Carey Family

Scott and Sue Family

2016 World Reading Challenge wrap-up

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 2016 World Reading Challenge

Hosted by Dorothee at life is a journey, the idea of this reading challenge is to explore the world by books from different continents and countries. To join the challenge, select and read seven books, one book from each continent. I have finished up this challenge, and although all the authors weren’t native to the continents, the books gave good introductions to each continent.

–Africa: Lion in the Valley (Amelia Peabody #4), Elizabeth Peters (this is a historical mystery series about archaeologists, but the author spent considerable time digging in Africa and gives a lot of historical and geographical information in each novel)

– Asia: The Piano Teacher, Janice Y.K Lee (set in Hong Kong by a Hong Kong author)

– Australia/Ozeania: Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta (set in Australia by an Australian author)

– Europe: The Revolving Door of Life (44 Scotland Street #10), Alexander McCall Smith (set in Scotland by a Scottish author)

– North America: Anne’s House of Dreams (Anne #5), L.M. Montgomery (set in Canada by a Canadian author)

– South America:  The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon, Robert Whitaker (nonfiction book by an author who lived in Ecuador)

– Antarctica (or a book with a journey from one continent to another): Shackleton’s Stowaway, Victoria McKernan (YA historical novel based on fact and well-researched)

2016 Color Coded Challenge wrap-up

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This challenge is hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block.

2016 Color Coded Challenge

This was my fourth year for this challenge and although I try to read my own books for this as much as possible without resorting to library books, only four were my own books this year. I love this challenge and hope to do it again in 2017!

Here are the rules:

*Read nine books in the following categories.
* Any book read from January 1 through December 31, 2016 will count.
  1. Blue: Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater
  2. Red: Bloodroot (China Bayles #10), Susan Wittig Albert
  3. Yellow: Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die, #3), Danielle Paige
  1. Green: Anne of Green Gables (Anne #1), L.M. Montgomery
  2. Brown:  Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson
  3. Black: The Raven King (Raven Cycle #4), Maggie Stiefvater
  4. White: Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky, Sandra Dallas
  1. any other color in the title/on the cover: Tales from Silver Lands, Charles J. Finger
  2. word that implies color: Rainbow Valley (Anne of Green Gables, #7), L.M. Montgomery

America the Beautiful quilt top finished

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We added the borders and finished the quilt tops. They are going to be revisited next spring when we piece the backs and get them quilted and they will be all ready to show in the Alpine Days Quilt Show in August! Look at us being so prepared!

We are very happy with our work and continually amazed at how different the three tops ended up. So here they are: [Read more…] about America the Beautiful quilt top finished

Finishes: BYU and Beach Umbrellas

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I have several quilts in various stages of production but September brought two finishes which makes me very happy. For Scott’s birthday in February I gave him the kit for the BYU quilt, purchased from the Fabric Mill in Orem. I had seen that kit several times when visiting that store and thought it would be a good lap quilt for Scott. When they had all their kits on sale in February, I gave in to temptation. So I worked on the cutting and piecing during the summer and let Scott pick the layout of the blocks. Once they were sewed together he chose the backing which I interrupted with a vertical and horizontal row of leftover blocks. Then he went with me to Just Sew in Highland and chose the blue thread and machine quilting pattern of loops and swirls. I attached the binding just before we left for Arizona at the beginning of September and sewed in the car so that we could do a photo shoot in Phoenix and at Montezuma’s Well. [Read more…] about Finishes: BYU and Beach Umbrellas

Summer with America the Beautiful

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Because we all did some travelling this summer, and not at the same time, we cancelled several weeks of quilt group and got a little behind with our progress. Over the course of three sewing weeks, we managed to get our four houses done. They vary wildly in fabric and color choices, as well as background choices because we are very individual when it comes to this quilt! We cut and sewed the first house on the same day but then decided to cut out all three in a marathon cutting session, start sewing and finishing sewing the next week. Because our houses were all made of completely different fabric, we all cut our own houses rather than each person cutting all the pieces out of one fabric for all of us as we do on the 1930’s quilt. If you’ve ever done any fabric cutting of lots of varied size pieces, it takes focus. We find that repeating the dimensions out loud to ourselves as we check the pattern and then as we cut is very helpful in avoiding mistakes. So a cutting day sounds like this: “two rectangles of cream 1 1/4″ by 3 1/2” “I need to cut three windows out of the same fabric” “Oh darn it!” “the light blue is a triangle with three rectangles while the dark blue is five rectangles” “Wait! Is that three or four green 2 1/2″ squares?” “three strips 1 1/2″ by 12”, all murmured quietly and somewhat continuously, interspersed with louder exclamations of “For the love, I did it again!” uttered by me. A visitor during cutting time would fall on the floor laughing hysterically. [Read more…] about Summer with America the Beautiful