Sister's Choice Quilts

Tools on Tuesday

I had posted a few photos of my string blocks on Instagram, and my daughter was asking me to post a photo that would show the size of the block.  The blocks are made up of four 5 inch smaller blocks, that when sewn together, finish at one 10 inch block.

I have thrown myself into making the blue blocks and wanted to show you a ruler I have been using that I really like.

This is the Simple Folded Corner ruler by Doug Leko.  I purchased it in a larger size when it first came out, but honestly when I make folded corner squares, they are usually tiny.  When this smaller version of the ruler came out I bought one and use it more than the larger size.

I was getting so tired of drawing lines on those darn little squares, when I remembered "Oh right.  I have that ruler..."

This is what it looks like, and here is how you use it:

Take one block unit and one folded corner square.

Place your folded corner square precisely on the corner of the block unit.

Position the ruler on top of the corner square, lining every edge up with the marks on the rulers.  Notice the dark solid diagonal line on the ruler, a quarter inch in from the edge of the ruler?  That solid line is going to be your stitching line, but nothing needs to be marked.  It is an exact quarter inch from the edge.

Cut on that outside edge of the ruler.  Say "Thank you for coming" to the little yellow triangle you just cut off and throw it away.

Sew as usual, using your quarter inch presser foot.

And there you go.  Now for the "folded corner" thing.

Fold it over and press.

That took longer to explain than to actually do.  I have to say, I get more accurate results with the ruler than I do with drawing those darn lines and stitching on them.

Hope your week got off to a good start!

String Along Green Blocks

Just a quick update that my green string blocks are all done.  This is how the blocks will be arranged in the quilt top.  A center red block with surrounds of yellow blocks, then green blocks, then blue blocks, then more red blocks.

I am well into finishing the blue blocks and then will start on the mammoth task of making all the red ones.  I am getting just a teensy bit bored with this project, so I want to continue on and get it all wrapped up.  It is a good project for listening to an engrossing audio book, I will say that.

I have been listening to Anne Tyler's Clock Dance.

The story is Anne Tyler's typical style.  A private glimpse into a person's domestic life, warts and all.  So far, Willa, the main character seems to be sleep walking through her life despite some significant dramas.  I am pretty sure any minute now something significant must happen to wake her up....

Hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend.  It is a three day holiday for us here in the US, as we honor Martin Luther King's birthday.

Another Approach

I was complaining yesterday about how long it is taking me to make these string blocks.  Each full block consists of four quarter block units.

 

You need four of these to make one full block as shown in the photo below:

So I decided not to be so block focused and instead work on the block elements in an assembly line style.  Yesterday I started in on the 16 green strip sets I need to make my 32 green block quarter units.  After pressing my strip sets, I got my 64 green strip set triangles all cut out.

Once the green units were ready to go, I started in on the 24 blue strip sets I need for my 48 blue quarter block units.

After that is the massive red strip set job.  I need 34 red strip sets to make 68 red quarter block units.  

Once all the strip sets are cut up into triangle units I will get going on actually making blocks.  I think with this quilt, a systematic approach is the only way I won't feel overwhelmed. 

I'll check in tomorrow and let you know how this is working for me!

I also wanted to make a correction:  The name of the pattern I am using is "Signs of String".  I kept thinking it was called "String Along", but that was wrong.

 

String Quilt-Yellow Blocks

Enough with the reviews and re-caps already, right?  lol  Back to sewing.  As those of you who follow this blog know, I am participating in The Moda String Along.  I am using a pattern called "String Along" by Clark Street Quilts to make my blocks.  There will be yellow blocks, blue blocks, green blocks and red blocks.  

I have to say, these are taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r to make.  Those four blocks took all day to make.  It is deceiving looking, as each "block" is actually made up of four string quilted mini blocks with a folded corner unit on one end.  So the block is actually four blocks.  What you see in the photo is sixteen yellow blocks.  Each one measures 5" square.

I only have four yellow blocks to make.  Next us is eight green blocks, then twelve blue blocks, and then sixteen red blocks.  Here's what I have accomplished so far:

Have you noticed how much fabric string quilts eat up?  My gosh, no wonder they recommend string projects as a method to use up scraps!  I could make two more quilts with the trimmings I am cutting off.

Best Audible Books of 2018

One way I was able to get so many books "read" during 2018 is that a number of them were audio versions of a book.  I belong to Audible.com and have been a member for at least ten years.  When I first joined, they would send you a CD in the mail that you would send back after you listened to the book on your portable CD player!  Now of course everything is downloaded in seconds to your device.  I use my iPhone and little ear buds or play the audio through my car speaker using Bluetooth.  I love to listen to audio books while I sew and sometimes when I take long walks or car trips.  They are a must for long car trips!

Some of the best reads of my year were audio books.  Here are the ones I enjoyed the most.  Click the link for a description of the book and to listen to a sample:

Heft by Liz Moore
Educated by Tara Westover
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain
The Address by Fiona Davis
The Love Letter by Lucinda Riley
The Pearl Sister by Lucinda Riley
Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman
Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

This past year I read a bit of  "women's fiction" through my Audible.com subscription.  In 2019 I want to listen to more memoirs, as they are often read by the author and have so much more feeling than when read by an actor.

One nice thing about Audible.com is that if you start a book and find that you are not enjoying it, you can return it for a new credit!  I am not kidding, that is just the best service.

In the comments, please do share what audio books you have enjoyed.  We are always on the look out for more good recommendations!

Reading Duds

I read a lot of books in 2018, but I also encountered some that "just weren't for me".  In other words, books I disliked.  What is your philosophy on finishing a book you are not enjoying?  I used to think I should try to stick it out until the end.  After all, 1) I'd paid good money for it, 2) I'm not a quitter, 3) I'd already put X amount of time into it, 4) Maybe it would get better?.

At some point I decided that was nuts.  If you are not "into" a book, you tend to slow down your reading pace and it takes longer than ever to finish because you just aren't picking it up.  Reading a book you are not enjoying takes time away from reading something you would love.  Modern Mrs. Darcy addressed this issue in an interesting blog post.  She says quitting a book she doesn't like is the best thing she ever did for her reading life!  Check out her blog post and see if you agree.

Anyway, on to the books I finished and was disappointed by, or that I flat out DNF'd.  (Did Not Finish).  Some of these books have gotten great reviews, but just were not right for me.  If you read any of these books and loved them, please weigh in with a comment describing why.

My biggest book disappointment of the year was 

Oh boy, was I ever looking forward to reading this book.  I love Kate Morton and own a hardback copy of everything she has ever written.  I wanted The Clockmaker's Daughter so much that I tried to persuade my husband to let me buy it when we were in London, since it came out there a couple of months before the US release date.  Thank goodness he nixed the idea of me packing a five hundred page book into my luggage.  When I finally got a copy I dived in to find there were way way too many characters, a confusing time line, a very hard to follow plot and was just plain drudgery to get through.  I did finish it, but it took forever because I made every excuse I could think of not to pick it up.

Let me say that loads of folks loved this book.  Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a popular book club selection and was nominated for the National Book Award.  It has over a four star rating on Goodreads. This book is a family saga (normally a favorite genre for me) that follows a Korean family though four generations of life in both Korea and Japan.  What I found annoying was that the book would devote chapters and chapters to one character, and go into great detail in both descriptions and character development, then jump ahead to some other character and breeze through decades in a few pages.  We got to know a couple of the characters, but the rest just seemed undeveloped.  I found the book uneven to say the least, and extremely slow going.  I finished this one too, but could have read five other books in the time it took me to slog through it.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is a critically acclaimed book that I hated.  The four Gold children see a fortune teller who tells them all the date that they will die.  We follow the teenagers over the next four decades and see what happens to them.  The premise of the book seems to be the philosophical debate over the fate that is determined for us and whether we have a choice in the matter.  The characters were all so loathsome I began to wish for their demise.  I finished this book too and wish that I hadn't.  

David Sedaris is a humorist who has a big following of fans.  I will not be one of them. Calypso is a series of "humorous" essays that follow events that supposedly happened to him.  His humor is occasionally witty, but for the most part is juvenile, vulgar, and mean spirited.  He makes fun of old people who have diarrhea accidents, he makes degrading remarks at the expense of disabled people, and there is one episode involving a turtle that is so disgusting I won't describe it. I got about two thirds of the way through this book and actually threw it in the trash. 

So there you have it, my Worst Books of 2018.  I'd love to hear from you as to how you feel about "having" to finish a book you aren't enjoying, and also what books you may have on your "most disappointing" list.

Books of 2018: Honorable Mentions

This next list of book recommendations from me contains mostly four star reads, as well as three five star ones.  These were all excellent books and I enjoyed them immensely.  Another long post, so I hope you will enjoy it!

Honorable Mention

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarity

I am a big fan of Liane Moriarity and will read anything she comes out with.  This book tells the tale of nine people who, for various reasons, come together at a remote luxury health resort.  Some want to lose weight, others to gain spiritual clarity, to get over grief, to attain more of a zen attitude, etc.  They all know the ten day stay will involve hard work, but no one is ready for the actual challenges they all will face.  

Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce

Set in London during WW2, this book is about Emmeline, who is trying to stay cheerful and do her bit.  What she wants more than anything is to work as a journalist, preferably as a war correspondent.  When she gets hired at a newspaper, she thinks it is her big break.  Imagine her surprise when she learns she is to be the assistant to the paper's advice columnist, the extremely disagreeable Mrs. Bird.  Does Emmeline take things too far when she starts writing some of the advice letters herself and bypassing the unsympathetic Mrs. Bird?  A witty and light read.

The Witch Elm by Tana French

Tana French is an Irish author best known for her Dublin Murder Squad series.  She branches off in a new direction with this stand alone novel, which I enjoyed very much.  Toby is a lucky charmer who always seems to land on his feet.  One night after having drinks with his buddies, he is burglarized and beaten nearly to death.  As he struggles to recover his health and memory, he realizes he may never be the same as he was.  He takes refuge at the ancestral family home occupied by his dying Uncle Hugo.  A skull turns up in the hollow tree in the back yard and Toby begins to question whether he is remembering his past as it actually occurred.  Very suspenseful, with a plot that will keep you guessing.

The Woman in the Window by  A. J. Finn

Anne lives alone in her house, an alcoholic and agoraphobic.  She orders in all she needs, mainly prescription meds and wine.  She is the perfect "unreliable narrator" we all love to have in our psychological thrillers.  Spending time spying through her window, Anne thinks she witnesses a murder in a neighbors house.  Did she really, or did she imagine it?  The plot unfolds in a very suspenseful manner and I found it quite "Hitchcockian" in its atmosphere.

Educated by Tara Westover

This book is a memoir about a young girl who grows up in a remote area with an eccentric survivalist family.  Tara is kept out of school, is denied any kind of medical attention and doesn't even have a birth certificate.  She first attends school at the age of 17, not knowing what the Holocaust was, who Martin Luther King was, and most other basic bits of knowledge even the least educated of us are exposed to.  Despite terrible odds put upon her by her family, Tara's insatiable quest for knowledge leads her to leave her insanely restrictive family, get into college, do graduate work both at Harvard and Cambridge, and eventually earn a PhD.  And write this scathing memoir about her early upbringing.  Her early experiences are so incredible they verge on the unbelievable, but this book is definitely something to experience.  And besides, absolutely everyone is talking about it!

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

In 1700s London, a prosperous merchant comes into the possession of a tiny mummified mermaid.  This bizarre object becomes a sensation and turns Jonah Hancock's life upside down.  He is wined and dined by the highest society (who all want to see this curious object) and comes to meet Angelica Neal, a notorious and beautiful courtesan.  This book is so wonderfully descriptive of society and it's various characters, smells, tastes, and interiors.  So if you love description and atmosphere in a book, you will love this.  The plot is preposterous of course, but once you get over your skepticism that anyone could find a dead mermaid, you will enjoy the romp that is this book.  Five stars.

Circe by Madeline Miller

If you loved mythology as a kid, as I did, this might be a wonderful read for you.  Circe is a Titan, daughter of the Sun God Helios.  Different from her siblings, she is shunned and becomes a loner.  It turns out that she does possess the power of witchcraft, and once banned forever to a remote island she employs her magic to great effect.  Many famous characters from mythology turn up on the shores of her island.  She comes to love mortals and is forced to make a choice as to which world she belongs in, the world of men or the world of the gods.  Very descriptive, with such a strong female character, this book was a very satisfying story. Five stars.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

This novel was inspired by the true story of one Polish Jew family who became separated at the beginning of WW2.  We follow the various family members who are forced onto very different paths.  One goes into exile to Brazil, some get sent to a work camp in Siberia, some work in factories in the Jewish ghetto, some manage to live as gentiles in plain sight of the Nazi's who want to round them up or kill them.  Against incredible odds, we follow the stories of these family members throughout the war years.  It is a book about survival, luck, beating the odds, the fear and sorrow that they may never see each other again, and the hope they maintain throughout the most perilous and horrific experiences.  It sounds like the subject matter might be hard going, and sometimes it is, but overall this was one of the most uplifting and hopeful books I have ever read.  Five stars.

So in this post and my previous one yesterday, I shared with you my 18 best reads in 2018.  Stay tuned for more though, because next week I will talk about some disappointments and duds!  I will also make recommendations for my favorite audible books, tell you about the author I read the most last year, my favorite new author discovery, and which books from my past I decided deserved to be re-read.