Summer Reading

I've been reading a lot lately, both to inspire my quilting projects (Love Patchwork & Quilting magazines from Fat Quarter Shop and American Quilter from the newstand at my local Barnes & Noble store)...

...and just because I enjoy reading. 

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood was one of Reese Witherspoon's monthly selections and I found it very enjoyable.  Susan, 45 years old and a bit of a loner with a prickly personality, has to suddenly deal with an unplanned pregnancy, the death of her mother, and a feud with her brother.  The story is how she navigates all this and comes out happier at the end of it. 

Mysteries are my genre of choice but my favorite authors aren't writing fast enough to keep me supplied so over the past year I've tried some newer authors in the hopes of finding some good material.  I have three to recommend!

Dervla McTiernan, author of The Ruin and The Scholar , books set in Galway, Ireland.  Irish police detective Cormac Reilly had just moved from Dublin to Galway, where of course he encounters murder and mayhem (and maybe police corruption?).  These are new favorites for me and I'm eagerly awaiting The Good Turn, to be published in March, 2020.

Cara Hunter writes the DI Adam Fawley series (three books so far); they take place in Oxford, England.  I like the way the author incorporates social media posts and comments into the traditional narrative.  I'm really enjoying this series. Number 4 is due out in December.

Sarah Ward's series is set in a small town in Derbyshire, England, with police detectives Francis Sadler and Connie Childs.  Again, only a few books so far.  The plots often involve an event from the past that has influenced the present with deadly consequences. 

I've been able to get most of these books from my public library, augmented with a few Kindle purchases.

Another new-to-me author is Donna Leon.  Clearly, I've been under a rock or something because she's been writing for ages and has a backlist of 28 books!  This like hitting the reading jackpot!  The stories are set in Venice, Italy, which we are planning to visit next spring, making the find even better. 

Back soon with more quilting.

Making A Quilt From Stash

While I mull over what to make with my Chantilly fat quarters, I started making log cabin blocks from fabric in my stash.

I'm using the block from the Thimble Blossoms quilt called Sweet Escape, though I may go with a different setting.  The blocks finish at 10" square, with each log 1" wide.

All the fabric (except the aqua used on the "light" side) is from my stash, mostly leftovers from these two quilts, Celebration made in 2017...

...and Scrappy Stars made in 2015.

For the white on the "light" side, I'm using a tiny white floral tone-on-tone because I had that in my stash as well.  While trying to put the Chantilly fat quarters and some other recent fabric purchases away in my fabric closet, I found space was very tight.  Fabric is a huge temptation for me; I'm like a kid at a buffet where my eyes are bigger than my stomach, or in the this case, my attraction to new fabrics exceeds the time I have to make anything with it.  So I'm trying to whittle down the stash a bit before I expose myself to further temptation. 

The size of this log cabin quilt will be determined by the number of blocks I can make from my stash pull.  I have two other stash projects in mind, one to use my pale florals and another using Christmas prints.  And I'm planning another quilt in my Fig Tree Harvest series, to use the leftovers from my previous quilts.  I'd like to make a Jack's Chain quilt (examples on my Pinterest board) and am looking for directions for this block or a pattern.  Please let me know if you are aware of one.