Before I announce the winners from the drawings last week I want to send a special thank you to the state of Maine. It's not called "The Vacation State" for nothing! I needed to escape the heat and humidity of Virginia and give my asthma a break. We decided to try Maine. The weather was spectacular and we really enjoyed seeing Portland and Acadia and eating lots of lobster. We can't wait to go back.


But let's get to what's important to you, the winners!

Monday Drawing of Warm Fabrics - Suzanne Kistler
Tuesday Drawing of Cool Fabrics - Lynda Hermann
Wednesday Drawing of Glass Dish - Allison Church Bird
Thursday Drawing of Quilt Kit - Terrie Mc
Friday Drawing of Beach Towel  - Karen Jantzi
Saturday Drawing of "Waste" Fabrics - Susan Hecker

Congratulations to all of the winners. Each has been notified if I do not hear from a winner by Monday I will draw another winner for that prize. We have friends visiting in October so I'm feeling another blog break/giveaway week coming on so stay tuned!

Today is supposed to be the day that I post my August books. I'll get that out tomorrow. I don't have any energy left for that today.

Blame it on the Olympics. I had more TV time than book listening time in August but I still managed 7 books. I think my favorites were The Seamstress and Lee, both non-fiction. The non-fiction books are all continuation of series that I like.
Football watching season starts this weekend so I expect my book run rate to stay about the same as August for the next few months.

The Seamstress
​by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

This book was published in 1999 so I might be the last person to read it but it was worth the wait. It's the true story of Seren (Sara), a Jewish girl born in Romania and her fight for survival through the war and during her time in the Nazi camps. It's about the human ability to adapt and believe everything will be OK no matter the clues all around us. It's the story about the human ability and will to survive against all odds. It's about the human ability to survive all that and compartmentalize it enough to move on and build a happy and productive life. This books ranks up there with Unbroken as one of my all-time favorite books.

Her Final Breath
by Robert Dugoni

Tracey Crosswhite, a Seattle detective, is back in the second installment of the series. This time she is investigating a serial killer known as The Cowboy. He preys on exotic dancers. Her superior seems to be doing everything he can to thwart the investigation, including arresting the wrong person.

This is only the second Crosswhite book but I'm enjoying the  series so far.

Great Mythologies of the World
The Great Courses

If you are interested in mythology then this is the book for you. It's a heavy "tome" of 31 hours. What I loved about it is that it's not just about Greek mythology. It's in 4 parts with 4 different lecturers. The first part covers Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The second part takes us to Africa. part 3 covers Asian and pacific myths and the last part covers the Americas. It's really fascinating since most of us aren't taught much beyond Greek mythology but it is a lot to absorb. But if you can get through it all it is an excellent comparison, especially of the different creation myths but you must be prepared that you are really getting a college course with this one.

Copu d'Etat
by Ben Coes

After the college course I needed a book with some action and Dewey Andreas fit the bill. This is the second book in the Dewey series and it is action packed. We left Dewey on a station (ranch) in Australia. His nemesis from the first book is still hunting him to vindicate his son's death. Then the US comes calling to as him to force a Coup in Pakistan to save the region from nuclear annihilation. This is fast paced action from beginning to end. I liked it even better than the first one.

Lee: The Last Years
by Charles Flood

It turns out that this is the second book by Flood that I've read. Fortunately I didn't check my review of the first one before reading this one because I didn't care much for the book on Lincoln. This one, on the other hand, is very interesting.

The book opens with the surrender at Appomattox and follows his life until his death, not many years later. Most of that time was spent at Washington College (now Washington and Lee) and discusses the things he did to try to heal the rift between North and South and the ground-breaking changes that he introduced to education as president of WC. It's a very interesting book and I know that's a fact because the narration is rather weak. I wouldn't have been about to tolerate the narrator for a bad book.  

The Skin Gods
by Richard Montanari

I would not want to meet Richard Montanari. I think he would totally creep me out. He takes psychopathic behavior to a whole new level and I wouldn't want to know how he dreams this stuff up.
The Skin Gods is #2 in the Byrne and Balzano series. This time the killer is recreating some of the most recognizable crime scenes from movies and he's doing it on the streets of Philadelphia.
If you like psychopathic killer stories you will want to read this series.

.Raven Black
Ann Cleeves

I wanted to love this book because the author is apparently an award-winning crime writer in Britain. I think the books has been oversold as a "thriller". It's not. It's a pretty good mystery, but it's not a thriller.
It takes place in the Shetland Islands and starts with the discovery of a dead teenager in a field on a cold and snowy winter day. What follows is a pretty good and typical mystery that eventually has you thinking that almost anyone, except suspect #1, did it.
What I loved about the book is that it's centered around a big annual even called Up Helly Aa. That would have meant absolutely nothing to me except for the fact that the Up Helly Aa Jarl Squad purchased fabric from me a while back for their squad banners. It was fun to read something about the event. It's like a big Ren Faire just for Vikings. Here are the banners from last year.

Two of my brothers have birthdays this week so the card had to be somewhat masculine. I had the pine tree screen printed fabric from a screen printing session last year and I had a pile of brown scraps. After a couple of prototypes, here's the finished card. I was a little worried about how it looked but Chris guessed "pine cone" right away so I'm calling this a win.

I got a few more of my beach towels dyed last week. The green one turned out surprisingly nice!

Here's what they look like when they are being dyed.

Here are the other 2. One of them is one of the prizes from last week's giveaways. Have you entered all 6 drawings yet? You only have until tomorrow!

Saving the best for last....in my opinion! I call these my "waste" fabrics because they are used as part of the process to dye gradients. But they are my favorite fabrics to work with and I hoard them. I've pulled this collection to share with you.

Don't worry about me though, I still have plenty left!

You have until August 30 to enter the drawing and the winner will be announced August 31.

I'm in the process of dyeing over a dozen beach towels for a family vacation next summer but I'm sharing this one with you now! It's about 30" x 60 " and dyed bright turquoise, purple and blue. It would be a great Christmas gift for a young person.

You have until August 30 to enter the drawing and the winner will be announced August 31.

Today's prize is a kit for the High Noon art quilt designed by Deborah Levy. When you purchase the kit it comes with the pattern and gradient but for this drawing I'm adding in a sampling of other fabrics to help you get started on the applique. This package will also include a Mistyfuse sample for your applique.

Entry will be open through August 30 and the winner will be announced August 31.

Today we are switching gears away from fabric and sharing this cute little fused glass dish. I made this as a sample to see if I liked the patterning of the short rods and dots. I do like it a lot and will be doing more of these as soon as it cools down enough to fire the kiln again.

It it small but, I think, really useful. It would be a great place to toss your keys or coins. It could be a ring dish for your dresser. It could even be a spoon rest by the stove.

But I think I like it best as a soap dish and that's why it's coming to you with a bar of hand made soap.

The entries work the same all week. Enter in the Rafflecopter box below. You have until August 30 to enter and the winner will be announced August 31.

Yesterday's prize was a stash of warm hand dyed fabrics so today we're going to the cool side of the color wheel. Just like the warm fabrics, these are mostly bolt ends of fabric that have been dyed at the end of my dyeing sessions. Lots of lovely texture and a nice range of cool colors. 

You have multiple chance to enter. Entries close August 30 and the winner will be announced August 31.

We all need a vacation periodically even if we don't go anywhere. This week is my vacation from the internet and don't we all need an internet vacation from time to time. I don't want any crickets hanging around here so let's have a week's worth of giveaways and clean out some of my stash at the same time.

Let's kick off the week with a collection of hand dyed fabrics in warm colors. Most of these are bolt end pieces that I dye with leftover dyes. I get some great color texture on these and they work beautifully in scrappy quilts, landscape quilts and other art quilts.

Every day you will have multiple opportunities to enter. Everyone who visits here gets 1 entry. You can earn more entries if you subscribe to the newsletter, follow me on Facebook or are a customer. The entry window is from today through Tuesday, August 30. The winner will be announced Wednesday, August 31.