This week's Customer Gem is from Linda Swanekamp and it proves that just a little hand dyed fabric can make a big impact. Her quilt is called Split Decision and you can read about it here.

Of course it's the blues and greens that are the hand dyed fabrics. Looking closely I believe that this was 2 Stash Packs. It's a very cool effect using such a variety of green and blue hand dyes with the mix of black and white commercial prints.

If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months!

Oops! I forgot to post yesterday. Maybe I was having too much fun ironing! So today I will play catch up.

This month in books was an odd one. There were too many bad books! But paying for bad books sent me back to the library to get Overdrive working again and to get a library card at another library that has a better selection of audiobooks. Where we live you can get a library card at the neighboring library system if you have a card at your local system. My local system is Pamunkey and the neighboring one is Henrico. (We like our Native American names here a lot.) The library is on the way home from Mom's so I'd just stop by one day on my way home. It wasn't as simple as I envisioned. The first stop was a Thursday morning, the only morning they are closed. The second stop involved discovering that I had to have my local library card with me. Third time was the charm and on the advice of one of you I decided to switch to the Libbie app. WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT! Libbie is so much better than Overdrive.

After my last book in Overdrive my library card suddenly stopped working and I couldn't figure out how to get it working again. I loaded the Henrico card and then magically my Pamunkey card appeared and now I can access both libraries. They don't have near the number of audiobooks that Audible has but I can probably cut my Audible expense in half and that wouldn't be a bad thing. So buying a few bad books will turn out to be a very good thing for me in the long run.

On to the books. It was mostly a month of "old reliables" as I continued several series. Only one non-fiction this month but The Path Between The Seas was a great one.

​What have you read recently that you have loved?

Revenge in a Cold River
By Anne Perry, Narrated by David Colacci

​This is book #22 in the William Monk series. I appreciate Anne Perry's ability to keep this series interesting without delving into gimmicks like characters developing supernatural capabilities.  In this one we finally start to learn things about Monk's past before he lost his memory.

People from a past he doesn't remember come back to haunt him and once they discover that he doesn't remember that time in his life he is set up as revenge.

Paris in the Present Tense
By Mark Helprin, Narrated by Bronson Pinchot

First let me tell you what's great about this book: the narration! I think this is the second book I've listened to that was narrated by Pinchot and Balki has mad narration skills!

I picked up this book in a "Deal of the Day" offering and, given how Helprin has fallen out of favor, I'm surprised that Audible offered it. But I'm here for the stories, not politics, so I decided to give it a go.

Helprin writes beautiful prose and all of his characters are unbelievably clever, have broad vocabularies and speak their thoughts and intentions exquisitely clearly. In other words, his characters are mostly unbelievable.

The story is about a 74 year old Frenchman who is dealing with the normal kinds of challenges that a 74 year old deals with....except that he's as healthy as a 40 year old. He's made decisions that haven't helped him plan for the challenges of this time in his life, he's carrying around burdens from his past and he falls deeply in love with every woman he meets and fancies that they are in love with him. 

It was a beautifully written but mediocre story. At the end of it all I just thought he was a crazy old man who should have planned his life a little better.

ted Prey
By Jon Sandford, Narrated by Richard Ferrone

After reading a disappointing book I generally search for something reliable for my next read and, for me, there's no one more reliable than John Sandford. This is the 28th book in the Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport. Davenport is now with the US Marshall Service and he's called to Washington DC to investigate a car accident that killed a US Senator. The surviving passenger, thinks it was no accident that that Davenport's nemesis (from book #27), Taryn Grant, may be behind the accident and a number of other events. 

The Path Between the Seas
By David McCullough, Narrated by Nelson Runger

My favorite McCullough book is The Great Bridge about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge so when I saw this one about the building of the Panama Canal I just had to read it. It was published earlier than The Great Bridge but just as interesting. Both books remind us of a time when the US lead the world in great engineering feats. I believe that responsibility has now been relegated to the Chinese because we, sadly, would never take the kinds of risks required to build a Panama Canal today. 

It's really well written, as you would expect and very thoroughly researched. It begins with the French attempt to build the canal. That part was a little difficult for me to follow but once the book got to Teddy Roosevelt and the American project I was all in.

After listening to The Path Between the Seas I hit an unprecedented run of bad books. I don't think this has ever happened before and it's made me sour on Audible Deal of the Day books! I couldn't finish any of these books but I'll give each a little mention:

​Macbeth: A Novel by David Hewson and AJ Hartley.  I thought that a novel format might make Macbeth more palatable to me. I was wrong.  I listened longer than I should but only because I enjoyed the sound of Alan Cumming's voice.

West With the Night by Beryl Marhham. This is an autobiography of an amazing woman who lived an amazing life as a pilot in Kenya. She also trained racehorses. This book receives rave reviews but it just didn't hit with me. I was expecting something as beautifully written as Out of Africa and I was disappointed. It did spur me to do some research on her so that's good.

The Enigma of Reason by by Hugo Mercer and Dan Sperber. You know a book is going to be tough when the intro is an hour. It's tedious and the narrator makes things worse.

Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger

After three losers I had to find an "old reliable" and jumped into  the 7th installment of the Cork O'Connor series. In this one Cork is a new private investigator and his first client is Henry Meloux. Henry has asked Cork to help find his 72 year old son that he's never met.

There's a new narrator for the series now and that was a little difficult to get used to but it was still a good read.

The Honest Spy
By Andreas Kollender, Narrated by Malcolm Hilgartner

Fritz Kolbe worked for the German Foreign Office at the start of WWII and he wasn't a support of Hitler and the Nazi Party. During the war he approached the US and became the most important spy of the war. Allen Dulles was his handler and says that it was the work with Kolbe that was key to his becoming the first civilian Director of the CIA. 

That's all true.
This book is a novel based on the life of Kolbe. There's a lot in it that isn't necessarily true but the point is to give us an idea of what he life might have been like. It's not the most riveting book that I've ever read but I did enjoy it.  

The premise is that Kolbe is telling his story to journalists after the war so the scenes in the book jump back and forth between the events of the war and the conversation with the journalists. That's all fine except that the narrator needed to take a little break between the changes. Sometimes I felt lost because it was narrated as one continuing event. But, otherwise, the narrator did a fine job.

Elizabeth I
By Margaret George, Narrated by Kate Reading

The month of June was "saved" from the bast taste of 3 loser books by another Margaret George masterpiece. I started reading her books with Memoirs of Cleopatra which is still one of my all-time favorite books. 
This historical fiction is narrated by Elizabeth. It's clear that George does an amazing amount of research because so much of the story is true but she adds the color that makes it a great novel. I found myself on Wikipedia several times to research particular things that came up in the book. It was 31 hours long but it was a very pleasant 31 hours.

The Hit
By David Baldacci, Narrated by Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy
This is the second book in the Will Robie series. My review of the first wasn't a good one but since I was able to get this one free through the library I decided to give it a try.

Will Robie and Jessica Reel are government employed assassins. Jessica has gone "off the farm" and is killing high-ranking employees of the government. Will is assigned to find her and bring her in, or kill her.

It's a better story than the first one but, with Baldacci, you have to suspend any need for plausibility.  Baldacci's writing is starting to annoy me. There are impossible clues that only these two can read, convenient escape routes and lazy leaps in the story. He also has an annoying habit of introducing characters as "the man" or "the woman". It's a lot to keep track of when the character is finally revealed. "oh, he is that man from earlier". 

There's a lot of action and I did finish the book because I wanted to see how it ended but it wasn't a particularly satisfying read.  John Grishom lost me years ago when his writing got lazy and I think Baldacci has reached the same level.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are dyeing days so the amount of sewing (or anything else) happening on those days is about zero. But Chris is away for a couple of days on a fishing trip so I had 2 nights free to myself and set a goal of clearing away the moon mess. Last night about 11:00 I got the last one made.

I don't have a specific number of moons that I wanted to make. I just made one from every piece of shibori that I had. These photos are some of my favorites.

Every time I dye shibori for the shop I add a fat eighth to each pole for my own stash. I definitely dye mostly blue because that's what people want to buy. But I've gotten lots of other color combinations too.

I double dye all of my shibori fabric. I dye once in the darkest color and then spread the fabric out on the pole a bit and dye in the second color. I get a bonus third color where those two blend. I think double dyeing makes it even more interesting.

That orange and black one in the middle is my favorite of all of them. I did fussy cut several of them to get the colors where I wanted them. The one in the upper left corner is a prime example of that. It did waste a bit of fabric but it's not like I was actually using this fabric before I cut these out.

Here's the final stack. I think I have about 60 of them. I don't know if that too many or not enough because I haven't decided on a final quilt size. I'll just make blocks until I get tired of them. I'll be dyeing lots more shibori so I can always get more moons whenever I need them. Now I just need to settle on the block size and cut the backgrounds. 

I'm still not doing any longarming but I'm glad to have my 2 applique projects to work on in the evenings. My arm is getting better and I finally made it to the doctor this week and have a diagnosis of coracobrachialis strain. She's given me some additional stretching exercises but it's just taking time. But I'm doing my dyeing during the day, ironing with my left arm and doing applique so everything is good! I've gotten 4 moons done!

When Estelle cut out the backgrounds for me we decided on 10" squares because I didn't know how big I wanted the background blocks and with 10" I could get 4 out of each row. Now that I have some done I can place them together to see how far apart I want the circles. In this photo they are 3" apart and that might work. Maybe closer. What do you think? I'm about ready to cut more backgrounds so I need to make a decision.

How abut these little stitches? The first time I tried hand applique I showed it to Dot Holloway, a member of our quilt club. Dot's applique was so good that she had a quilt displayed in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art at one point. She said "no" to my big stitches and started teaching me how to make better stitches. We've since lost Dot and now Becky Brown has become the club applique teacher. There's nothing better to learn on than circles. No points and no "v"s. These come together quickly as long as I have my 3.5 reading glasses on!

Meanwhile back in the sewing room I'm still making circles. I really want to get these wrapped up this week so I can put all of this away.

That's a nice stack of moons!

I spent my Saturday ironing all of this! I spent Sunday with an equally large pile all in blues. I'm making great progress toward the inventory for my booth at AQS in October. My goal is to have 90% of it together before we leave for vacation in mid-August. 
So far, so good.
Meanwhile Marcy is enjoying having access to FloMo!

This weekend she quilted this monster quilt for my Mom. I know that Mom thought she was using every scrap fabric that she had but based on what we moved I think she has plenty left for more quilts.

Close up it's hard to see any sort of pattern.

But with a little bit of distance the pattern emerges. Those turquoise borders really help a lot too. Someone is going to love having this quilt. I didn't measure it but it's darned close to queen size.

Mom and I went to a sale a couple of weeks ago and she found this fabric for the back at 32% off. Marcy quilted it with a pantograph and used the new Innovatech thread. The thread worked great. She picked a pantograph that was a little more complex that the last one just to keep working on her skills. You can't see the stitching in the front at all.

This week I'm on for another 100 yards of fabric dyeing....and ironing with some applique in the evenings! 

This week's Gem is from Jan Mitri in Ohio. She used Fern, Anole and Green yellow Shades Packs for the leaves of her hostas. Don't miss the little snail!

​If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months!

My friend, Marcy, has bee so busy quilting and I'm so grateful for her help. Here are 4 more veterans quilts that she quilted this week. 

She quilted both of these with the Knotty pantograph. She's just like I was when I started quilting in 2005. I loved pantographs and used them a lot for many years. I think they are a great way to get comfortable with the quilting process while quilting some pretty, and more advanced, designs.

I don't know who made the first 2 quilts but I know that these were made by Margaret. I've explained before that we quilt these 2 at a time. We buy wide backing and by turning the quilts sideways we can get 2 on one back. Because of that I keep the tops until I have 2 that match a back. When Margaret gave me the first quilt I told her that it might be a while before it gets quilted until I got a second one to match with it. She went right home and made a second quilt and brought it to me the next month so I would have 2 to quilt together.

For these we upgraded Marcy to the Burning Bush pantograph because it's a little more difficult. We are working her up to one that's kind of complex that she wants for a special quilt that she made.

We were excited to have 8 quilts to deliver back to people at the meeting this week!

It's been a busy week around here! In the last 2 days I dyed about 110 yards of fabric and now I start the washout, soaking and ironing for the rest of the week. That's why I didn't post yesterday. But I did share this photo on Facebook yesterday. It's a sneak peek at a new gradient that will run from black to light brown. I've gotten some great suggestions for names and you are welcome to add your ideas in the comments. naming the gradients is one of the hardest part of my job!

I actually have plenty of things to share on the blog but simply haven't had time (or energy) to edit the photos until today. These are things that I added to the ice dye bins last week. These for folded fabrics are napkins. They are going to be the inspiration for my next set of placemats.

In the same bin as the fabric was this shirt. I love how the pattern turned out but it's got way too much yellow for me to wear. This one might get overdyed with a blue to turn it purple and green. That would be more in my color palette. I think to make it look right I would do a full immersion dye. That way the added blue would be even and the ice dyeing pattern would still be the dominant image.

This one was in another bin and was supposed to be red and blue, not pink and blue. But I like it well enough and may leave it alone.

My favorite item from that session is this tunic/dress. I got it from Dharma Trading a couple of years ago and I don't think they carry it anymore. It's rayon and has a tie in the back. I'm going to shorten it about 4 inches and it will be perfect to wear with white or pale blue leggings.

My weekend was solely an ironing marathon. I had gotten very behind because of my arm. But it's getting better now and I couldn't take the pile of fabric anymore. I ironed, ironed and ironed over 115 yards and I'm much happier.

In between ironing sessions I would sit down for a break and make circles for my 2 applique projects. So since I don't have anything except this stack of unironed fabric to share, today seems a good day to share how I'm doing the applique circles.

For starters, I basically use this process from Leah Day. Her video is very clear and it works great! So start by watching that.
My first step was to decide on the size of circles and cut the Wash-Away Applique sheets and freezer paper in those sizes. I based the size on the size of Go! dies that I have. I used 5" for the shibori and 1" for the centers of my flower applique circles.

Leah doesn't use the Wash_Away Applique sheets but I like them because they stay inside the applique and they prevent anything under that applique from showing through.

I fuse the applique sheets to the back of my fabrics. The biggest thing I learned from Leah was to leave large margins around the applique. I used to trim the fabric to about 1/4" but watching the video I learned how much easier it was to work with them with wider margins.That tip was genius!

Next I fused 2 layers of freezer paper together like Leah recommends and ironed that over the applique sheet.

Then it was time to make some starch. I use this recipe. I don't use much but it's cheap to make. I put a little into a small cup and found a small paintbrush.

With the paintbrush I add some starch just around the edge of the applique shape.

Leah's video give more detail about the process but you can see here how much easier it is to get a great sharp edge when you have more fabric to work with. I just carefully work around the applique painting and pressing with the tip or edge of the iron.

After it's all pressed I'll trim the excess fabric, peel out the freezer paper and press it one more time.

That's a pretty cgood circle!

Here are a set of circles ready to applique. 
​
That hideous background fabric is just something I use to cover the ironing board to protect it from getting a lot of starch on it. That gem is from my Aunt's fabric stash that she gifted to me over 10 years ago. 

​Marcy is back doing more quilting today so we'll have a post soon to show how to fix a major quilting faux pas.

This week's Gem is from Rene Iannarelli. This is a departure from the quilts we are accustomed to seeing from Rene and but it's no less striking. She made this in a class with Elizabeth Barton. The greens are all hand dyed fabric and she used a variety of green Shades Packs including Juniper and Pine.

​If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months!