Quilting Circles

The entire focus of sewing time has been on my Central Florida MQG Scrap Challenge quilt that's due to be shared at our Saturday, April 17 outdoor meeting at a local park. 

This is the 71" x 80" quilt top. 

Last weekend was spent machine quilting.

I spiral-quilted the 14 scrap-pieced inset circles by walking foot quilting along the outside edge of the circle, spiraling to the inside. When the space remaining to be quilted inside the circle was about 4" to 5" - because the interior of the circle was too tight for a walking foot - I used an air-erasable marker to free-hand draw the remaining spiral that I free motion quilted after switching to a quilting foot. 

When the scrappy circles were quilted, I quilted the inside and outside of each of the seven inset rings.

Then I used a Hera marker and these nested acrylic circles to draw different-sized randomly-placed double rings (one inch between each ring) across the entire quilt - mimicking the quilting around the rings. These were walking foot quiltedwith white thread.

The machine-quilted rings can be seen here, on either side of the pieced ring.

Now I'm big stitch hand quilting, again using a Hera marker and an acrylic circle to draw different sized circles to quilt with one of nine colors of size 8 pearl cotton.

I'm lovin' the effect! The design, with all that negative space, seemed empty before. Big stitched circles add more interest and dimension. I'll keep going until I think I've quilted enough. 

Circles are quick to stitch when the length of each stitch is ⅜" to ½". 

I'd thought to use black and white striped binding to finish the quilt, but a friend (Judi @willwork4fabric) pointed out that black fabric with white circles would be more appropriate. I found these at my LQS, Sew Together. Now to decide which looks best. 

While the dot fabrics were being cut, I spied two wide-back bolts that had just arrived. Two yards of each of these came home with me because I'm out of wide backs. Darn, but I wish I'd had that circle print, on the right, to use as backing on this circles quilt! It would have been too perfect.

Book Recommendations

You can tell it's been nearly a week since I posted because I have three books to recommend! All three were pleasant entertainment. With the first two titles, you'll think I've been on an Australia kick, as they both take place there and are narrated with the best Aussie accents!

I have listened to other books by Sally Hepworth, and like those, The Family Next Door is one that keeps the reader guessing. The story is about several families who live on the same street in a Melbourne suburb. Readers get to know three women in particular - one who is happily married, but has struggled with postpartum depression; one who is happily married, but has a big secret; and one who has recently moved into the neighborhood, and is suspiciously single. Stories revolve around infidelity, raising babies, and the angst of infant abduction. I didn't see some of it coming, and some of it I did. 

Linda's score: 4.2/5.0

The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton is crude and simultaneously, interesting. Jaxson is a teenage who's lived a hard life with an abusive father. Upon finding his father dead, Jaxie flees on foot, entering desolate and threatening land in Western Australia. But he wants to be far away from people. When alone, he often thinks of Lee, the love he vows to return to. In the meantime, he fends for himself, hunting emu and 'roo in a rugged and unforgiving environment... until he encounters another man who's more alone and isolated than Jaxie. 

My big forewarning about this book is language! Jaxie swears. A lot, and frequently. And he uses Australian slang. Having been to Australia myself, I came home with my own "dictionary" of Australian lingo - like "arvo" means afternoon; and "bitumen" is a road. But Jaxie's narration had me stumped a few times. I had to look up words like "manky" which means dirty or filthy. But most of the slang can be intuited by context.

I'd call this book raw. But it's also insightful. If you can get past the language, it would be a good one for discussion.

Linda's score: 4.4/5.0

The Glass Forest by Cynthia Swanson takes place in the US. 

Angie and Paul Glass are recently married and living with their infant son in Door County, Wisconsin. When Paul's brother Henry, in Stonekill, New York is found dead (an apparent suicide) and Henry's wife Sijla is missing, Paul and Angie fly to New York to help 17 year-old Ruby through the devastation of being parentless. While staying in the Glass family's ultra-modern home at the edge of the woods, Angie makes discoveries about the Glass boys - including her own husband! - that have been kept quiet. And Angie learns that Ruby knows more than she's letting on. 

Given that the story takes place from the 1940s to 1960, it includes: the audaciousness of a career woman; being suspicious of everyone because they might be a communist; building a bomb shelter; and smoking on an airplane in a movie theater.

 

Linda's 4.0/5.0

While Face Timing with Texas grandsons last week, I got to watch Max the dog loving-up our youngest grandson, Luke. Don't they look sweet together?

I've gotten out of the house a little more this past week - going line dancing; golf-carting to a specialty store for much-needed clothing; and visiting my LQS - and have continued to take "refuge" (my 2021 word of the year) in devotions, and Sunday morning online worship with Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, Iowa.

I'm noticing that churches are welcoming its members back into their sanctuaries for in-person worship. Although we've attended 14 different churches through the 8½ years we've lived here, we haven't found a local church to call home. So, I'll keep attending online, and appreciate this pretty, spirit-filling Sunday morning view. 

It's particularly appropriate that Sunday morning is Palm Sunday. I've got palm fronds! Linda