I didn't get quite as much reading done in June as I usually do. I "only" read 9 books. I got sidetracked with a lot of podcasts this month. I'll start my quick analysis with my two least favorite books: Magic Hour by Kristen Hannah and Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. They weren't bad book but they were a bit of a let down. I read 2 C. J. Box books this month. I needed them as palette cleansers after the two DNF books below. The books that held my atten best were the three non-fiction books: Legacy (which will be of interest to my British friends), The Least of Us (to help develop more compassion and empathy) and Nothing to Envy (to make me grateful that I was born in a Western country).

My listening time for June was 106 hours and 40 minutes. Year to date that's 728 hours and 35 minutes.

DNF Books:
​The Eight by Katherine Neville - If you like Dan Brown you will love this book. I'd guess that this book is one that inspired his writing. I'm not a fan of this genre of mystical historical artifacts with magical powers.
The Widows of Malabar Hill - I'm not sure if this is a good book or not because the narration on the audio version is intolerable. You completely lose sight of this being set in India in the 1920's with an overly excited contemporary American accent.

​What good books have you read recently?

Sleeping in the Ground (659)
By Peter Robinson, Read By James Langton

I read the first in the Inspector Banks series last month and this month I've skipped to book number 24, proving that you do not need to read these books in order!

The action starts at the first paragraph with a shooter at a wedding party. The case seems to resolve itself quickly with the culprit's discovery. But something doesn't add up and Banks is on the case.

​Good narration, fast paced and an enjoyable read.

Legacy (880)
By Thomas Harding, Read By Mark Meadows

If you like family or business history or if you are from the UK, I think you will enjoy this book. This is the story of the family that built the J. Lyons company, knows for the Trocadero, corner coffee houses, tea, ice cream and baked goods. But it all started with a man named Lehmann Gluckstein who escaped the pograms and immigrated to Whitechapel (London) in the early 1800's. What started as a small tobacco factory turned into a family-run empire. This is basically the story of modern Britain as told through generations of one family.

The Highway (589)
By CJ Box, Read By Holter Graham

Both of the DNF books above came after I read Legacy. I was afraid I was going to be starting a rash of bad books so I quickly picked the 2nd book in the Highway Quartet series by CJ Box. I knew I could count on Box to give me an enjoyable read. 

He did not disappoint.

I think this series absolutely needs to be read in order. There's just so much that carries forward from book 1 to book 2 and I can see from publisher summaries that 3 and 4 are continuations of this book. I'm actually going to get them soon so I don't forget the various storylines.

In this one, Danielle and Gracie (from book 1) are on Thanksgiving break and driving to Montana to meet up with Danielle's boyfriend. Danielle is an incredibly annoying, irresponsible and self-absorbed young woman. She's also beautiful which makes her a great target for the truck driver that she just passed on the highway.

When they disappear, Cody Hoyt (from book 1 and father of the boyfriend) and his new police partner, Cassie Dewell start a search. They find something much bigger than just 2 girls missing.

It's very fast paced and Box isn't afraid to kill off a main character.

The Least of Us (769)
By Sam Quinnones, Read By Tom Jordan

In 2016 I read Dreamland by this same author. It was all about the OxyContin epidemic. This book is a follow up with a broader focus.

On the addiction side he talks about how synthetic opioids, like the many varieties of fentanyl, have made addiction even worse and much harder to overcome. But he also addresses how our addictions to things like sugar work in a similar way.

As to causes, he doesn't leave any stones unturned, including corporate America's focus on creating food addictions. He gives special attention to the vile Sackler family that hold special responsibility for much of the opioid crisis.

But he also talks about he we work out way out of some of this by focusing on our own communities. I couldn't put it down.

If a book like this interests you, you might also like Soft White Underbelly on YouTube. Creator, Mark Laita, posts daily interview videos with people that we would normally never meet. There's everything from drug addicts, prostitutes and pimps to homeless people, ex-cons and immigrants. He really humanizes these people and builds a little more empathy for how people end up the way they do. They don't all deserve the empathy but many do.

The House in the Woods (557)
By Mark Dawson, Read By Simon Vance

This is the first in a new series for me. 
DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a murder scene at a remote farmhouse. A couple and two of their adult children have been shot. They were discovered by the only surviving brother, Ralph Malander.

Eventually the investigation determines that Ralph is the one who killed his family. Ralphs's wife hires PI Atticus Priest to help get Ralph acquitted.  Priest and Jones have a history. He used to be a detective working for her and they had also had an affair.  He left the force and started his on private investigation agency.

One of Atticus' talents is his knowledge of behavioral analysis and that gave this book an interesting twist. There are only 2 books in this series so far but I look forward to others. 

Nothing to Envy (749)
By Barbara Demick, Read by Karen White

I'm not sure how this book came on my radar but I'm glad it did. It was written in 2009 but it's still very relevant today.

This book is about life in North Korea as told through the lives of 6 people who were about to escape. These people aren't the privileged people of the party, these are normal everyday people who struggled to survive during the famine of the 1990's.

 The author was a foreign correspondent for the LA Times assigned to Beijing and Seoul. These are the stories of people she met in South Korea and is one of the best non-fiction books I've read  this year.

Before The Fall (775)
By Noah Hawley, Read By Robert Petkoff

11 passengers and 3 crew members leave Martha's Vineyard one evening for a charter flight back to New York. The plane crashes in the ocean. Scott Burroughs, a last minute passenger, and a 4 year old boy are the only survivors. The passengers are 2 very influential people and one was about to have serious legal troubles. 

The book opens with the crash and then begins to tell the story of all of the passengers and crew leading up to the fateful day. It is not "one of the year's best suspense novels" as the cover says. I never really felt a lot of true suspense. I was hooked from the beginning but by the last third I felt that it slowed down. It was an interesting read and it kept me engaged. The ending wasn't really a surprise. The best part of the story was the survival of Scott and the boy and the development of their relationship.

The author is the creator of the TV series Fargo and I could easily see this as a "Who shot JR?" style series where the action happens in the first episode and the rest of the episodes try to unravel the cause of the crash. 

Magic Hour (878)
By Kristen Hannah, Read by Suzanne Torren

I have a love/hate relationship with Kristen Hannah. I love some of her books and others just don't click with me. This is one of the latter.

The story is about a girl who appeared out of the forest in the Pacific Northwest. She was wild and couldn't talk. A child psychologist who has had some recent problems comes home to treat the little girl. This book is basically a Hallmark movie in book format. If you like those kinds of stories this is for you. It was a little light for my tastes. Things resolved too easily.For example, it was obvious that at some point that the girl would run away. It took all of 15 minutes to find her. I prefer my stories with a little more drama. But I finished it because I wanted to find out how a young child could live in the woods of the PNW during cold winters. 

This book has been re-released for some reason so if you like KH, be sure to check and see if you have read this one already. It was originally released in 2005.

Shadow Reel (544)
By CJ Box, Read By David Chandler

This is #22 in the Joe Pickett series. I would have expected this series to have run it's course by now but I'm still enjoying it. 

It's Thanksgiving 2020 and the Pickett girls are coming home for the weekend. Joe thinks he's preparing for a quiet holiday weekend when he gets notice of a dead moose carcass. On further inspection it's not a moose, it's the dead body of a local fishing guide. At the same time Joe's wife, Mary Beth, has found a mysterious Nazi artifact on the front porch of the library and doesn't know who has left it there but there seems to be someone else in town who wants it badly.

Meanwhile, Nate Romanowski, is tracking down the person who stole his falcons and attacked his wife and daughter in the last book. His track will lead him into the middle of Antifa and BLM riots in two major cities.

This one had two really interesting and creative storylines in my opinion. I was listening to a lot of it on a Monday and I got so involved in the story that I started to think it was Thursday.

This weekend was a unicorn weekend. There was a family party, a black tie wedding and a visit with a friend/former coworker visiting from the UK for the first time since the fungilitis. Everything I'm talking about in this post was done Friday because absolutely nothing else happened this weekend except pure fun. As I write this Sunday night, I'm exhausted! I haven't talked this much in 2 days in a long time. Not to mention the first time in a dress in 6 years....seriously. I hate wearing dresses but I'm grateful to my friend, Marcy, for lending me a perfect dress for the wedding. 

​I quilted 2 veterans quilts on Friday and that's about it. This one was made by Mom.

It's kind of hard to tell from the whole quilt but this is the basic block. This 8" x 10" block is perfect for our 48 x 60 veterans quilts.

This is the second one that I quilted and I like it too!

Same ole' stars and ribbons pantograph worked perfectly for these. It doesn't show on the front but it make the back pretty.

I also got all of the HST 4-patch blocks together! Now I can get this top put together.

This week's inspiration is an art quilt by Elyse Everett. She pieced and quilted on her Bernina 770. It was inspired by Paul Gauguin's Tahiti Landscape paintings.

For sharing, Elyse 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. 

This is how many baby hats you can get out of one 377 yard ball of Yarn Bee Sweet Delight yarn. That little ball in the middle is all that's left. I had that ball left over from the baby blanket I shared last week.

​I'm going to re-share the details so that I have the pattern references all in one place.

These are preemie hats from a pattern called Teeniebeenie by Hooked on Sunshine. This is a fun pattern to make and I hope that these tiny hats are genuinely useful. I'm not confident.

This one was the most fun one to make. The pattern is Vintage Pearl Baby Hat by Hopeful Honey.

Honestly, I'm happy to be done with the hats but I'm glad I was able to make use of that last bit of yarn.

There isn't going to be a ton of productivity this weekend. We have a surprisingly social weekend with a party Saturday afternoon, wedding Saturday night and meeting up with a friend from England Sunday. Fortunately the next week is our usual quiet, hermit-like existence.

It's a simple quilt made from leftovers but I really like the end result. The blues are cut from the scraps of dyed quilt backs for other veterans quilts. The prints are leftovers from the previous 12 veterans quilts that I've made over the last 2 years. I do love using leftovers.

I had so many leftovers that I made 2 quilts!

I decided that these quilts could use some bold red thread for the quilting and I used the stars and ribbons pantograph that I use all of the time on the veterans quilts.

I have 8 more veterans quilts to quilt (2 at a time) and here's the next pair that will be loaded today or tomorrow. I picked these because I will use the same pantograph.

This week and (upcoming weekend) has been busy with appointments and activities but next week is looking pretty free. I think I can get all 8 quilts quilted by July 2.

Here's a photo of the 33 quilts that we delivered to our VA hospital contact last week. We love making these quilts!

`This pat weekend I needed to clean up all of the sun printing paraphernalia out of the garage. There's a lot of it that I didn't want to bring back in the house so I decided to see if I could use up most of the remaining paint. I really don't see myself doing any more sun printing for a while and I'll buy any specific paint that I need when that time comes. The paint I had was in my stash over 2 years. I spent a couple more hours painting and printing and here are the rest of the fabrics that I made.

I'm including 2 photos of each set of fabrics with one as a close up. These 4 are more pasta and lace. I kept all of the lace fabrics in my supplies but I tossed all of the pasta. All of that pasta has been in my studio for many years and I'm surprised I hadn't attracted a lot of bugs.

More buttons (that I did not toss out), gears that I collected from my old asthma inhalers and wood snowflakes that a friend gave me. Estelle is going to be upset that I had forgotten about the gears, snowflakes and keys (below). I only found them after they left from the first sun printing session. The plastic gears in asthma inhalers are very cool but I'm glad to be cured of the need for them!

Keys, spaghetti, foam shapes and another piece of lace.

After 2 session fo sun printing I have a stash of 32 fat quarters! This will hold me for several years of postcards and other little projects.

​Time to get back to quilting.

I don't know how the weather was where you are but here in Virginia is was pretty much perfect. It's very rare that we can tolerate the windows open in the summer but we had them open all weekend. I even took my yoga mat to the back porch Sunday morning and did my yoga listening to the river. 
Absolutely perfect.

It was also a good weekend for my hobbies too. First, I finished my sun printing and as I write this I realize that I forgot to take photos of the new fabrics. I'll do that for Wednesday's post.

I also made a few more crochet hats and I'll share after I finish off the rest of the skein before I share those.

I did all kinds of different things this weekend starting with restocking my lotion (liquid) and lotion bars. I use the lotion bars for my feet at night. Lotion bars are also great for dry elbows and knees. Making your own lotion is a great way to save a few dollars. It's so inexpensive to make your own and it takes no time at all. I'm all set for at least 6 months.

I whittled away on my stack of HST blocks. I'm chain piecing pairs now and then will start making them into 4 patch blocks.

I got my 2 veterans quilts quilted so they are ready to bind this week and then I'll get two more loaded and quilted. I think I have 6 more ready to be quilted and I got the backing dyed and ironed for all of them.

Then I finished off the weekend with this little project. I bought two of these diamond painting kits in Paducah. I've seen lots of people doing this and wanted to see if I might like it. These are stickers that I thought I'd make for Ella, Eli and their cousins. I'm going to see them this coming weekend so it was time to get them done.

I think they are really cute. I think the kids will like them. I will not do this hobby again. It just doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather work a puzzle or crochet.

This week I want to get two more veterans quilts quilted, make a lot more progress on the the HST quilt and bind the veterans quilts. I also plan to dye fabric for my new Judy Niemeyer quilt and the sashing for Groovy 3. 

Speaking of Groovy 3, I picked 4 possibilities for sashing for Groovy 3. I've narrowed it down to the light blue or light green. My friend, Anne, prefers the blue but I might go green. I'll decide by Wednesday.

I don't know how yesterday got away from my but I totally forgot to post. Don't worry, no one missed anything. There's never much actual excitement happening around here and that's just as I like it.

I got some quilt back dyed so I can start quilting more veterans quilts this weekend and I'm still piecing away at the HST veterans quilt a few minutes each day. But my attention was mostly drawn to the skein of yarn remaining from the baby blanket I showed Wednesday. I decided to try out some hat patterns.

I've used a little more than a third of the yarn and so far have 2 preemie hats and one baby hat. The styrofoam ball is 5" and I've been told that I can size baby hats by making them to fit the ball. My baby hat will fit a styrofoam baby perfectly. 
I had to search for some new patterns because this is a 3 weight yarn and most of my patterns are for 4 weight yarn. Yes, I could make adjustments but this was a good excuse to waste some more time on the internet. 
I really wish this yarn photographed accurately. It's so much prettier in real life but the camera really wants it to be gray.

This is called the Teenybeanie and it's a free pattern on Ravelry. I made one with F and G hooks and one with G and H hooks to get 2 different sizes. It's a really well written pattern and I'm just assuming that these will fit a preemie baby. These were really quick to make!

This hat is the one that fits the 5" ball and is supposedly for 0 - 3 months. The motif is based on the Call The Midwife blanket. It's called Vintage Vibes Baby Beanie and it's by The Crochet Fix. She also has coordinating Vintage Vibes Adult Hat and Vintage Vibes Baby Blanket patterns. Both of the hat patterns are free. This is also a well written pattern and it has several versions, including preemie versions. I'll just keep making the hats in this pattern until the yarn is used up.

I keep a hat crochet project going that I can take to meetings or office visits and I finished another one this week at the quilt club meeting. Mostly what I'm making now are chemo hats and I use Lion Brand Feels Like Butta yarn so that the hats are super soft. This is the Amazing Grace pattern that I keep using over and over. I love it and it makes a really flattering beanie. I use a J hook for the body of the hat and finish off with 3 rows of SC using an H hook because I'm too lazy to do the required pattern decreases.

On the topic of yarn, I have a theory that most of the Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee yarn is the same as Lion Brand yarn. I like Lion Brand yarn a lot so I've become familiar with it. At the clearance sale last week I picked up some of the Yarn Bee anti-pilling yarn and it seems identical to the Lion Brand version. Even the yardage is the same. I also picked up some of the Yarn Bee Breathe Deep (on clearance) and it's totally the same as Feels Like Butta. The colors I got aren't Lion Brand colors but the yarn is identical. I've not got plenty to keep hat making all year!

The weather this weekend is really nice. Chris and I went for a walk this morning and I'll be weeding later today. Aside from that I'm going to be working on ironing quilt backs and getting some veterans quilts in the frame for quilting. I also need to finish off my sunprinting and get all of that stuff put away. I can also make more hats and sew more on the HST quilt. So many options!

This yarn is impossible to photograph to get the color right. I assure you that it's a very pretty pale purple. This is one super soft little blanket!

It finished to about 32" x 35" and that red marker is where I was at the last update. From this photo it looks like the last skein was a different dye lot. Fortunately this isn't visible in real life.

I know it takes longer but I do love putting borders on blankets. I don't do it often but it was the border that drew me to the pattern.

Here are all the details:
Yarn: Yarn Bee Sweet Delight, 3 weight, about 1200 yards
​Pattern: Vintage Inspired Fan Stitch blanket by Blossom Crochet
​Hook Size H, 5.0mm

This photo is the closest to the real color of this yarn but it's still not quite right.

​I bought this yarn at the Hobby Lobby clearance last year and I have one skein left. I'm going to try some baby hats to use it up but it's possible that I will make one and then just donate the rest to a local group. This whole blanket cost less than $4!

Speaking of the Hobby Lobby annual clearance, it happened at my HL this week. I happened to go there the day she was marking everything down. I have a rule that I don't buy more than I can carry in my arms. No carts allowed! Although the nice lady working there offered me her cart. This year I picked up yarn for 3 - 4 charity projects and one of them was another color of this yarn. The other 2 yarns will be for shawls or wheelchair blankets. I got 2 bags of yarn for $18! I'm really glad that I didn't take her up on the cart offer. I could have gone a little crazy.

I still have my other 2 crochet projects in process and am making good progress. I like working on a different project each night so I'll start a new baby blanket soon and I think it will be with more of last year's HL clearance yarn.

There was no time for a newsletter or shop post yesterday because there was fun to be had! I haven't done sun printing in a couple of years and I wanted to use my stash of paints. So I invited my friends, Estelle and Marcy, over to sun print with me.

While sun printing is a lot of fun I do have some issues working with paints and have gotten to a point where I don't really do much with fabric paints anymore. I can use them outside and that's what we did yesterday. My goal is to use up my sunprinting paints and to not buy more unless I have a specific project in mind.

Sun printing doesn't actually require the sun. It works by drying out the fabric and wicking the paint/liquid out from under the mask. The sun helps by drying the fabric faster but a dry hot cloudy day works well too. We lucked out with a sunny and very hot day. Our fabrics processed quickly. We used all kinds of things for masks as you will see in my fabrics.

This set is mostly done with lace. Lace is great for sun printing. The two in the upper left are done by painting the fabric and then folding it up. As it dries the fabric wicks to the top of the folds.

The two like this will likely become project bags.

This lace is from a curtain panel from the thrift store. Doesn't it work great for sun printing?

In this set I used buttons, another lace panel, pasta and leaves. 

Button prints are great for lots of different projects like postcards, notion bags, coasters......anything but quilts. I have a bag of buttons that I set aside for just sun printing.

This one is probably my favorite. I think the original fabric was a sheer shower curtain liner cover. It might be a sheer curtain panel. Whatever the source, this will be great for a postcard background.

Pasta is a surprisingly good mask for sun printing. I like using these fabrics for making potholder and kitchen things. I've had 4 bags of pasta in my stash for at least 8 years and they still don't have bugs in them.

We have so may walnut trees on our property that I wanted a couple of fabrics with walnut tree leaves. I love how these turned out.

Here's the stack ready for heat setting.
We had a fun day and I love the results but I'll have a moment of honesty. I don't use these fabrics as often as I should. I still have a small stash of sun prints left from a few years ago. I have learned that using them in a quilt is not a good idea. I made my Maine quilt from all sun prints and the fabrics do fade with washing. I will only use these for small projects and postcards. 

After our session I still have some paints left so I'm thinking about going out Friday and doing another session to use up the last of my paints and then I will cull some of my sun printing supplies. It's time to downsize this little hobby. I've decided that I prefer playing more with thickened dyes than with paints. I did this same downsizing exercise with my metallic paints in 2019 and I have a nice stash of metallic painted fabrics that I've used in some postcard designs. Now I'll have a new stash of sun prints and a little more breathing room in my dye studio.