a bit of kindle

I have been making good use of the Kindle I was gifted for my birthday, and I have to admit I had some trepidation about it to start out with. I had been longing for an e-reader but I was afraid I would incur too much extra expense with using it. I try to keep myself on a pretty tight budget, but that's a whole other story. I had the mistaken assumption that possessing an e-reader would be like falling down the rabbit's hole of online book expenses. Not so! I have, indeed, purchased one or two "normal" priced books, but for the most part I have been making good use of the free and/or bargain books available on Amazon. I have found more than enough good reading that way, and have started accumulating enough of a digital library that I am going to have to do some organizing and prioritization of the list. And maybe try to stay awake at night longer than the time it takes to read 1 page! I signed up for a daily deal email from Amazon with bargain books to consider. It's amazing how far I have stretched the Amazon gift certificate that accompanied my kindle. In fact, I am still using it 4 months later! Today's book caught my attention and for $.99 I think it will go into my library list.

I have no training in fashion design and scant experience in drafting anything resembling clothing. But I do have a long time, far removed interest in famous designers. The question I have is which comes first--
A., the designer's ability to predict and create hot new fashions and develop a worldwide reputation,
or B., a worldwide reputation gained by hook or by crook with a following that makes everything they design an instant hot new fashion?
This feeds right into my mini-obsession with Project Runway (and now Project Accessory!) and the experiences the struggling designers must go through to come out on top. I always wish I could know more about the critique by the judges, because they are supposed to be the people in the know, and sometimes they flat out don't fit with what my own critique says! Even if you don't get the program on your TV selection, if you are reading this page then you have access to the shows on their website. So I invite you to watch an episode and see who you would kick off the island (or toss off the runway).

On another related note, I want to give a little testimonial for the Kindle cover that I am using. I showed you this before when I shared pictures from a September retreat, but it is worth revisiting now after some time to use and test the design. I make and try out a lot of patterns and projects for classes and displays at Bear Patch, some with better success than others. This was the second pattern I made for an e-reader cover, and this one is a keeper!
It is the Reader Wrap from Atkinson Designs. It is a well-designed and very functional cover. Honestly, what else would I expect from Terry Atkinson? So if you are looking for help for your naked e-reader, this is the one to try!

back on task

Since the first intent of this blog was to share some of my fiber fun, seems like I better get back to that after the vacation interruption. I had started on a Christmasquilt for Debbie before I left, but had only gotten as far as mounting it on the rollers. There it languished while I was away having fun. But first day back and I gotmy bobbins wound, machine cleaned and oiled, tension adjusted, good book to listen to and ready to roll.

We had decided that I would do my echoed loops and curls, a favorite all-over design, in a green thread. This quilt pattern is called Shadow Song and is designed by Terry Atkinson. It will be a class at Bear Patch this fall, a one night session for the Easy As Pie series. Our example uses a great group of Christmas fabrics, but as with any quilt pattern, you can choose your own favorite colors and designs. The picture above shows a partially quilted area and illustrates something that occurs during the process. See how the area of unquilted fabric in the upper left seems kind of loose and has some ripples? The quilted area doesn't look like that. I keep the tension of the quilt layers a tad loose so I am not stretching everything, and the rows of stitches take care of the rest. The more densely an area is quilted, the smaller it becomes in relation to the surrounding area. That is why it is important to keep the total quilted surface in a somewhat evenly quilted pattern, or you will end up with bubbles and puckers. Ask me how I know! This principle can also be put to work in a beneficial way for a quilt top that is pieced together unevenly, the biggest culprit being border sections that are too large. More stitching in those areas can do a good job on camouflaging bumpy borders, to a limit.

Flight time is perfect for me to work on a small knitting project, so I took along this scarf that I had started last spring.

I think this was yarn that I bought in a store in Sebastopol, CA, Balls and Skeins, last July. The pattern is one I have shown you before, the 22.5 degree scarf, available free on Ravelry if you sign up to be a member. I have lost the yarn label somewhere along the way, but I think it was from Araucania. It is a very nice yarn to work with. I never used to understand what that phrase really meant before I ventured into more knitting projects. Isn't all yarn just a bunch of string, anyway? Oh, no! Not by a long sight! After using a few different brands and types, I found some yarn that I would never use again because it felt rough or split between plies, or had knots, etc. Generally it is a problem encountered with yarn that I do not purchase at an actual yarn shop, not saying that everything at Michael's and JoAnn's is not useable, but it's just a case of buyer beware. Same principle applies to fabrics purchased at a quilt/fabric store as compared to a chain store. You can find some gems and/or disappointments no matter where you look, but you will have a much better chance of success at the store that is providing the individual service you are looking for, rather than departments for every craft under the sun. Just sayin'!

Can't resist one parting moment of vacation pictures--

Dan and Liz hard at work cleaning up the kitchen after our last dinner there.

And a beautiful wildflower from the shores of Convict Lake. Very interesting story about that lake if you want a little fun history and a tale that could be a John Wayne movie! What Wikipedia fails to tell is that the convicts were later captured nearby (Round Valley), taken to Bishop, and some were hanged. Not a happy ending--let that be a lesson! I like the image of the star flower much better!

Done!

What a great 4-letter word!

Finished up this Marilee quilt this morning, and I love these fabrics! Batiks are always nice to work with, and these rich colors make it a double delight! The pattern is Between Friends from the Terry Atkinson book Happy Hour. The quilting design is a pantogram called Splash from Willow Leaf Studio. Now my next quilt to do is coincidentally the same pattern on a smaller scale! And Christmas fabrics:

Otherwise, the update here this morning is that it isn't raining! The sun is shining, so I got my 3 mile walk/run done, picked the garden, and am working on packing up stuff for a weekend away at Bob and Debbie's cabin in WI. We have been trying all summer to find a time when we could go there, and here it is the end of August and this is the first chance we've had. And we always have such a fun time there, so we didn't want to let the opportunity escape even though there were challenges to working it out! We do need to get back in time for Bob to make his scheduled round of golf Sunday afternoon, it had to be postponed due to bad weather this week. Bob sure loves his golfing, he is in a weekly league and rarely misses those nights. This particular game will be the finals of the league match play, which started out with 64 golfers competing and now down to 2! Maybe I should go along to caddy for him! With my lack of golfing skill and knowledge, I'm afraid I would be more of a hindrance than a help. But I can definitely show up for the celebration when he wins!