Sister's Choice Quilts

Cutest Quilt Block Ever

Cherries. How cute is this quilt block? I got it out of the Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage 1 book. It is a 6-inch block, so the pieces are pretty tiny, but it wasn't too bad to make. It took some time, but wasn't difficult. I think it is adorable. 

I have been plugging along on my remaining blocks for the Moda BlockHeads 3 quilt. Just a few more to go. Would you believe I have nearly 100 blocks in this quilt? It is massive. I want to make some more blocks like the cherries above. I think blocks that are "pictures" or represent something will give the eye a place to rest amongst all the more traditional quilt blocks. 

So far my background fabric is holding out, but I think I have less than a fat quarter of it left. I am using every single smidgen of it. So glad the remaining blocks I have to make are pretty small!

Heading out to spend the weekend with my father. I am so challenged as to what to feed him. His appetite is so small that I had to launch into a full blown cooking frenzy because I will be left with too many left overs that will get wasted. He pretty much eats about two tablespoons of whatever I give him and leaves the rest, saying "I can't eat all this". He does like a bowl of soup, so perhaps I will go in that direction. I can make a pot of something and just take a small container of it to my father's house and leave the rest with my husband. Do you all have any favorite soup recipes?

Have a great weekend.

Additional Moda BlockHeads 3 Blocks

For the setting I have in mind for the Moda Blockheads 3 sew-along, I have found that I need to make some additional blocks in the 12-inch and 6-inch sizes. I am actually having fun going through various sources looking for blocks in those sizes.

This 12-inch block is from a Moda Bake Shop sew along from last year called Spring Flowers. The blocks for this sew-along were all 12 inches finished, and the designs were super cute. However, that being said, I was absolutely appalled at the errors in nearly every single pattern I tried. This one is called "Bouquet" and did turn out ok after I remade eight half-square triangles in the correct size. 

This 12-inch block is called Daffodil and is also from the Moda Bake Shop Spring Flowers sew-along. I ended up having to actually throw away two blocks from this sew-along because after I had cut my fabric I found that the instructions were full of errors and the wrong measurements. There were a ton of comments on the website from very unhappy people who, like myself, had wasted time and valuable fabric. Some people who were making all the blocks claimed there was an error in every single block pattern they tried from this project. And I was being so careful not to waste any of my precious background fabric because I am running so low. It was a huge disappointment to have to throw some away. I can forgive one error, but time after time? No sir. Do the authors/designers actually not bother to test the blocks before they publish them? That is shameful. I have never in my life had this issue with any other Moda sew-alongs. BlockHeads has been so excellent I have participated in two different year-long projects. Going forward, I am going to be leery of any patterns from Moda Bake Shop. Ok, rant over. Just be warned to check your measurements before cutting if you ever participate in a Moda Bake Shop project.

One last 12-inch block. I have already forgotten where this pattern came from, but isn't it cute? I love the frame effect that the blue fabric has around the red star.

The rest of these blocks are all 6-inch. My source for a lot of them was various Lori Holt books-Farmhouse VIntage 1 and 2 primarily. Now, her instructions and measurements are always impeccable. 

This last one is a favorite for sure. I love how the red checked fabric looks like a folded-over envelope flap. I was even able to use four of the too-small half-square triangle blocks from the sloppy Moda Bake Shop instructions for "Bouquet".

So, good progress, all in all. Only a half dozen or so more 6-inch blocks to go. This project may be out of control. You can see how my design wall is filling up. Think I could use a bigger design wall?  lol

Favorite Books of 2021 So Far

Time for a few book reviews I think! These are three books I have read in 2021 that I awarded a five-star rating. These were so good! I highly recommend all three of these books.

I am a big fan of Susan Meissner's writing and was very excited to pick up The Nature of Fragile Things when it was published in early February. The book is the story of an Irish immigrant, Sophie Whalen, who is desperate to get out of a New York tenement in 1905. She answers an ad for a mail-order bride and travels to San Francisco to marry a man she has never met. Ostensibly, she is to be Martin's wife in name only, and serve as a mother to his five-year-old daughter, and keep his house for him. Money does not seem to be an issue, and they move into a lovely home in a very good neighborhood in San Francisco. Her husband is quite distant and is often away from their home, traveling for business a majority of the time. He seems to be a man with a lot of secrets. Sophie soon bonds with her young stepdaughter, who is so traumatized by the death of her real mother, that she does not speak. Her husband's behavior is increasingly suspicious, and then one spring evening when her husband is once again, away from home, Sophie finds a young pregnant woman at her door who claims to be her husband's wife. Also, this particular day is the eve of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Things are set in motion that take Sophie to Arizona, where the mystery deepens further. I don't want to give any spoilers, but this was a complex story full of well-developed characters, the bonds between women, and a strong sense of place. The descriptions of the earthquake were a.m.a.z.i.n.g. I really enjoyed this book.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue. This outstanding book is set in Dublin in 1918 during the Spanish Influenza pandemic. Almost all the action in the book takes place over three days in a maternity ward populated by pregnant women who also have the flu. Nurse Julia Powell is working alone, struggling to care for all her patients when she unexpectedly gets the help of a volunteer, Bridie Sweeney, with whom she develops a friendship and intimate closeness. The female characters in this book are strong and fascinating. Included in the cast of characters is a real-life person, Dr. Katherine Lynn, an Irish nationalist and obstetrician. Lots of hardship, poverty, a hard look at the care orphans received at the hands of the sisters of the Catholic Church and how poorly women were treated in general. I was so enthralled with this story that I could not stop listening to the audible version. I also have the hardback and look forward to reading the physical copy. Emma Donoghue is an excellent author.  An interesting side note about this book: the author started it in 2018 as a tribute to the 100 year anniversary of the Spanish Flu epidemic. It was published in 2020, but she of course, had absolutely no prior knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a masterfully constructed story that coincidentally was extremely timely in terms of its theme and release date.

Monogamy by Sue Miller was an incredibly well-written book, and I hope I can do justice to it in my description. It made me feel such a broad range of emotions as I read it. I felt so drawn into the lives of Graham and Annie (a couple happily married for 30 years), making me feel as if they were real people I actually knew. In fact, they reminded me so clearly of people that I do know! A certain type of intelligent, well-spoken, and accomplished person who seems to live the sort of life I would emulate if possible. The sort of image I, myself, would like to project to the world. Then we get a deeper look into the lives and minds of the individual characters who make up the personalities in the book. And wow. Things are not quite what they seem on the surface. Graham briefly engages in some regrettable behavior that changes everything. Then he suddenly dies (not a spoiler, it is in the book description), and his wife is left to deal with not just her grief of missing him, but the ruination of her loving memories of him. Grief, pain, anger, sadness. Such a complicated mix of emotions. It sure made me think of how our actions and secrets can change others' perceptions of us if they are revealed. You never know when your life could end and leave all sorts of very important things unresolved. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. It was so thought-provoking and well done.

So those are my top three favorite books so far this year.  I have a few others that I also adored, and will recommend them in a future post.

 

Sewcialites Catch Up and Great Tip

I grabbed a couple of hours yesterday and got caught up with my Sewcialites blocks. The most recent ones are the two on the bottom. #20 "Honor" by Lisa Bongean is the tan block on the bottom right. Super easy block (which is a surprise from Lisa!), but I still managed to sew the strips on wrong. My trusty Jack the Seam Ripper sorted it out quickly and all was good.  The black block on the bottom left is #21 "Zest" by Brigitte Heitland. This was another one of those complicated blocks that can simplified. 

You may recall the difficulties I had with #19 "Unity" by Lissa Alexander. That is the red block on the top right. I still think the measurements were off on that block. I remade it later with the tip I am about to share and it turned out so much better.

Anyway, back to "Zest". This block called for corner squares rather than the large corner triangles that I put on. It added seams and bulk and fussiness I thought. Just as I was thinking I would swap it out for something else, I saw a FaceBook post by an Australian woman named Tracy Bes. Did you know the Sewcialites sew-along has a FaceBook group? Well, they do, and now and then someone comes up with a very helpful tip for better block construction. The group is "private", but you just need to request to join it. Once you are approved my link to the tip below will work.

Tracy eliminated 12 seams from Block #21, and I am all for that.  Here is a link to her FaceBook post. I highly recommend you take a look at it if you would like to lessen the difficulty of this block and get better results.

Here is a better photo with the wrinkle pressed out.

Hope you all had a great weekend! 

Maybe You Should Finish Something

My husband and I were sitting in the living room visiting with each other while dinner cooked. We do that most nights. Take some time at the end of the day to sit together with a glass of wine and connect with one another. He asked me "So what project are you working on right now?"

Sound of crickets....

"Well," I said finally, "I have five or six different projects spread out all over the place at the moment".

"How is that working for you?" he inquired. 

"Honestly, not great", was my answer. "I feel very disjointed, unorganized, scattered, messy, and kind of frazzled". 

"Maybe you should finish something", he offered.

Wow. Imagine that. Finish something? Really? 

The next time I was up in my sewing room, I took an honest assessment of all the unfinished, half-started projects I have in various states of disorganization throughout my sewing room. The major project that I would like to get done is my Moda BlockHeads 3 quilt. Those blocks have been on my design boards for well over a year. A lot of excitement, fabric, time, and effort went into making those 50 some blocks.

I have been dithering over how to set them in a way that shows off the blocks rather than a busy, confusing, mess. When you make a quilt with several different sizes of blocks, finding a setting that works is extremely challenging. I wanted those blocks to be set apart from one another so the eye has a place to rest when looking at the whole quilt.

Julie Lloyd at Julesccreates on Instagram had a brilliant setting for her MBH3 blocks. I commented on her post and asked her if she would share the size of her lattice strips because I wanted to recreate her setting with my blocks. She very kindly responded with her measurements and I ordered lattice fabric in Bella Solids Porcelain (which matches my 3 Sisters fabrics). And then the fabric sat on the shelf and the blocks stayed on the wall and nothing got done.

Until yesterday. I took my husband's words to heart and got to work. This quilt is sewn together in vertical rows. Each block has a lattice around it, which is trimmed down to size when you sew the blocks into rows. You can see my first row on the far left in the photo. I am so pleased with how it is turning out.

I plan on having 7 rows. Four rows will have 12", 6", and 4" blocks. Three rows will have 8" and 4" blocks. I do not have quite as many blocks as I will need, so there will be a bit more block construction before I am done. This quilt is going to be very large and will cover my queen-sized bed with a good amount of overhang.

I am so excited to turn these blocks into a beautiful quilt. 

Little Blocks 365 Almost Through Week 6

I am almost through Week 6 of the Little Blocks 365 challenge. This Friday the blocks for Week 10 will come out, so clearly I have some catching up to do. At this point, I think I have made 39 or 40 blocks. Maybe less. I had some issues with a couple of them...

I am really enjoying the process of making these blocks, which are all paper pieced. I will say that the little tree block at the bottom of the photo was not for sissies. My favorite block so far is the third one on the right at the top of the photo. That little checkerboard with the isosceles triangles. So adorable.

Honestly, I have no idea what I will do with all these 3 inch blocks, but I am certain something will occur to me as the months roll by. I am adding in a lot more color and using leftover scraps I doubt I would ever use otherwise. 

There is a Facebook group called Sentimental Stitches for this sew-along that is pretty interesting. People share photos of their blocks and often give tips on piecing them. Many seem to be attaching a lattice to the blocks as they go. Some are sewing groups of blocks together into larger sections that they will piece together later. If you are sewing along, you might want to join the FB group, as it is entertaining and informative.

Hope your week is going well!

Needle Test Run

I got so many great suggestions to my recent post where I asked about what needles you all prefer for hand sewing bindings. Carol raved about these Black Gold needles by Clover and swore they go through multiple layers of fabric "like buttah". 

I have decided that I do prefer a shorter needle when I sew bindings, so I was interested in trying these. I ordered a pack from Amazon, and you know them, the delivery came a couple of days later. So here is what I think:

First of all, you only get 6 of them in the pack, and at $7.00, that is more than $1.00 per needle. "Hmmm", I thought. "They better be worth it". You only see five above because I had removed one to try it.

Here is a size comparison. The Clover Black Gold #9 Sharp is the upper one, and the Primitive Gatherings Binding Needle is below it. I found the PG needle way too long for my liking, so the size of the Clover looked very good to me.

Carol had warned that they were ridiculously difficult to thread, due to the very small eye. I can't thread a needle with a large eye on my best day, and always depend on needle threaders to get the job done. I was afraid that my needle threader might not fit through the teensy eye on the Black Gold needle, but after a few tries, it went through! So far, great.

The verdict? I have never sewn with a better needle. They do glide effortlessly through layers of fabric and are a pleasure to sew with. I highly recommend them. Carol, thank you so much for your excellent suggestion! I think a lot of people will benefit from it. I love them for bindings, but you gals who enjoy hand applique will be over the moon.

 

Kristin Hannah's New Book Four Winds

Are you all Kristin Hannah fans? Her book The Nightingale is a favorite of so many people. That one was about two sisters and their experiences during WWII in France. A year or so ago she came out with The Great Alone, a story of a Vietnam vet with PTSD who moved his family to the wilds of Alaska, which many people also loved. That one was a bit more controversial in the reviews I think. 

So. Her latest book is The Four WInds, set in the US during the Great Depression, specifically in the Texas Dust Bowl and California migrant camps. Have any of you read it? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

I found the book both irritating and depressing. The characters were either weak or annoying for the majority of the book. There was some character growth and development by the end of the story, but it was hard to put up with the protagonists for the majority of the book. And at 450 pages, that is a long time. Overall, I was not a fan of this book.

This book has definite Grapes of Wrath vibes, so if that book was significant for you, you will either love this book for recreating that era, or hate it for not doing it as well as Steinbeck did. Now, I realize writing as well as John Steinbeck is a tall order, so I wouldn't hold an author up to that standard for sure.

However, this book had an overwhelming atmosphere of despair, hopelessness, and regret that I do not think was resolved at its conclusion. Furthermore, the author's own political views seemed rather vigorously pushed at the reader, and the fact that she seemed to support Communism didn't sit right with me. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this new release book if you have read it. What do you think of Kristin Hannah as an author, and in particular, what is your take on this most recent offering?

UPDATE:  Please take the time to read the comments to this post. Some really thoughtful opinions have been coming in. Debi, in particular, had a different take on this book that has really given me some food for thought. I appreciate all you readers so much and am so glad we can have such great discussions! We have our own kind of book club don't we? Love it!