End of May

It's time for a brief reset - a review of fabric used this month and books read. 

Disappointingly, fabric usage is way down this month due to my interest in crocheting and knitting. The only fabrics sewn were for a mug rug (previously blogged about), and these two small projects. 

For a Central Florida MQG workshop I've designed a 26" X 40" quilt top using bias tape. I'm calling the piece Nocturne. Bias tape workshop registrations begin at our July meeting, so I have a few weeks to quilt and finish it. I also pieced a back that I'll share at a later date.

While perusing information about 2027 QuiltCon instructors and workshops that came out last Monday, (Did anyone besides me note how young and new-to-quilting all the instructors are?!), I came across two Patchwork Sashiko workshops to be taught by Diana Li Fitzgerald @banjoflannel. For her classes she requires students to buy her book - Patchwork Sashiko: Transform Your Scraps; 14 Slow-Stitched Projects. Being curious, I found a long preview of her book here on Google Books. After getting a taste of it, I bought the e-book version from e-book.com for only $2.99! 

Following Diana's instructions, I began to make my first 7" X 9" piece of Sashiko fabric using stash fabrics and size 10 crochet thread just purchased from Hobby Lobby. I have a couple ideas about what I want to do with this fabric.

So, fabric used in May is basically two yards. While incoming fabric amounted to zilch, don't ask me about incoming yarn!

Book Recommendations

I listened to eight audiobooks in May. I'm trying to read one classic a month, and Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, was this month's listen. I didn't score it very high because I had difficulty keeping track of too many characters, as well as understanding the old-English conversations. 

Here's a brief review of the titles I awarded a score of 4.0 or more, out of a possible 5.0:

The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarrow is about a soldier, Beckett, whose best friend dies in service. In Beckett's friend's last letter, Beckett is asked to go to Telluride, Colorado to help his friend's sister, Ella, who's raising twins as a single mother, and running a resort. While the story includes sweet romance - warning - characters deal with childhood cance,  and a child's death. It was a moving listen; I shed tears. 

Michelle Shocklee titles never disappoint, and this was the case with The Women of Oak Ridge, a ficticious story about elderly Mae's remembrances of her years during WW2 working on the Manhatten project - living in a secret city (Oak Ridge) while making a secret atomic weapon. Fast forward to Laurel, Mae's granddaughter, who's gone to Oak Ridge to visit her grandmother and, for her doctoral thesis, research what happened in Oak Ridge and its impact on people involved. Maybe she can finally get her grandmother to talk about it. Shocklee's historical fiction books will have you Googling the facts of what she writes about. 

Winter's Mourn is the first title in the Winter Black Series, by Mary Stone. I loved it! Winter Black is an FBI agent returning to her hometown in Virginia to investigate a case. She's striving to not allow her personal history - the murder of her parents and little brother - to impact her job. Yet her experiences are what motivate her to search for the truth, also keeping in mind finding for her parents' killers. 

Book #2 is Winter's Curse. I would have checked it's out right away if I hadn't already used my Hoopla quota of five titles a month. Twenty-three books are in this series!

His Other Woman by Valerie Keogh takes a unique perspective on a married man Richard, who's a two-timer. His wife, Lydia and his mistress, Fiona, each play a role in his life. While you want to blame Fiona, when you understand the perspectives of each woman, you begin to understand why Lydia and Fiona do what they do - making an alliance to decide how to handle Richard who is not the man either of them thought he was. 

I'm curious... have you read The Day the World Came to Town,  by Jim DeFede that I blogged about last month? So far, it's the best book I've read this year. Happy making and audio-book listening! Linda