Free Kindle Book

I have various tastes when it comes to books, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, mystery, etc.

Once in a while I browse Amazon for free kindle books - I get a lot of use out of my kindle... I swear I read more now because of it then I did previously.  Why?  Because it's handy, easy to tote around, easy to read in bed.

So my Amazon browsing today found this (among several others), but this one sounds intriquing and it has received some well written reviews.

In the Beginning (A unique Scifi Fantasy Story) (The Great Destruction Series) [Kindle Edition]

Mrs. Melanie M. Ray

Product Description

Genres: This is a Scifi Fantasy with some Tragic Comedy
Bonus now included: The Legend and Risk, my short stories are now included in the back.

In the world of Pagnia, there is trouble brewing. With the help of a special mineral dubbed inhibitor, the citizens remain peaceful. Only one problem causes them to go against being pacifists. Pheromones. Since the race is so peaceful, the only protection needed is provided for women by guards whose sole purpose is to protect them. They are Protectors, and are bred and trained to go against their calm nature. They are not allowed to have any romantic relationship with a female, but are revered on their planet.

Unfortunately, with the weak will to fight this sets them on bad ground with their only enemy: Themselves. Through greed and temptation with the inhibitor their race had split into two and would one day cease to exist with genetics pulling each individual closer to a soulless pink-eyed rat tail.

Yed is an A class Protector, the highest on the scale. He's given a simple mission, to talk to a woman about settling down. He is conned by the king and finds out the woman was his childhood friend, Ezra. Having no idea what the King had in store for her, he demands to be her Protector.

The King reluctantly agrees, but if Yed reveals the kingdoms involvement, he will receive a painful death. Life gets tougher as forbidden feelings increase between him and Ezra. With this deadly secret lurking between them, and an overshadow of war always hanging overhead, will he be able to pull through?
You will find yourself laughing and loving these characters, waiting to find out how it ends. This is not a book for children, no matter how wonderful this world may appear on the surface. With an ending that will shock you into waiting for that next book, In the Beginning will not disappoint.

"Ms. Ray has created a fascinating world, novel situations, and multifaceted characters that draw the reader in and keep them wanting more. I had to really force myself not to buy the second book the minute I'd finished this one but I wanted to finish another one I'd just bought first. I can't wait to see what happens to Yed , Muin and Ezra. "

-D. Chippett from Amazon.com

Go ahead, while it's free... you know you want to!

Save on monthly groceries - hell yes!!

I found this post on Denise's blog.. Count it All Joy
Seriously, who doesn't want to save money on groceries.


I'm very interested to read this book and find out how I can cut costs.

Needed a "fabric fix" today

I have no idea why... but I just had this insatiable urge to buy fabric today.  Seriously, I wake up in the night dreaming of quilts, blocks, colour combinations, ideas for new quilts.  I can't stop!  I have the bug and it's BAD!  LOL

Going to one of the quilt stores didn't interest me.  Honestly, there's not a lot of variety in what they have.  Sometimes you just have to leave town.  So off to Perth Fabrics I went.  They have a wonderful store!  Lots of fabrics, battings, thread and a whole host of other craft supplies for knitting, felting, painting, flower arranging, cross stitch, scrap-booking and probably more than I even know.   It's less than an hour away and it was a beautiful day for a drive.

I picked up a few teal-ish greens (not so green in the picture though) for the Orca Bay Mystery quilt, and that yellow with flowers.. just because I liked it and it was in the bargain bin for 50% off - there was only a meter left.

And do you see this asian fabric?  It's gorgeous!  I had the lady lay it out on the table, we measured the length of the repeat, and multiplied that by 6, and rounded it out to 4 meters even.  I finally found a fabric I want to use for one of those "One Block Wonder" quilts.  This will be amazing!

And then, as I thought I was done looking around, there's a shopping cart at the front of the store with MORE discounted bolts.  Lookie what I found to be the backing on my Mai Tai's in Paradise quilt (aka cruise quilt)!!

It's perfect!!  Across the width of the fabric it repeats this scene three times.  The store is trying to get rid of all these summer "hawaiian shirt prints", there were probably three other bolts there with similar patterns.  The line up at the cutting table was full.  The lady helping me asked how much I wanted and I told her probably about 4 meters... but let's see how much was left on the bolt. 

Now this is the fun part.  She didn't have a table to use, so she unfolded all the fabric from the bolt, and roughly measured it against a wooden yard stick she was trying to hold at the same time.  She figured it was about six meters, and wrote it up as such, and gave me 35% off instead of the posted discount of 30%.  Guess she was happy to get rid of it.  Anyways, when I got home into my office, I refolded all the material.  With this one, I measured.  There are 7 yards (yes yards).  Convert that to meters and you get 6.4 meters.  She did a pretty darn good measuring job!

I'm probably only going to need about 4 meters of it for the back of the quilt, so I told Jim I may have enough left to make him a shirt... and the ladies on the cruise know how much he loves his hawaiian shirts!  LOL  He'd wear them everyday to work if it wasn't for the drab, navy, black or tan company shirts they make them wear.  Apparently, it's even written in the company policy manual "no hawaiian or loud shirts". 

I don't know about you, but I think a predominately male workplace could use a bit of colour - and I'm not just talking the language!  hehehe

Needless to say, I got my "fix" today. 

*does happy dance*

My little workhorse

This is my little Singer featherweight.  I haven't posted about this yet, actually, I haven't used it much yet, up until a couple of weeks ago.

During the summer I was searching through the listings of the garage and yard sales around town and found one that said they had an old Singer sewing machine.  From the description in the ad, I had a pretty good idea it might be a featherweight, and recruited my girlfriend to head a little ways out of town to check it out on the Sunday.

I was betting that someone had already picked it up on the Saturday, so I wasn't very hopeful that it would still be there.  Having absolutely no clue how much these should sell for (at the time), I checked a few ads on kijiji and usedottawa.  There were two available then, one going for $299 and one for $275.  That at least gave me a range to shoot for.

When we arrived, I did the curteous thing and browsed through all the tables and stacks out on the lawn, all the while keeping an eye out for a little sewing machine.  In the garage, in the back corner table I spotted it.  Honestly, I didn't know much about featherweights then, but looked it over enough to see it wasn't very scratched up, didn't have any chunks missing from the bed, the decals on the front area are a bit worn, and it looked fairly clean.  Even the case it came in had oodles of feet, a few bobbins and the original owners manual and can of Singer oil.

I asked the lady how much it was selling for, she went and grabbed her husband.  He said $250.  He also said it worked.  I didn't have any opportunity to test that but took him at his word.  

To not look too interested, I continued browsing a few other tables in the garage.  They had at least two dozen oil lamps different sizes, ages, glass shapes, etc - and I love them!!  I have a few really nice ones at home.  They remind me of very happy days and nights as a kid when we lived out in the country and would be snowed in, no power, just the pot bellied wood stove and oil lamps to play cards by.

Of course, since there's a picture, you know I went back to the table and picked it up.  The gentleman happily took my cash and asked if I knew of anyone else interested in one.  Apparently he comes by them on occasion.  I didn't know of anyone who was looking. 

I got the feeling this wasn't so much of a garage/yard sale as it was a sale of estate items that he seems to gather to sell.  Maybe I'll have to check out his house again next summer.

All in all, the machine works like a charm.  I did my research on the internet to find out how to properly clean it, oil it, grease it, and what to look for in the way of damage, smells, oil build up, etc.  I made a short list of things that should be taken care of.  New oil drip pad for the bottom, new needles, a new belt, and a tube of grease.  For about $30 I was able to order all the things I needed. 

Before these things came, I tested it on scraps of fabric.  A beautiful straight stitch, runs quietly and is just soooo cute!

Two weeks ago, when we went to Jim's mom's place on the Sunday for her birthday celebration, I took my old Universal sewing machine with me, a sewing kit of supplies and a bag of scraps of fabric.  She wanted to learn how to sew.  My idea was to get her started on crumb blocks.  My featherweight came along with me.

I didn't take any pictures, but suffice it to say, between Jim's mom, his sister and I, we completed 10 little 6" crumb blocks.

Jim's sister has since told me they're running out of scraps... LOL

On another note, still in regards to my featherweight, Jake doesn't like it when I spend too much time in my dungeon (basement office/sewing room) and reminds me of it constantly by coming down and planting his head on my leg.

So a few nights ago I took the featherweight and my box of neutral strings and planted myself at the dining room table.

First I wanted to wind a couple of the bobbins up with new thread, but to do that I had to remove the old threads from the bobbins.  Do you see this?  The lady who owned this machine had a wide variety of threads on one bobbin!  Some were a couple yards long, but most were only three or four feet long.  And different colours!  I guess it didn't matter much to her if she sewed with all the same thread colour... talk about needing to be frugal.

So I now have 45 little string blocks (4 1/2") done for my Jamestown Landing quilt.  Only 123 more to do!  (another story on that coming soon)  :)

PS.  do you see my RRCB on the wall in the background in the first photo?  I didn't even notice it until I viewed my post.. LOL  (it's on my quazi-design wall - but it's not big enough to fit the whole quilt).