11th Anniversary, Sewing Room Action

We can't believe it, but 11 years ago today - June 23, 2012 - we moved into our Florida home, from Iowa!

I posted about our 2012 move-in day, which timed with torrential rains that began falling from Tropical Storm Debby. Having gone through serious snowmelt-rainfall floods in the Des Moines area in 1993 (much of the city lost drinking water for weeks), I vividly remember going into our brand new Florida house thinking we'd have to begin sandbagging! In hindsight, that's funny because here, we live on a big sand pile. Ha! After a rain, we may have squishy grass, but never puddles. 

In previous years I've posted about changes to our area, but now that growth is seven to eight miles south of us, I haven't been "down there" to check it out.

In my sewing room, progress has been measurable on a couple of projects, the first being Unallocated which is now a completed quilt top. I'm very happy with it, and relieved to have an empty design wall since my sewing room will become a bedroom next week when Texas grandsons come for a visit. 

My Unallocated quilt top is 61" X 82". It's now been folded and hung across a hanger to await quilting. I had to tell it, "Get in line" because three quilts are ahead of it in the queue! Two already have some quilting (one is the improv quilt; picture below), and one is basted and ready for quilting. 

I added a faced finish to my Matchstick Quilting Workshop quilt which ended up 16" X 16".

Top threads are Aurifil 50-weight, 28-weight, and 12-weight.

The back is actually my favorite view. 

In case you need it, the faced finish tutorial I like best is on the We All Sew/Bernina site, by Hayley Grzych. Instead of cutting 5" squares for each corner, mine are 4" squares.

Keeping up with Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr's Summer Camp Modern Mystery Quilt Along, this week I completed 18 blocks for the second installment. Blocks to make for each installment are chosen by your summertime/summer camp preference. For example: Shorts? or Sundress?

Mistakenly, I cut out pieces for a block I didn't need to make - One-Piece? or Bikini? I chose one-piece, but cut out bikini. Sheesh. After cutting out and piecing one-piece, I went ahead and pieced bikini too, for a total of 22 blocks.  You can probably guess which block (front and center) is called "Bikini"!

By the way, these blocks are not actually referred to by these names. Weeks and Bill just came up with some fun titles for them, based on their summer camp theme. Fun.  

Here's an updated look at Alternate Route that I'm quilting. I've machine quilted with a walking foot and done ruler work, and now I've started adding big stitch hand quilting using - surprise! - thread colors in my stash. 

Royal blue stitching is with DMC #8 perle cotton, color 797. Lavender stitching is with Cosmo six-stand embroidery floss color 2281, using three strands at a time. 

Book Recommendation

Together Tea by Marjan Kamali is story about Mina, a Tehranian teenaged girl who lives through Iran's revolution, and the start of government-mandated behavior for women - modestly wearing a coat, a head covering, not meeting others' eyes, etc. 

While it's still possible to get out of the country, Mina's parents and brothers flee to New York City where they learn a different way of living, adopting American ways. Yet, Mina's parents, particularly her mother Darya, want to order Mina's life - go to business college rather than be an artist; accept an arranged marriage rather than not marry, or marry for love. 

Yet, a dozen years later, when Darya and Mina return to Iran, Mina recognizes the beauty of the Persian culture they left behind, as she also fears government regulations that remain. Mina finds a new appreciation for her life - possibly a new man - and what that offers. 

Linda's score: 3.9/5.0

Author Mary Kubica is typically a favorite writer, however with Every Last Lie I thought the main character, Clara, was a little "too much." She overthinks everything. 

But to give Clara a little grace, she's just given birth to Felix, her second child. Her doting husband, Nick, has offered to give Clara a break and take their four year-old daughter, Maisie, to her ballet lesson. On the way home, driving too fast, Nick crashes. Maisie is unhurt, but within a few days begins to display unwarranted fears of black cars; a man wearing a hat and gloves, and "a bad man." 

Unrested, unkempt and reeling from Nick's death, Clara discovers random things - a receipt from a jewelry store; money missing from her father's bank account; a neighbor's aggressive behavior; and a suspicion about another woman. 

Told between present day, and Nick's "before" flashbacks, Clara's suspects and then becomes insistent that someone else caused Nick's death. 

I frequently wanted to throttle Clara! Way too often she jumps to highly unlikely - impossible - conclusions. So if Ms. Kubica wanted to provoke me through the telling of this story, her method worked!

Linda's score: 3.8/5.0

Linda