She-Cave Refuge

In a week, when it feels like life in the US has blown up again, and Coronavirus numbers are ever-increasing, refuge in my sewing room/she-cave is where I feel safest... where I pray about concerns and fears, find solace in God's Word, and make. 

Scrappy inset circles that first received attention in December, have evolved. Experimenting with circles has been of great interest, after seeing (on Instagram) blocks made by @mariquilts. Marianne doesn't provide info about how she makes them, so I attempted to figure it out. I came up with this scrappy ring. It turned out okay, though I'll say that it takes longer to piece scrappy squares of fabric from which to cut concave and convex circles than it does to actually cut and sew an inset circle!

I wrecked the beauty of the ring when I set a striped circle into it. UGH! It looks like a woman's ugly purse! We learn from our failures, right? This will be discarded, or possibly put on the back of a quilt. 

You may have noticed that the first scrappy circles I made were were set into the background at angles. Well, I decided I didn't like that look... after making 11 blocks! Of course. That's exactly how I operate.

So, I took each block apart and reset every scrappy circle perpendicularly. I'll like them better because I want to try inserting vertical and horizontal scrappy strips. I don't know how the composition will evolve, but here I am. 

During the day, I seem to work best at the sewing machine. By evening I'm ready for hand work.

I love hand piecing, but have yet to finish a hand-pieced project. The last piece I worked on was this Starfish quilt. Progress came to a halt in September because I ran out of gray background fabric. Thus far I have been unable to determine which Kona (if it IS Kona) gray it might be. I bought the fabric in 2010 or 2011, because I began hand-piecing in March 2011. Yep, it's been around for too long and I'd like to finish it. But how to accomplish it. I'm thinking to introduce a different background color around the entire perimeter of the 53" X 55" piece to make it bigger - useable.

For now, I'm moving on.

About three years ago I bought Jen Kingwell's book Quilt Lovely, sole-y because I have always admired Glitter a pattern on page 7. After buying the book I made a test block using the book's paper templates to cut fabrics and machine sew. What a disaster! Another big failure. (Whew. Today's confessions are painful!

Below is Jen Kingwell's scrappy version of Glitter from the book. You can also see my Kiwi friend, Wendy's Glitter quilt here. She hand-pieced it and won an award!

When Glitter acrylic templates were recently on sale @sewmodernchicky - online here - in Jacksonville (Florida), I took the opportunity to start another hand-piecing project. 

Choosing fabrics from my scrap bins, I set myself to make a test block. It's nice to have templates from which to cut fabric, but especially to mark the seam intersection dots. Then it's connect-the-dots to draw a seam line. I do this line-drawing step on fine-grit sandpaper, so the fabric doesn't stretch while I'm dragging the pencil across it.

Each 13-patch Glitter block measures 3½" X 9⅛" unfinished.

Voilá! One down; 151 to go. My plan is to use solid and print scraps in a color combo that's orange, yellow, hot pink, and (maybe) red. Few reds are in my stash or scraps, so I'll see how that goes.

During "limbo week," between Christmas and New Year's, I started Kawandi #4 with more of my grandmother's vintage fabric. It's coming along nicely.

Book Recommendation

I'm happy to share my first 2021 book recommendation! It's The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Hiram Walker is a Virginia slave, and half-brother to Malcolm, the tobacco plantation owner's son. When Malcolm and Hi tumble into a river, Hi experiences a mysterious power that saves his life, and changes it. Though Hi has received some education, and is better treated than others, he wants to escape and take Sophia with him. But an unexpected intervention changes Hi's plans, putting him in a place where he can save others, and develop the ability handed down to him from his grandmother.

The author refers to slaves as "taskers," never using terms or language that I'm accustomed to reading in books such as Gone With the Wind. The story delivers greater understanding of the underground railroad, tasker families, their lives and an empathy for their desire to be reunited with family.

Linda's score: 4.3/5.0 

Through Lutheran Church of Hope (West Des Moines, Iowa) I've begun a six-week online Bible study called Get Out of Your Head with Jennie Allen. In the first video lesson, Jennie shared this nugget that is surely the only way to fix the world's wrongs.

Amen. Linda