Movin' Right Along

Moving along on several projects...

I finished yarn-wrapping this 4" X 6" board, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Lark and Bower instructor Sarah said you can't go wrong with any color combination, and I have to agree. No surprise, I've begun another one. 

It took only a short evening to make these five 8½" square Flying Goose blocks. They're the October BOM for the Like Totally quilt I'm making along with the Seattle MQG. It's a free BOM, in case you're interested. 

I've been making progress on warping my peg loom for the next selvedge rug I plan to weave. 

You might remember that I had planned to use cotton warping cord for each of the 24 pegs, but I ran out! Rather than order another large spool of it, I decided to make my own fabric twine for warp. 

Since I'm using 120" (folded in half) as warp on each of 11 pegs (the other 13 pegs are warped with cord) I'll need almost 36 yards of twine! I'm about halfway there... and have an achey wrist for my twining efforts! The nice part is that for twine I'm getting to use leftover strips of metallic prints and batiks that I wouldn't otherwise use in a quilt. 

Since yarn-wrapping and twining are handwork projects, I needed to have an at-the-sewing-machine project going too. I started quilting Glitter. Thus far I'm ruler quilting, using a non-rulerwork ruler to quilt a continuous line of ovals along the length of the quilt.

Oh! And on Tuesday evening I quilted a section of our Central Florida MQG QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge. I had previously pieced a section of blocks, sewed together part of the quilt top, and then  after my friend Donna had sandwiched it, I offered to begin quilting.

This 44" diameter spiral is positioned on the quilt slightly off-center. I have now passed the quilt back to our project coordinator so she can identify someone else to add more quilting. 

Book Recommendations

In 1972, Barbara Robinson wrote The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I bought a softcover copy of it when my children were young, and for several consecutive years read it aloud to them the week before Christmas. I could never get through the narration without crying. 

So, when I heard that Dallas Jenkins, producer of The Chosen, made the movie version of the story, I decided to listen to the book again. 

A small community is planning its annual church Christmas pageant - the complete nativity story with Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus, to angels. The woman who usually leads the production can't, so another mother takes over, and she doesn't do it the way it's been done in the past. Suddenly the horrible Herdmann kids are in the leading roles. They're not only unkempt, raucous, and inclined to steal cookies and the little kids' Sunday School birthday money, but they've never heard the Christmas story. When it's read to them, they want to spin it their way.

This is a fairly short in-print read, and only an 1 hour 52 minute listen. I highly recommend the story for both children and adults.

Linda's score: 4.8/5.0

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie is in theaters beginning November 9.  I'm going! 

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibin is about a young Irish girl, Eilis, who believes she'll live a typical life in her small town - find a fella, get married, and have kids. But when Father Flood visits from Brooklyn, an opportunity arises for her to go there and begin a new life. With his assistance, she moves into a boarding house, begins working as a floor clerk at a department store, and takes bookkeeping classes. She meets Tony at a dance, and they begin a relationship. When Eilis must return to Ireland, thinking she'll visit for a month and then return to Brooklyn, circumstances change and she finds herself torn about going back. 

I was on a waitlist for this title and after reading it I'm wondering why. I kept anticipating something would happen based on the author focusing on particular scenes. But when such a moment came again, it's like the first scene didn't happen. (That makes no sense as I re-read what I just said, but someone who's read the book would understand.) When the end came, I was surprised to know the book was finished. I expected more. 

Linda's score: 3.6/5.0 

This newspaper article appeared in the local paper on October 23. I'm grateful for friends who saved a copy for me because we don't get the paper. 

Golf carting home from line dancing last week, I had to stop and take this picture while driving through the golf course. Beautiful! A double rainbow was only slightly visible (upper right). 

Linda