sewing and reading

After posting last week, I kicked myself in the butt and got busy.

First I pressed and cut the fabric for the Bramble Blooms 1 border and then sewed the LOOOOOONG seams and got the top finished!

It was cold and windy when I got it done, so I hung it in a wide doorway - great size, but with the windows in the room behind, you get a backlit version of the quilt top.  I tried to adjust the colors, but that wasn't as easy as one might think!

You get the idea - and you can see the top is done.  I think it's like 68x68 or something.  I don't remember.  I have notes upstairs, but they're upstairs.

I went to bed a few nights later and wondered if the border needs some of the hills I put in the first border?  A question for another day.

And with that, I moved on to Bramble Booms 2.

The last prompt was an applique border.  Viney maybe.  I dreaded it.  I don't mind applique, though I don't like it as much as machine piecing (it's slower), but vines are ugh!

And what should I use for the background?  I knew my stash of larger pieces chosen for this quilt along was getting small (not that there were many to begin with, as most all of my stash is leftover from another project), but I went digging.

I ended up in my stash closet again - nothing was really big enough to make a good-sized border, even if I pieced a lot of things.  And I was leaning towards a lighter background so the vines would show up nicely.

And I found something I hadn't anticipated!

The hash-mark fabric!

It was the back for my book quilt, but I hadn't included it in my pull for the quilt - who knows why?  Maybe it was too busy, but the flower print made the cut, so...  Anyways, I had a wide, long strip that made it most of the way around.  The lighter green, though not used in any of the blocks so far, was on the initial pile of maybes for the border and isn't awful.  But without cutting another whole (8") strip, I was just a little shy, so in comes the last of the flower print.  And I mean LAST of the flower print!  (Hooray for using it up!)

Again with the LOOOOONG seams to get the borders on.  I debated doing the vines first, but making those corners would be a pain in the butt, so I decided to suck it up and make it work after I attached the borders.

On to the vines.  I had a bunch of skinny strips of the dark green used in the cornerstones and 9-patches, so I cut them even skinnier and used my 1/4" bias tape maker and made straight-tape.  I made just one to make sure the fairly gentle curves would behave (otherwise I'd move on to plan B), and they did nicely.

I made a few more strips and pinned as I made them.  When I ran out of my little fun applique pins, I stopped.  I was halfway around - much further than I anticipated.  I went back and added some little bits for flower stems (cutoffs from where the vines were a bit too long and such) and told myself I'd work a little every night on this - when the hubby has the TV on too loud to read.  (Which is every night.)

Yesterday evening, I got almost all of the way done, but realized I needed to add some more flower stems before I finish that last vine - I knew that when I pinned everything, but almost forgot.

And then this morning, the little girls (Lily - the striped Goblin who now weighs nearly 9.5 pounds so is not so little, and Salem - the black one who is in the first quilt in this series as an applique) helped me get a not-so-good photo from the floor of my sewing room.

Later today I plan to make more vines and stems and get them pinned.  Maybe by next week I'll be ready for flowers?  I have a plan for what they'll be - something very different from the previous quilt, but still working within that inspired-by-what-you've-done theme.

I'm very happy with myself for finally getting going on this.  And the cold, snowy weather is perfect for sitting under a quilt - whether to read or sew!

And speaking of reading - two more books finished this week!

A story of a young woman, a librarian, struggling to keep up appearances after her father passed away and left her and her mother rather poor and a young man who brough himself up from nothing to be the owner of a notorious gambling den in Chicago.

Pulled from the shelves of the library and into the book sale to make room for newer stuff, it is clearly marked as "inspirational fiction" and the only thing I was inspired to do was throw it at a wall.  It was a romance.  Between two extremely unlikely characters, of course, who stumble around and mess things up every few pages.  Her because she's too sheltered, him because he's not been sheltered enough.

Set shortly after the World's Fair in Chicago (very late 1800s), I thought this one might be interesting after having read "The White City" but no - the blurb mentions the fair, in fact.  But no.  Just no.

Not a bad book, but I think the author hates women.  Or thinks we're all airheads.  Beyond that, it wasn't a bad story.  Just not at all what I expected.  And not one I would have chosen had the blurb been more accurate.

I guess the non-designated romance found in this book makes up for the designated romance in "The White Queen" that was not a romance?

Anyways, on to book #2:

Set in Croatia in the 1990s-ish (I think), it could almost be any small town.  A woman from England shows up to a house that her husband has purchased for them as a summer home.  She has two teenage kids with her.  Duro, the "hired man" lives nearby and is out walking with his dogs when he sees them newly arrived and offers to help with repairs on what I can only imagine is a very rustic home (though typical to the area).

As the story unfolds, there are multiple timelines, but they are all the story of Duro, after triggered by things that happen at the house..  HIs childhood, teenage years, and recent and current life are all in there.  The "blue house" that the woman moves into plays a role in his life, which I think is why he was keen to help her get it fixed up after it sat empty for a while.

I enjoyed the book.  It was one of the better ones I read last month.  Well, I guess I finished it this month, if only by a day!

I started the next book last night - so far, so good...

Happy quilting!

Katie