Librarianist By Patrick deWitt, Read by Jim Meskimen Bob Comet is a retired librarian who has lived a very quiet and solitary life with his book. One day he helps a lost woman find her way home to the senior center where she lives. After the visit he decided to volunteer there and eventually discovers he had history with one of the residents. The book is a walk through his life to show how he got to this solitary place. The book is a little slow to start off but it was worth the wait. He's a very likable character. It reminds me a little of Mike Gayle's All The Lonely People but it's not quite that good, but still a good read.  Demon Copperhead By Barbara Kingsolver, Read By Charlie Thurston I loved this book. This book has been showing up on a lot of recommendation lists and I understand why. It's a masterpiece. Kingsolver took Charles Dickens' David Copperfield as her inspiration to tell the story of an orphan in Appalachia in the middle of the opioid crisis. Demon is Damon and was born to a single mother in a single-wide trailer in Virginia Appalachia. He inherited his bright red hair from his deceased father so his nickname was easy for his schoolmates. When his mother dies he finds himself in the foster system that is sometimes just a child labor system. It's a hard life and it's just the beginning. It's a wonderful book with some difficult scenes. If you read via audiobooks I think you will also love the narration. Being from SW Virginia, I can say that it was spot on.  Factory Girls By Michelle Gallen, Read By Amy Molloy It's 1994 in a small Northern Ireland town. Maeve Murray has just finished school and is awaiting her exam results to see where she will be able to go to University. She's taken a summer job at a shirt factory with her 2 best friends. These Catholic girls will be working alongside Protestants which will bring it's own challenges. The book brilliantly mixes the vibes and challenges of the time with a good dash of humor as we follow Maeve's adventures and challenges in the last summer of her youth. It's perfectly narrated by Amy Molloy.  The Engineer's Wife
By Tracey Enerson Wood, Read By Libby McKnight Emily Warren Roebling was the wife of the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. She was one of the most important women of her time. It's well documented that during the building of the bridge her husband developed health issues from " the bends" and was eventually mostly bedridden. Emily educated herself in engineering and handled on-site management with her husband's guidance from home. At a time when women were starting the suffrage movement, Emily was a quite powerful and influential woman. You can read a wonderful book about the building of the bridge called The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Enter this book. This is a historical fiction account of Emily's life and it's mostly fiction. As a piece of women's literature, it's a perfectly fine and entertaining book. For Emily, though, I was a little offended to have her life reduced to a fictional love interest. If you decide to read it, be warned that the narrator has a number of jarring mispronunciations in the narration.  Red Sunset, 97" square I almost forgot to get the final photos of Red Sunset! I had a nice opportunity yesterday to go outside and get the official photos. This quilt was made to replace one on the guest bed that's now too short since I added a foam topper to the mattress. I started this in the summer of 2022.  The back is a hand dyed mandala that shows off the quilting nicely.
I have a project page here that has lots of close up photos of the quilting if you aren't already tired of seeing the photos on the previous blog posts.  It was a weekend of good progress! Most importantly I finished this set of placemats and they are ready to be delivered Friday. I was very lucky to have these 2 fabrics in my stash because my nephew's wife wanted all grays. The really needed the black to make them big enough and to keep them from being too boring.  I quilted them with straight line quilting on the longarm. I like to quilt placemats densely because they don't wrinkle up so much in the wash when they are quilted densely. Straight lines are easy and fast on the longarm and I can get 6 of them quilted in less than an hour. I was really stymied on the binding on these. I had barely enough fabric to make them and I felt they were a little small. I could only fix it with a wide binding.  It took me a bit to figure out how to do it. I cut a 2" strip and pressed one edge under 1/4". I sewed the unfolded edge to the back and then folded the binding to the front like normal. Worked like a charm!  Usually I dye napkins to go with the placemats but my black dye doesn't really go well with commercial black so I cheated and bought some napkins from Amazon.  The next thing I accomplished was hemming some pants for Chris. I wasn't the only person in this house in desperate need of new clothes. I sent him to the mall Friday and then hemmed pants for the first time in years! We both looked reasonably presentable at the funeral Saturday. The service was lovely and it was nice to catch up with friends.  On Sunday I got busy quilting the other 12 placemats. I did the Tucson placemats in straight lines and the kind-of-ugly patchwork placemats with all-over leaves. I will try to get these bound this week and then I just have to dye napkins to match.
Today, though, is an all-errand day. I have my training to work the primary voting precinct and then a bunch of errands and an evening meeting. I'll get back to the sewing room tomorrow.  Two more veterans quilts are done! Both of these were made by Peg.  I think she was working through brown and gold scraps for these.  Whenever I get a quilt with any sort of autumnal feel I like to quilt it in all-over leaves. I did that on both of these quilts and I love the effect. I have 4 more (2 sets) left to do before the next meeting. I have 2 other quilts but they don't have mates yet. Before I do the last 4 I will quilt all of the placemats and do a small quilt for a friend.  Speaking of placemats, I got this set quilted and they are ready for binding. But first, today I have to hem some new pants for Chris. We have a funeral to attend tomorrow and we both desperately needed some new "nice" clothes. I did my shopping last week. This funeral is the most expensive funeral we've attended. LOL! It's for the parent of one of Chris' high school friends so it will be nice to catch up with friends. There's only one parent left in his high school friend group now and she's 94.
The rest of the weekend will have a placemat theme. I hope you have a great weekend.  My first task yesterday (after visiting with a friend) was to put together the placemats for my nephew and his wife. They wanted grays and these were the two best fabrics I had in my stash. I had just enough fabric, with the black, to put 6 placemats together. There are only small scraps left. I've got a backing fabric pulled and these will go on the longarm tomorrow.  The placemats will get quilted after I finish these 2 quilts.   I finished the first one last night so I only have to do the other one today. I picked a bright orange variegated thread for this one. This year I am trying to use some of my "most unique" colors. Wit each new quilt I try to start with the bright and odd colors first and I've been pleasantly surprised with the results. I'm loving this thread on these 2 quilts.
All in all, it was a very good day!  I spent most of the last 2 days running errands but I decided to divert from quilting veterans quilts for a minute to put together some placemat tops. I started with the fabrics that I got in Tucson. I used pretty much every inch of what I bought and made 2 sets of 4 placemats. I don't totally love them but they are placemats and they will bring back lots of good memories when I use them. I'll probably give one set to the friends that we visited there.  I need to make one more set of 6 from my nephew's wife. She wants grays so I picked these 2 fabrics from my stash. I'll add some black and put together something really simple. I want to get all these tops together so I can be ready to quilt all of them at once. I have one other set of tops ready to go too.
I think I have some good sewing/quilting time ahead of me so I hope to get 2 more veterans tops quilted and then get through all of the placemats done on the longarm next.  Marrakesh Gradient is back! I love it when I get a request to dye something. Marrakesh is a gradient that I retired a couple of years ago but I was happy to bring it back by request. If there's a Gradient that you would like to see again just contact me and I'll try to do it for you.  New Denim Gradient! This week I also have a new gradient in Denim blue. Most of my blue gradients are in brighter blues and I wanted to have one in a darker, grayer blue.  New Denim Shades I liked the Gradient so much that I decided to create a new Denim Shades Pack in the same color! Shades Packs have 5 fat quarters in 5 shades of the same color. Fabric of the Week Binda Reflections is 20% off through Sunday The fabric of the week this week is the Binda Reflections. Reflections are sold by the yard and this one is on sale through Sunday.
It was a very productive weekend. I got the binding on Red Sunset and that should have been the focus of today's post. But I couldn't photograph it. I do my photographs on the back deck and it's got some old furniture on it that's to be discarded this week. Once the deck is cleared this week I'll get all of the Red Sunset photos taken to share here. Meanwhile, I got 4 more veterans quilts quilted. That's 12 so far for 2024 and I have 6 or 8 more in the closet to be quilted. I also have a quilt for a friend to quilt and the big blue quilt waiting it's turn too.  At the meeting last week people were bringing quilt top after quilt top so I don't know who made some of them. That's the case with this one. It's a very clever way to use a small amount of a novelty fabric. I like this quilt a lot.  This one was made by Ann. It was meant to be even more scrappy but she said that she rearranged the pieces to have the center stars. She used the extra points for her top and bottom borders.  This one was made by Glenda (Mom) and she's been working through her string bin. She started with a 2 foot trash can stuffed to overflowing and, after several quilts, she only has a few inches of strings left in the bin.  I love the color palette for this string quilt made by Ellen.
More quilting ahead!  Sky Colors by Wendy Tuma, 9" square This week's inspiration is a challenge response made by Wendy Tuma. She used only the Imperial Dragon Gradient for her sky components. You can read more detail about the challenge and the making of this piece on her blog, Pieceful Thoughts.
For sharing, Wendy received a 20% coupon for the shop that's good for 3 months! If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. The only rule is that projects have to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount.  Here are the other 2 quilts that Sharon made. I got them quilted yesterday after I went out to run a bunch of errands. I like all 4 quilts that she made with this pattern but this is probably my favorite.  Here's the last one. They are both quilted with the Woven Wind pantograph. I have really gotten my money's worth out of this pantograph.  Next I'm starting on quilts with blue backs and I have these two basted and ready to quilt today.
This weekend I hope to get 4 more veterans quilts quilted, get Red Sunset bound and get some placemats started. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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