June Visitors, Making, Fabric Tracking, Reading

I'm late in posting my June fabric tracking (further down in this post), but I'm very okay with it! That's because we had company, and they're the kind of company we love having. 

Thirteen year-old Austin is a growing boy who easily downed a bowl of ice cream with all the toppings. Both boys had an archery lesson. 

 

We all like playing Rummikub, and nine year-old Luke brought his new turtle stuffy (baby turtle on his head) to the table. 

 

We found lots to do - boccé ball, golf cart driving and riding, Russell Stover's outlet store, Arts and Crafts Festival at the square. It was wonderful having the boys and their mom with us for four days/four nights. 

Since finishing the "Milky Way" Dropcloth Sampler, I've wanted another hand-embroidery project. I remembered that back in 2016 or so, I won Sarah Thomas's @sariditty Instagram giveaway of  her coloring book. All her designs are like quilting graffiti that she calls "sketchbook quilting."

I picked one design, resized it to 125%, and then used my light box to trace the 9" X 12" design onto Aruba Painter's Palette solid. 

I backed and machine edge-stitched it with a piece of white muslin, and began stitching with #8 Wonderfil Eleganza perle cotton. I'm have a great play with this!

Machine and hand quilting my Alternate Route improv quilt is coming along too. 

Keeping up with Weeks and Bill's "Summer Camp Modern Mystery Quiltalong," I completed 20 blocks for Installment 3 before family arrived. 

Installment 4 is 22 blocks (5½" X 5½" unfinished) that are cut and ready to sew. 

As for fabric yardage tracking, June was an okay month. While I came out ahead - using nearly 2½ more yards of fabric than I took in - my 8-yard fabric purchase was unplanned. It was also perhaps a bit unnecessary, but when your favorite place to buy Painter's Palette solids was going out of business - The Quilt Place, Orlando - and all fabric was 40 percent off, it's tough to pass by. I'll do better in July. 

Book Recommendations

When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer is the first book in the "Timeless" series, though I have already been disappointed to learn that the second book isn't available in my library apps. Not yet, anyway.

The story is about time travel, something that has always intrigued me. 

Libby lives in 1774 with her mother and two sisters. Since the death of their husband/father, they're running a print shop and producing the weekly news in Colonial Williamsburg.

A unique birthmark means Libby lives two lives, simultaneously, each night going to bed and awakening in her alternate life in 1914. There she's an elegant, rich, and eligible woman whose cold and calculating mother is determined to see Anna Elizabeth married into class and privilege. Libby's lives couldn't be more different.

By her 21st birthday, she must decide, forever, which period she will live in for the rest of her life. Certain she'll choose 1774 in spite of her foreknowledge of the coming revolution, circumstances in both places are forcing her to reassess.

I recommend reading this because it's a good stand-alone story, even if you're unable to access the second book.   

Linda's score: 4.0/5.0

Outside by Ragnar Jonasson takes place during a blizzard in Iceland. Only four characters are in this tale of dark secrets and death. 

Four friends - three fellas and one woman - meet at a hunting lodge, planning to hunt ptarmigan on the moors. As they're hiking and searching for game, a snow storm unexpectedly overwhelms them and they're forced to trod through strong winds, stinging snow, and frigid temperatures to get to a safe hut. There, they encounter something alarming, and makes them realize their dire situation. 

Most of the story isn't about what happens, though that's key, but about each person's past behaviors. The book is more about inter-relationships than what ensues on the moor. The brooding darkness of this story kept me from liking it very much. 

Linda's score: 3.7/5.0

Northern Spy by Flynn Berry follows Tessa, a newly-divorced mother of months-old Finn. Tessa works for the BBC in Belfast, Ireland. She and her sister Marian are very close, so when Tessa sees Marian on TV, involved in an IRA hold-up, she's sure Marian has been taken and is acting against her will.

While exchanging information with a detective in the local police, Tessa comes to realize that Marian is into the IRA more deeply than she or her mother realized. Yet Tessa can't believe she's mis-read Marian for so many years. 

When Marian approaches Tessa with a proposal, Tessa has to think of Finn and what it would mean to herself and her family if she agrees to help.

It was interesting to learn about activities in the IRA, and - if this is based on truth - how cruel and subversive the IRA can be. 

Linda's score: 3.9/5.0

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant follows Cooper and Finch, a father and his eight year-old daughter who live in a cabin located in a remote part of the Appalachian Mountains. Though Cooper is always on alert, they have both found contentment in their isolation, until... 

Dependent on an annual December 14 delivery of food and necessities from their friend Jake that augments what he and Finch can collect (fruit from a small orchard, berries in a nearby privet, and game they hunt with bows and arrows) when Jake doesn't come, Cooper is forced to leave the property to buy supplies.

Soon afterward, several unexpected visitors change their silent woods into a place that could lead to exposure, and the consequences of what Cooper has done. 

I appreciated the isolation and beauty of this environment, and the underlying theme that reminds me of the goodness within people. 

 

Linda's score: 4.2/5.0

Have a happy Independence Day, my friends!

Patriotic Pinwheel

If you like this 24½" X 24½" design, go here to get my free Patriotic Pinwheel instructions. Linda