Sue

RSC2021 January week 3

January 23, 2021 by Sue 5 Comments

This week, I worked on finishing the top for my Bonnie Hunter Sand Castles quilt. I made the blocks last year, laid them out in spectrum fashion, then made a piano keys border and finished it up. Still need to piece a back but the top is done. Because I was working hard on that this week, I only got these 4 pink blocks done this week. But I only have one more kind of blocks to make this month, so I’m doing well.

These blocks are from a Pat Sloan QAL from last year. It was called Cozy Things and I really love this star. I’m calling it Cozy Star in a nod to her designing it. It’s Block 6 from the QAL but I’ve shrunk it down from a 12″ block to an 8.75″ unfinished block by subtracting an inch from the dimensions of all the subcut pieces. My plan is to make some of these each month all year, then decide on a setting. Sashing? Straight line? On point? Spectrum order? Scrappy? Whatever moves me in November. LOL

RSC2021 Jan week 2

January 15, 2021 by Sue 2 Comments

I made progress on three more of my projects for this year. This friendship star block is a direct lift from Deb A. I saw these blocks last year in the RSC link up & determined that quilt was in my future. Thanks for the inspiration! They were a great L&E block to do with my other sewing.

I made some more checkerboard blocks to go with the pile I started last year so there should be enough for a quilt later this year. I got this inspiration from Making a Lather, who credited Cynthia Brunz with her inspiration. In a nice circle of coincidence, her Jan 15 blog post is of her newest Scrap Mixology pattern called Chaser, which is this quilt! I’ve purchased her previous modules & immediately got this one. Her approach to designing your own quilts with these inspirations is genius. I have plans for several of these modules in the future.

These cross blocks have an interesting history. I designed a quilt with dark gray squares for background & colored crosses that intersect randomly. I loved how it looked on my graph paper with colored pencils, but as I started making the blocks a couple years ago & sewing the rows together, I lost enthusiasm because it just looked like a mess. So this year I decided to start ripping it apart and turning it into crosses with something in between. I’m not sure if I want squares as the sashing, solid sashing, something colored in the square between the crosses, off-set crosses. Just not sure. So I’m going to make a bunch of these all year in the monthly colors from the ripping & making new, then lay them out & make some decisions.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Jan week 1

January 9, 2021 by Sue 7 Comments

This first week began by deciding on projects and that was really hard. I have three main projects than I have been planning on, but I wanted to do some others. The hardest part was deciding not to do several projects I wanted to do. I reminded myself that there’s always next year as there are only so many RSC projects I can do in a month, but I still have 8 on Angela’s tracking sheet. I crossed off #9 as I was filling it out when I realized I was being totally unrealistic. 🙂 Then I began cutting up scraps and organizing them into project boxes. I am so pleased with my labelled boxes and decided they should be more accessible. So I re-organized my shelves of project boxes so that these projects are at my fingertips. I can pull one down, work on it as L&E’s, box up that month’s color, then pull out the next RSC project. So although marathon cutting sessions are a drag, it’s better for me to have things cut up and ready to grab to send through the machine. I get more done and it goes better with my work flow as I sew patterned quilts for other projects. Then I get to do both things I love: patterned quilts & free-form scrap quilts. Yay! I did listen to a lot of audiobook while cutting this week.

On Friday I managed some sewing and this is my finish for week 1. It’s a start on a quilt using this simple repeated block. I got the idea from Sylvia, who was inspired by Jo’s Country Junction, who found the idea originated with Julie of Me and My Quilts. See how we all inspire each other? I took the block idea, decided to make all my squares lighter grays and turn them around so that the rectangle is in the upper left rather than the square. It gives it a different look that I like. I’m planning columns in the monthly colors for a lap quilt at the end. I will decide later on a scrappy layout or a spectrum layout.

2020 Reading Statistics

January 1, 2021 by Sue Leave a Comment

Another reading year has come to an end and here’s the tally for the year. I read way more than a normal year. Part of that was due to lots of audio books while sewing & kindle books while exercising, and part was an intentional scheduling of reading time.

Books read: 218
Pages read: 76,993
Of the books read:
Non-fiction: 31
New-to-me authors: 51
Continuing series books: 115
Re-reads: 27
Audio-books: 104
Various book club reads: 10
Challenges completed: 10 of 10
Ongoing tally of Newbery winners: 82 of 99

[Read more…]

Mount TBR 2020 wrap-up

December 31, 2020 by Sue Leave a Comment

This is my favorite challenge and Thanks to Bev at My Reader’s Block for continuing to host. This was my ninth year of hiking up my mountains of books. My goal for the year was to read 48 books from my To Be Read pile and reach the top of Mt. Ararat. I blew that away by reaching El Toro for the first time ever with 75 books, and then going a little beyond! As I look over the list, there were a lot of really good reads in there and I’m happy about my progress. It happened because I was more intentional about my reading and scheduled time to do my favorite thing.

The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
Murphy’s Law (Molly Murphy #1), Rhys Bowen
Justice Hall (Mary Russell #6), Laurie R. King
The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway #7), Elly Griffiths
Open Season (Joe Pickett #1), C.J. Box
An Early Wake (County Cork #3), Sheila Connolly
Much Ado About Magic (Enchanted, Inc. #5), Shanna Swendson
The Hen of the Baskervilles (Meg Langslow #15), Donna Andrews
Countdown (Sixties Trilogy #1), Deborah Wiles
The Other Einstein, Marie Benedict
The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton (Laurence Bartram #2), Elizabeth Speller
Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, Kristina McMorris
12 for Pike’s Peak
Her Royal Spyness (Royal Spyness #1), Rhys Bowen
Pope Joan, Donna Woolfolk Cross
Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli
Lost Lake, Sarah Addison Allen
The House on Tradd Street (Tradd Street #1), Karen White
Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet, Charlie N. Holmberg
The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia #2), Jacqueline Kelly
The Tale Teller (Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito #23), Anne Hillerman
The Witch’s Grave (Ophelia & Abby #6), Shirley Damsgaard
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, Melanie Rehak
The Seventh Witch (Ophelia & Abby #7), Shirley Damsgaard
The Girl on Legare Street (Tradd Street #2), Karen White
24 for Mount Blanc
Moriarty (Holmes #2), Anthony Horowitz
The Kennedy Debutante, Kerri Maher
Night Work (Kate Martinelli #4), Laurie R. King
Enchantress of Numbers, Jennifer Chiaverini
Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family, Yoshiko Uchida
Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture, Joshua Levine
I Was There, Hans Peter Richter
Daughters in My Kingdom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Royal Nanny, Karen Harper
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, Erik Larson
Winter Garden, Kristin Hannah
Saints: The Standard of Truth (Saints #1), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
36 for Mt. Vancouver
The Librarian of Auschwitz, Antonio Iturbe
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson
Daughters of the Night Sky, Aimie K. Runyan
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris
The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan
Letters from Skye, Jessica Brockmole
The Guns of Navarone, Alistair MacLean
Alan Turing: the Enigma, Andrew Hodges
109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, Jennet Conant
The Lost Girls of Paris, Pam Jenoff
The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
A Royal Pain (Royal Spyness #2), Rhys Bowen
48 for Mt. Ararat
Royal Flush (Royal Spyness #3), Rhys Bowen
Royal Blood (Royal Spyness #4), Rhys Bowen
The Twelve Clues of Christmas (Royal Spyness #6), Rhys Bowen
Bleeding Hearts (China Bayles #14), Susan Wittig Albert
Spanish Dagger (China Bayles #15), Susan Wittig Albert
Duck the Halls (Meg Langslow #16), Donna Andrews
The Strangers on Montagu Street (Tradd Street, #3), Karen White
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind, Ivan Doig
Fates and Traitors, Jennifer Chiaverini
The Girls of Atomic City, Denise Kiernan
The Eleventh Man, Ivan Doig
The Devil’s Puzzle (Someday Quilts #4), Clare O’Donohue
60 for Mt. Kilimanjaro
The Double Wedding Ring (Someday Quilts #5), Clare O’Donohue
Women of Faith in the Latter Days: Volume Three, 1846-1870, ed. Richard E. Turley Jr. & Brittany A. Chapman
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann
Crowned and Dangerous (Royal Spyness #10), Rhys Bowen
China Dolls, Lisa See
Nightshade (China Bayles #16), Susan Wittig Albert
The Good, the Bad, and the Emus (Meg Langslow #17), Donna Andrews
The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street, #5), Karen White
Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray
The Quintland Sisters, Shelley Wood
Wormwood (China Bayles #17), Susan Wittig Albert
The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle (Dahlias #8), Susan Wittig Albert
The Game (Mary Russell #7), Laurie R. King
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
Locked Rooms (Mary Russell #8), Laurie R. King
75 for El Toro
76-The Nightingale before Christmas (Meg Langslow #18), Donna Andrews
77-The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry
78-Holly Blues (China Bayles #18), Susan Wittig Albert
79-The Christmas Boutique (Elm Creek Quilts #20), Jennifer Chiaverini

Additional challenge mountains not reached:
Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile/s