Sharing

I worked this morning and it was a beautiful day. I had plans to come home and lay out at the pool with my newly borrowed book. However, the clouds came rolling in and - tut, tut, it looks like rain. Plus the pools around us are locked up for some reason - probably unruly kids ruining it for everyone again. So I may just have to read my book inside, under my quilt, with a nice cup of tea.

I drink hot tea just about everyday; I've been a tea drinker since I was young. My favorite then and still today is Bigelow Constant Comment. Some days I suspect it's more about the nostalgic taste of the tea rather than the actual taste, but I love it all the same. I also love chai teas- my favorite being Stash brand. We've tried the black spice chai, green chai, and chai white. They all have great flavors, but my favorite of the three is the green chai. It has a great chai taste with the added benefits of drinking green tea. I prefer the spice chai over the white, as the chai white has a very weak flavor. I drink all my tea with milk and sugar; that's the way my mom made it for me when I was little and I can't stand the bitter taste of plain tea. What's your favorite tea?

Now that I've babbled on about tea, let me babble about my newest library book. First, the library- the biggest thing I miss about our old town is the library. Anderson was a moderately sized town with a massive library stocked full of all the books my heart could desire. Sewing books, quilting books, knitting books, fiction books, biographical books, plus a great assortment of DVDs and CDs. Now that we live in Nashville, the libraries are divided among neighborhoods, resulting in smaller selections and long wait lists. No longer can I pop in and grab the exact book I was looking for, I need to do my research, reserve it, find something for the meantime, and then go pick it up when it finally comes to my branch.

So while I had other plans yesterday, I came home with "Change of Heart" by Jodi Picoult. Earlier this summer I read "Plain Truth" and read "My Sister's Keeper" on my Australian trip in January. I enjoyed both those books until the last chapter or so. I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read them yet, but I feel like Jodi Picoult takes the easy way out of ending her books. Both books dramatically lead up to an important decision, only to find out no decision would be made. Picoult does her research, writes knowledgeably about the subjects, and crafts stories that keep me hooked (I read both books in a matter of days) but the endings have left me wanting more. I'm hoping my newest read will justify itself and prove Picoult to be an author I will enjoy reading in the future.

Now onto some crafting things:

My friend's sister asked me to make a couple clutches for her, so I happily obliged. She picked the fabrics out of my stash, both Heather Bailey Freshcut prints. I also threw in what I'm calling a "card clutch" to match each. When I'm using a clutch, I like to have a safe place to put my credit card, ID, and maybe the couple bucks I brought with me. While it wouldn't be hard to put a little pocket in these clutches, I thought a tiny little clutch would be a cute way to keep everything together.

I won a bunch of charm packs on eBay a couple weeks ago and started putting some fall table runners together.

I made both of these out of one charm pack, I have one more with fall prints. I'm debating on making more table runners or something else.

Last night I had a chance to think harder on what I want to do for my DQS7 and I came up with this:

My partner likes modern, improv quilts and I wanted to try something a little more random than my normal quilts. I dug through my scrap pile, cut 3" strips and went to town sewing them together. Most are two strips, but a few are more patchy blocks. I trimmed them all down to 3" squares and used a dice thrower online to place them in a 6X6 grid. Somewhere along the line I lost one of the columns, but I like it best this way. I need to piece a back and then quilt the whole thing. There are some funky seams going on, but I think hope once it is quilted and washed everything will fall into place.

For now, I'll cuddle up under my quilt, read my book, and maybe rest my eyes until dinner. The rain has started falling and it's got me feeling sleepy..