End of December

I'm beginning my end-of-December post with a pretty picture of fabric! This stack of Painter's Palette (PP) solids, all of which are among the newest colors, are from KC Maker Studio, a Kansas City brick-and-mortar and online quilt shop that stocks every color of PP solids. Likely the shop stocks all 210 colors of PP solids because Paintbrush Studios, the company that produces PP solids, is headquartered in Kansas City.

A couple weeks ago, I succumbed to a one-day sale. Regularly priced at $8.99 a yard, I snagged 25½ yards at $6.30 a yard, a price that includes shipping. While this added greatly to my monthly "In Yardage", I know I'm set with solids for a while! 

Though I managed to use-up nearly 10 yards of fabric in December, that big PP purchase set me back, leaving me with a gain of 15.59 yards for the month.

Much of what I did use was put into my Satisfaction quilt, made during 12 weeks of the Satisfaction quiltalong with @duringquiettime Amy Friend. The quilt along began October 2, I'm delighted to share that just today I put in the last binding hand stitches. 

Satisfaction finished at 54" X 72" and was made entirely from stashed fabrics. 

Batting is Hobbs 100% cotton, an accidental, mis-ordered purchase. It seems nice enough. I quilted with 40-weight Aurifil thread, in #2110 pale yellow, and used a @Sariditty "Rolling Waves" ruler to quilt an on-the-diagonal 1" grid across the whole quilt. 

It's a first for me to quilt an all-over ruler design like that, across the whole of a quilt. 

I like the texture it created. 

I had as much fun piecing a backing as I did making the quilt front! Now that I've discovered how nice it is to use orphan blocks and a 2.08 yard piece of fabric (an Alexander Henry piece from 2015) to piece a backing, I plan to continue that practice. 

Book Recommendations

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin was a trending 2023 title, so I thought I should know about it.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green meet in a hospital. Sam is there because he's been an a car accident and has a broken foot. They connect by playing video games together, sharing the controller with one another as they became friends. 

In young adulthood, they reconnect in Cambridge where each is attending college. Sadie falls into depression after a difficult break-up with her married, college professor, and it's Sam who draws her into the challenge of developing a video game they call Ichigo. It becomes a huge success and is the basis for their new company. 

The story follows them to California where they set-up an office, hire staff, and have more success. Then there's a tragic death, all the while as they each have an inability to fully understand one another. Personally, I thought Sadie was self-absorbed, and too-often rushed to unfair judgements about Sam. 

Maybe this story didn't resonate with me because I'm not from the video game era. Admittedly, some of the language and imagery went over my head. To me, the only redeeming feature of this book was learning new vocabulary words! Numerous times I stopped the recording, replayed a bit, and looked up the word. A few new-to-me words are: ersatz, emesis, bloviate, palimpsest, verisimilitude, tautology, and kenophobia.

Linda's score: 3.4/5.0

Block Party by Jamie Day takes place in an upscale neighborhood, on an Alton Street cut de sac where neighbors are friends; they involve themselves in one another's lives. Every Memorial Day they have an outdoor party, in the cul de sac island. 

Alex and Nick have a teenaged daughter, Lettie, who's in her senior year of high school. A new family moves in next door, and though Jay is a college drop-out, Lettie wants to get to know him better. She engages him in seeking revenge on another teenager in the neighborhood, Riley, who was once Lettie's best friend. Meanwhile, Alex, who drinks too much wine, runs a successful divorce mediation business, and knows things the other women have shared in confidence. The men have secrets too. 

Linda's score: 3.9/5.0

With time on my hands in December, while quilting and power-walking, I listened to 12 audiobooks. Here's a recap for the month - the top eight titles I gave a score of 4.0 or better.

1) The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths, 15th and last title in the "Ruth Galloway" series 4.4/5.0

2) The Wife Upstairs by Frieda McFadden 4.3/5.0

3) Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline, 4.3/5.0

4) Catching the Wind by Melanie Dobson, 4.2/5.0

5) The Push by Ashley Audrain, 4.2/5.0

6) What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, 4.1/5.0

7) The Engine House by Rhys Dylan, 1st book in the "DCI Evan Warlow" series, 4.1/5.0

8) A Fistful of Collars by Spencer Quinn, 5th book in the "Chet and Bernie" series, 4.0/5.0

This past Thursday evening, at around 8 pm, SpaceX launched another Falcon rocket from Kennedy Space Center. Sometimes the trajectory doesn't allow us to see much, so it was wonderful to view this one so clearly! 

At first, I didn't think I'd see much - after all, we're more than 80 miles away from the launch site, and we've had a lot of cloud cover lately. But it was a happy surprise to see it shoot above the cloud bank. When we moved here 10½ years ago, I never would have guessed we'd get to witness this. And so frequently!

I'm concluding 2023 on a pleasant, relatively quiet note. We enjoy a delicious homemade meal of shrimp and cheesy grits, and a little champagne bubbly. 

Now I'm wishing all my blog-readers and friends a very happy New Year! Linda