Sister's Choice Quilts

Donuts

Sorry for the radio silence this week. Lots going on/not much going on. That is, I've been busy, but not with anything interesting! No sewing going on, that is for sure.

But what I do have for you today is donuts. Eva and I made Ina Garten's recipe for Baked Cinnamon Donuts and I'm telling you, they are worth the price of the special donut pans. The beauty of this donut recipe is that they are baked not fried. So, healthy donuts, right?

They were super easy to make and we got almost two dozen out of the recipe. They were so good right out of the oven that it is a miracle we had any left to put on the tray.

Hope you are all having a great week.

We had the storm of the century last weekend. The atmospheric river typhoon bomb or whatever the weathercasters were calling it. I can tell you there was a lot of wind and rain involved. My husband measured over 5 inches in our backyard and my son-in-law got over 6 inches on his rain gauge. Which is pretty unprecedented in our area of the state. When I got home from the Bay Area Sunday afternoon, our neighborhood looked like a war zone with broken tree branches and debris blown all over. Not sure if the drought is over, but we certainly got drenched. Supposedly the storm is headed East, so watch out!

 

One Track Mind

I know I am so lucky to have such a lovely reading nook. I do enjoy it, whenever I can slip in when Ozzie isn't ensconced in my chair. This week has been kind of a bust sewing-wise because whenever I have a free moment, I want to sit down and read a few more pages of Amor Towles's "The Lincoln Highway".

I'll do a proper review when I finish the book, but for now, know that it is absolutely fabulous. So engrossing, and totally my cup of tea. Very character-driven, but also a page-turner of a plot. This promises to be in my top five books of the year, for sure.

Hope your week is going well!

This and That

I am a bit distracted this week, because I started a new book that I have been eagerly anticipating. "The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles. O.M.G. I loved his previous books, "Rules of CIvility" and "A Gentleman of Moscow". This one may be my favorite of all. If you liked WIlliam Kent Kruger's "This Tender Land", run, do not walk to your local bookstore and buy this book. Part coming of age, part Odyssean journey, part found family. It has all the plot devices that are my catnip.

It is a chunkster, at over 600 pages. I am at about page 175 and do not want to put it down. The author's language and character development is so exquisite, I need to slow down and savor every word. But I can't. I want to keep turning the pages as fast as I can. Character development PLUS terrific plot. I love love love this book. Not much else is getting done around here.

But, let me share my crazy tree. Here are the first few pictures I have shared over the past week.

Begining of color change.

Full glory.

And then, a day or two later:

Buh bye.

Boom. It didn't last long, but it was pretty while it lasted.

Hope your week got off to a great start!

 

I Did It!

I set a goal to finish the last row of the Serendipity Sew Along Quilt this week and I did it! I still have to sew the rows together and attach the borders, but that is a goal for another week. I really love the colors in this quilt and know I will enjoy putting it out next summer and early fall.

Look what Eva made this week. She wanted to make mummy cupcakes and I love what she did. She made seven mummies and decided that was enough. After mixing some yellow and red food coloring into our white frosting, she achieved a nice pale orange, and she frosted the rest of them that way.

I am so enjoying our fall weather right now. The days have been just lovely and in the early evenings, we have been sitting on the front porch and watching the deer wander through. Don't you think fall is way too short? It is still blistering hot here through mid-September, and then by November the leaves have fallen and it is getting into our rainy season. The six weeks between Sept. 15 and Oct. 31 are glorious.

Don't get me started on how the retail stores rush the seasons. I went to the Trader Joe's by my dad's house last weekend because everyone knows Trader Joe's has great food for fall. And they were out of everything fall-related. The employees were putting out the Christmas food already. NOOOOOOOOOOO. Please let me have my butternut squash ravioli for a few more weeks.

Hope you have a terrific weekend!

Last Serendipity Row Coming Along

All my block units are finished and ready to sew into blocks. Row Seven of the Serendipity Sew Along is nearly a done deal. With luck, I will finish the six blocks today.

In other news, this is my tree in the backyard that I share every year. The leaves start to change color and over a two week period it gets progressively more colorful. One day, it is mostly red and the next day all the leaves fall off in one fell swoop.

So here's the interesting thing. This is happening about two weeks early this year. My son-in-law, the winemaker, tells me the grape harvest was accelerated this year also. Started early, lasted fewer weeks,  and is over and done with sooner. I wonder what is up with that?

Could it be we will have a more severe winter? Maybe some rain? Maybe enough to get us out of the drought we are experiencing? Time will tell.  

Anyway, I will monitor the progress of my backyard tree and share it with you.

Guess who Miss Eva is going to be for Halloween? Her dad texted me that it took two hours at the hairdressers to achieve that look.  Hmmm, should I believe him?

Another Way To Make Square in Square Units

After I posted on using Fatquartershop's Square in a Square foundation papers yesterday, I got an email from my friend Barbara. She reminded me that there is a ruler/tool that she has used for years to make this unit, and that she didn't see the need to purchase the foundation papers, good as they are.

And you guessed it. I too, own this ruler and forgot I had it. It is Deb Tuckers Square 2 ruler/trim tool. It actually is quite brilliant. It turns out the center square unit for the Square in a Square block is always a very strange, impossible to measure size. Like 3.1576" or something. So, the beauty of using a foundation paper or ruler with the center square already marked for this oddball size is the key to having the units come out perfectly. 

The first step is to cut your center square according to the finished size block you need. This is clearly marked on the ruler. I was making the 3 inch finished unit. Next you cut your triangle units according to the finished size. You get an overly generous measurement because there will be a final trim down. In my case I had to cut the squares for the triangle pieces 2 3/4".

Once you sew the triangles onto the square you use the Deb Tucker tool to trim to the perfect size, which is also marked on her ruler.

Do you see the X marks that you line up at the corner points? Isn't that brilliant? You line all four Xs up then trim around your unit and you will have your exact Square in a Square unit.

I compared my Deb Tucker Square in Square units with my Fatquartershop foundation paper unit and they were 100% exactly the same perfect 3 1/2" unfinished size. 

Plus for those of you who care about these things, you use less fabric with the Deb Tucker method.

Here is the YouTube tutorial for the Deb Tucker Square 2 method. 

Thanks Barbara, for the reminder about this great tool. I love the foundation papers as well, but once you have this ruler, you are pretty much all set. Fatquartershop sells both the ruler and the papers. Links above.

Rough day yesterday, but we are taking things a step at a time.

End of an Era

Remy
Dec. 17, 2007 - Oct. 11, 2021

We lost a treasured member of the family yesterday. Technically, Remy wasn't even our dog. He belonged to my daughter Sara and her husband Ryan, but spent a great deal of time with us at our home. He was one of the best little dogs on the planet for sure. His good behavior was always a big contrast to his friend Ozzie's. We'd often ask Ozzie, "Why can't you be a good boy like Remy?", but Ozzie marches to his own drummer. Even though their personalities were very different, they were a pack.

This picture was taken on the day when Ozzie and Remy first met. Ozzie liked him on the spot, which was unusual. Remy wasn't sure what to make of Ozzie at first, but they soon became good friends. And stayed friends for over 13 years.

You might recall me posting a few months back about the possibility of Remy having canine dementia. He would have episodes of acute anxiety when nothing seemed to help to calm him down. In the photo above, my husband is trying to comfort Remy and Ozzie is sitting at his feet looking on with concern. As time passed, Remy's episodes worsened, despite being on medication.

He loved his walks, his treats, and very short car rides. Always ready to see what would happen next, his curiosity was still tempered with caution. He was the best boy ever, and it is going to be very very hard not to have him around. Goodbye, Rem, we'll miss you.

 

Let's Get This Done

You may remember this project from this past summer. The Serendipity Sew Along. Free patterns for this row quilt are from Fatquartershop. You can get the patterns if you go to fatquartershop.com and search for "Serendipity Quilt Along". My fabrics are Apricot and Ash by Cory Yoder of Coriander Quilts. In case you were wondering, that random upside-down acorn on the upper left is not part of the quilt. 

I lost steam for this project when I got so busy with my father's care and when Eva's school started back up in August. I think it is time to get in gear and finish up the seventh (and final) row, get the borders on and call it done.  I've been looking at it on my design wall and thinking how pretty it would be to use it in September and October. It also coordinates beautifully with Cory's new collection "Cozy Up", which I used for my recent acorn block runner.

I dragged out the project box and pulled my fabrics and got started on the square in a square units that form the center of the six blocks in row seven.

For the square in a square units, I like to use Fatquartershop's foundation papers. Things come out so accurate when you foundation piece.

If you do use those papers, an indispensable trim tool is this little Add a Quarter ruler. It has a raised lip that locks onto the seam line for very tidy trimming.

Once you get all the corner triangles attached you are left with this sad wonky unit. No problem. Trim on the outside solid line and you have a perfectly square unit to build your block around.

WIsh me luck. I should be able to get six blocks done this week, right?

Hope you all had a great weekend. I may have to step up my cooking game for my dad. I fed him leftover chicken and rice casserole that I had made for my husband and me last week. When I looked in his fridge for signs of what my sisters had made for Dad during the week I discovered panko breaded fish fillets, steak/mashed potatoes/baby carrots, and grilled sausage and roasted potatoes. Hmmmm. I think I need to do better.

Books Read in September 2021

I read 9 books in September and enjoyed most of them quite a bit. Grab a cup of coffee, this post is a long one!

"Forever, Interrupted" by Taylor Jenkins-Reid was very sad for me. I loved the author's other books "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo", "Daisy Jones and the Six", and most recently "Malibu". The subject matter of this earlier book was a downer for me. The plot is about a young woman whose husband dies tragically in the first few pages of the book. The entire rest of the book is about how she deals with her grief. It was well done, but I did not enjoy it. 2.5 stars.

"Dovetails in Tall Grass" by Samantha Specks was terrific. The subject matter was a real historical event I knew absolutely nothing about. In 1862 the Dakota-Sioux nation declared war on the United States due to the US breaking countless promises and deals they made with the tribe. The conflict took place in Minnesota and was short-lived. The book's point of view alternates between Emma, whose homestead was attacked, and Oenakika, a young woman in the Dakota-Sioux tribe. The characters, place, and cultures are extremely well depicted and the reader is left with an understanding of what it must have been like to be a woman at that time. It felt very authentic and I have thought about it a lot since I read it. 5 stars.

"Tin Camp Road" by Ellen Airgood was a mixed bag for me. Set in Michigan's Upper Penninsula, the main character Laurel, is a struggling single mother to precocious 10-year-old daughter Skye. They are just barely surviving when they are evicted from their home. Probably because my own granddaughter is 10, I was more emotionally invested in the characters than I should have been. Even though she is a loving mother, Laurel makes countless terrible decisions concerning her daughter's welfare which just frustrated the heck out of me. We are supposed to be rooting for Laurel, but I found myself thinking Child Protective Services should take her child away from her. 2 stars.

"Mrs. March" by Virginia Feito was a very unique book. Mrs. March is wife to George, a very successful novelist. His latest hit bestseller has a main character who is unpleasant and repellent. Mrs. March somehow gets the notion that he has based this character on herself. She becomes obsessed with the idea and slowly becomes completely unhinged. The book is very suspenseful and it is fascinating for the reader to witness Mrs. March's descent into neurosis. We never learn her full name, and the time when the book is set is ambiguous as well. The atmosphere has kind of a 1950's Alfred Hitchcock vibe to it. It was well written and really different. Dark for sure. 3.5 stars.

"The Book of Lost and Found" by Lucy Foley was one I enjoyed. Kate Darling's famous ballerina mother dies suddenly and Kate is determined to discover the secrets of her mother's past and true identity. Her mother had been adopted as an infant and there are no clues to her birth mother's identity except for a sketch of her done by a very famous painter. Kate travels to Italy to make contact with the reclusive artist to see if she can unravel the mystery. The point of view flip flops between the 1930s and the 1980s. The story and characters were fascinating, but the book was way too long. It got bogged down in the middle and I began to pray it would be over. A bit of editing would have made this book perfect. Glad I stuck with it, but have to deduct points for the slow pace. 3.5 stars

"The Book of Lost Friends" by Lisa Wingate was such a good book. You may remember this author's previous book "Before We Were Yours", also excellent. Set in the time period after the Civil War in the South, three very different young women set off together to find the wealthy missing father of two of them. Hannie is a freed slave, Lavinia is the spoiled legitimate daughter of the missing plantation owner, and Juneau Jane is her half-sister, the illegitimate Creole daughter of the same man. Their adventures are entertaining and suspenseful enough but there is a subplot that is almost more compelling. The girls take shelter in various black churches along their journey and discover that on the walls of these churches freed slaves have posted notices trying to find their missing loved ones from whom they had been separated. Heartbreaking, and that part of the book is based on the truth. The girls start making a book of these notices and sharing it with everyone they meet on their adventure. I highly, highly recommend this book. 5 plus stars.

"56 Days" by Catherine Ryan Howard was a wild ride. The book is set in Dublin and the author is Irish, so you know I had to read it. The two main characters meet at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic and impetuously decide to live with one another so they can be in the same household and explore their budding romance. Of course, they are keeping secrets from each other and things don't go well and someone dies. A page-turner for sure. The descriptions of Dublin during the pandemic were exactly as my son described to me! 3.5 stars.

"Razorblade Tears" by S.A. Cosby was so good. Gritty but so well done. I listened to the audio version and it was excellently narrated. Black ex-con Ike Randolph and red-neck hick Buddy Lee are the most unlikely companions you will ever meet. The thing is, Ike and Buddy Lee's sons were married to each other and have been murdered in a grisly shooting. The police are getting nowhere and Ike and Buddy Lee (who are in their 50s) decide to take matters into their own hands and get to the bottom of their sons' deaths. Both men were unsupportive of their sons' gay lifestyle and carry a good deal of guilt. The book is violent and disturbing, but you will sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see what will happen next. And you will definitely be rooting for these over-the-hill misfits. Imagine Billy Bob Thornton as Buddy Ray and Samuel Jackson as Ike. Whew, this was some book. 5 stars.

"When the Stars Go Dark" by Paula McLain was a real departure in style for this author. I thought it was a wonderful book, and the subject matter was clearly something deeply personal to the author. Set in the 1980s in Mendocino, California, our main character Anna Hart is a missing person's detective from San Francisco. She has suffered some (unknown to the reader) personal tragedy that has caused her to run away to her childhood home in Northern California to lick her wounds. And of course, she gets caught up in a missing person case. A teenage girl has gone missing and there is a massive effort to locate her before it is too late. However, a real-life event is occurring at the same exact time of our novel, which is siphoning off all the manpower and police resources. The Polly Klass case. Remember that? I get goosebumps just thinking about it. This book combines a compelling story, real-life events, and the study of trauma theory.  This book was so well researched and written, and I have mentioned the subject of trauma theory is something deeply personal to the author. I urge you to pick up this book and learn more. 5 stars.

Ok, that's it for September. Some really good books and a couple of just ok ones, but overall, I had a great reading month. And as I always say, it may be that a book wasn't my cup of tea, but it totally might be yours! Check out other reviews and make up your own minds.

I kind of dashed this post off, so I hope it is coherent! 

 

 

I Love Mondays

I saw something on FaceBook yesterday, where someone was moaning about it being Monday. I have quite the opposite reaction to Mondays. I love Mondays. I am home with my husband again, I can enjoy my house, and if time allows, get caught up on a bit of sewing or reading. Mondays are a re-set day for me. A chance to start fresh and enter the week with hope and goals.

Take a look at those lilies, will you? My husband bought them for me, and they are perfect with my fall decor. How about the size of them? Yikes. He bought them for $8.99 at Walmart of all places. They are over a week old and still look spectacular. We do change the water often, but that is amazing.

I have made my last mug rug for a while.  I'll make a few for Christmas, but I am done for now. This one is for me. It isn't as technically perfect as the last one I made, but I am satisfied with it. Love that Kitty Corn fabric.

I just noticed something, and I am surprised you guys didn't point it out to me. My Christmas block on the upper left is sewn together wrong. Do you see my mistake? Oh goody, I will have to take it apart and fix it.

Here is a little glimpse of my hall table, which makes me happy every time I walk past it. My husband got us a little mini haunted house that works great on it. That photo of my son and me was taken at the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studios in London. We look too nice to be dangerous.

He must be standing on a box. I look like I am about four and a half feet tall. He is six feet tall and I am about 5' 4" if I stand up straight.