bramble blooms and cat toys

Not much has happened with the Bramble Blooms 2 quilt, but I did get the flower decisions made, flowers cut and pinned and a little sewing done this past week!

I opted to echo the rainbow shapes to make flowers.  I've only sewn down a few of the red arcs and the centers are safety pinned down (because cats) for now - they'll get gathered and pressed before sewing, but for now I just have them secure where I want them to end up.

The reason I got sidetracked on this is cat toys.

As you know, I work with a local cat rescue group and I cut out a bazillion smaller cat toys and then stalled out.  Then I got busy and sewed and turned them all and stalled out.  I had one bout of stuffing and sewing them, but that petered out quickly - that's not the fun part, even if the cats get stoned and bored quickly.

But the hubby and I have also volunteered to help transport pallets of horse bedding pellets - they're wood pellets, but not the kind you burn for heat - that are used at the shelter for litter.  We got the call Tuesday to haul a load today (they plan ahead to get volunteers to help unload).  Which means I'll be AT the shelter today.  What better time to turn over a bunch of cat toys?

(Also, they seem to be ramping up adoption events, and these are free-for-donation (or not) goodies they have on a table in the same area as the kitties.)

Time to get busy.

Salem takes quality control very seriously.  (I know it's her and not Freddie because of the white patch on her chest.)  She got in the box, despite my trying to close it.

As I was sewing on Friday, Freddie helped himself to an appropriate-to-the-day toy.  You can see he also has catnip on his face (I do give them a little as I'm sewing to try to distract them - clearly it didn't work), so it was a good day for this little goofball.  (He abandoned the toy shortly after and I reclaimed it, as it had only been gently used.)

Lily takes stuffing inspection seriously.  She got the boot after trying to eat it, as wet stuffing is not desirable.  (And stuffing in a kitty belly even less desirable.)

A few days later, when the bag was nearly empty, Toby took over stuffing inspection.  I was worried I'd lose a finger to his shenanigans, but he was gentle.  And he was still in the bag when it was empty of all floof.  It was a good cave until evil mom threw it out.  (Because evil mom doesn't want any tragedies.)

The stuffing ran out as the box was full.

This is maybe half of what I cut.  There are maybe 300 in there.  I need another box!

But I'm glad to have made such progress on these and hope to keep myself motivated to finish the remainder of them.  I got another (smaller) bag of stuffing from the rescue group and then will likely need to purchase some.  It's okay.  It's all part of this volunteering job.

I also finished two more books this week.

This book is set in the Massachusetts area about 20 years prior to the Salem witch trials.  (I say this because there were some parts of the book where I wondered if the main character would be accused of being a witch, but then went looking and she was a few years before that became a big thing.)  The Native Americans and English settlers are at odds and raids where captives are taken seem to be fairly frequent and a constant worry.

Mary, the main character, is taken captive, along with her children, when her husband is away on business, along with a number of other people from her small village.  She describes the raid, the forced march to their camp (which moves a lot), her life as a slave to the Native Americans who captured her, and (spoiler alert) her return to her husband after months away.  Some of the things she experiences change her and make her return harder than it seems to be for others, but she also seems to me to be a woman who fit in neither culture well.

Apparently this is based on an actual book that was written by Mary, though I questioned her ability to not only read that well, but also write a book (which led me to worry she'd be accused of being a witch).  The google told me that women of that era often did not know how to do this, but if this is based on a book she wrote, I guess she did?  It also mentioned that writing to make a book was very uncommon, but since she was partnered up with Increase Mather to make it into a cautionary, religious story, I guess that makes some sense.

Some things that caught me off guard were her ability to see that her life as a captive wasn't much better than the lives of those she served.  No one had a lot to eat.  No one had a comfortable life.  I was impressed that she was able to remove herself from the situation enough to see that.  Yet I was disappointed that she mentioned having herbs and such for medicines at her home before being taken captive, but made no effort to find those to help herself, or even her captors once she began to care about them or in an effort to make herself valuable and therefore more likely to be allowed to live.

I enjoyed the book.

Next up:

Oh boy.

Set in 1923 in England, a young woman with a somewhat questionable past, is involved in the women's movement and gets a job working at a questionable clothing manufacturer to expose their unfair practices.

This all sounds good, but on day one she is already trying to get all the dirt, which seems ridiculous.  Anyone who has any knowledge of spying knows you don't go all out the first day.  She seems rather hurried in her efforts, but eventually does get an opportunity to get some information.

As a result (and somewhat in the meantime), the bad guys become aware that she is trouble for them and that ends up putting her in extra danger where men keep rescuing her.

There is a whole other side story of a wealthy, titled couple that eventually all ties in (as you expect it to), though there are little ties all along.  

Oh, and there's a romance.  A 1923 sort of romance, I guess.  Not steamy.  Hand holding.

The idea of the book is good.  The restating of facts, sometimes only a paragraph apart, made it feel like it was written in fits and starts and then not edited or proofread.  Sometimes I had a hard time keeping track of characters, despite their names being used A LOT.

So I had trouble keeping focused on it.  It was easy to put down and get distracted.

Reviews online give it a lot more stars than I do, but it wasn't awful.

I finished this one last night and haven't started the next book, but I hope to get some reading done today.  Between taking care of doggos at work for breakfast and dinner and delivering a pallet of bedding/litter pellets to the shelter at noon.  It's a busy day, but that's okay.  It keeps my mind off all of this stupid snow that keeps coming down and blowing around!

Happy quilting!

Katie

bramble blooms coming along and ugh a book

Last week I left you with half the vines sewn to my Bramble Blooms 2 borders.  I did, in fact, go up to my sewing room and make the remainder and pin them down.

Then I worked to get them sewn down.

Until Lily plopped in the middle of what I was doing and decided to take a bath.  I tried to work around her.  I tried to pet her.

NO PETS!

So I took a break and read for a bit.

(She is currently goblining her way around the house - whatever I'm doing, she must be in the center of it.  I sure hope that wears off by the time I'm ready to do any sewing!)

Eventually I got all the vines and little flower stems sewn down.  It took less time than I anticipated, but I got on a roll and just kept sewing.

As you can see, Lily is in the middle of things.  I put this on the floor for the photo just a few minutes ago, but before I even had my phone ready for a photo, she was taking a litlle bath.  FInney came along to inspect, too, but he's usually pretty chill.  Salem is over to the left, trying to avoid the goblin.

(And as I'm typing now, she's testing gravity near the desk...)

My plan for later today is to make some final decisions on the flowers that are the next step and then get them cut.  Fingers crossed the fabrics in the BB stash are enough.  And then I'll work on it while ignoring the big football game happening this evening.  (But there will be pizza, so I'll attend - in my living room.)

Earlier this week, I had some bananas that were too far gone to eat, but they make the best bread.  In true goblin fashion, I had help...

She was actually afraid of them.  They've been sitting on my counter for a week or more, just not on the stove, so I have no idea why she was afraid of them.  (And yes, she gets on counters.  I wiped them all down after I got her to leave me and the bananas alone - before I started actually making the bread.  I always wipe counters down before cooking, no matter how clean they seem, because I KNOW they're up there exploring when I'm not around.  And aside from living in my kitchen, making them get/stay down, I'm not going to get them to stay down.  They're cats and this one is a goblin variety cat.  She's extra stubborn.  I miss the first year when she thought she couldn't get up there.)

Anyways, banana bread was made.

And I finished just one book.  I kept expecting it to become something.  It was awful.

Characters that were there for hundreds of pages (it's 600+ pages) would disappear never to be heard from again.  And not like they died or moved away or whatever.  They just were never heard about again.  A whole village of people that the first 200+ pages developed was destroyed and they moved away to another village, the end.

So, because this book was a disaster and I can't even begin to figure out what the heck was going on half the time (I just kept reading, hoping it would all come together at the end - spoiler alert, it didn't), I'm going to copy the blurb from the back of the book.

"Set in an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom in the 1930's, this remarkable novel tells the story of the disruption and diaspora of a poor oasis community following the discovery of oil there.  The meeting of Arabs and the Americans who, in essence, colonized the remote region is a cultural confrontation in which religion, history, superstition, and mutual incomprehension all play a part."

So oil was not mentioned until maybe page 500.  Big construction machines were mentioned.  Water being pumped into the ground was mentioned.  Trees being cut down and the village being flattened was mentioned.  Getting rich was repeatedly mentioned to the village people by the strangers (who became Americans hundreds of pages later), but never clearly happened (if it even did).

Very little was made of religion, other than the native Arabs being aghast at the behaviors of the Americans, once we moved to the third village that became what sounds more like a resort town than anything else.

No real history either.  Which is what I would have liked and probably what made me choose this book.  I like to learn about other cultures and historical fiction is often great for that.

I had high hopes for this book.  I did get that the foreigners took advantage of the poor, uneducated-by-western-standards natives and that was aggravating.  But in general?  It was people doing people things - eating, complaining, working, living.

Why did I keep reading, you ask?  Because I had hopes things would all come together in the end.  The lost characters would turn up again, having been lost for a reason.  Nope.

They can't all be winners.  This one was clearly a good one to some, as it has been translated from Arabic and banned in some countries.  Just not a winner to me.

Enough complaining!

I started another book yesterday (my streak of days reading at least one page is nearly 800!) and read about half of it already.  It's much better.

Time to go find some lunch (the hubby is napping through lunch - probably so he can stay up late to watch football tonight) and then make some flowers.

Happy quilting!

Katie

sewing and reading

After posting last week, I kicked myself in the butt and got busy.

First I pressed and cut the fabric for the Bramble Blooms 1 border and then sewed the LOOOOOONG seams and got the top finished!

It was cold and windy when I got it done, so I hung it in a wide doorway - great size, but with the windows in the room behind, you get a backlit version of the quilt top.  I tried to adjust the colors, but that wasn't as easy as one might think!

You get the idea - and you can see the top is done.  I think it's like 68x68 or something.  I don't remember.  I have notes upstairs, but they're upstairs.

I went to bed a few nights later and wondered if the border needs some of the hills I put in the first border?  A question for another day.

And with that, I moved on to Bramble Booms 2.

The last prompt was an applique border.  Viney maybe.  I dreaded it.  I don't mind applique, though I don't like it as much as machine piecing (it's slower), but vines are ugh!

And what should I use for the background?  I knew my stash of larger pieces chosen for this quilt along was getting small (not that there were many to begin with, as most all of my stash is leftover from another project), but I went digging.

I ended up in my stash closet again - nothing was really big enough to make a good-sized border, even if I pieced a lot of things.  And I was leaning towards a lighter background so the vines would show up nicely.

And I found something I hadn't anticipated!

The hash-mark fabric!

It was the back for my book quilt, but I hadn't included it in my pull for the quilt - who knows why?  Maybe it was too busy, but the flower print made the cut, so...  Anyways, I had a wide, long strip that made it most of the way around.  The lighter green, though not used in any of the blocks so far, was on the initial pile of maybes for the border and isn't awful.  But without cutting another whole (8") strip, I was just a little shy, so in comes the last of the flower print.  And I mean LAST of the flower print!  (Hooray for using it up!)

Again with the LOOOOONG seams to get the borders on.  I debated doing the vines first, but making those corners would be a pain in the butt, so I decided to suck it up and make it work after I attached the borders.

On to the vines.  I had a bunch of skinny strips of the dark green used in the cornerstones and 9-patches, so I cut them even skinnier and used my 1/4" bias tape maker and made straight-tape.  I made just one to make sure the fairly gentle curves would behave (otherwise I'd move on to plan B), and they did nicely.

I made a few more strips and pinned as I made them.  When I ran out of my little fun applique pins, I stopped.  I was halfway around - much further than I anticipated.  I went back and added some little bits for flower stems (cutoffs from where the vines were a bit too long and such) and told myself I'd work a little every night on this - when the hubby has the TV on too loud to read.  (Which is every night.)

Yesterday evening, I got almost all of the way done, but realized I needed to add some more flower stems before I finish that last vine - I knew that when I pinned everything, but almost forgot.

And then this morning, the little girls (Lily - the striped Goblin who now weighs nearly 9.5 pounds so is not so little, and Salem - the black one who is in the first quilt in this series as an applique) helped me get a not-so-good photo from the floor of my sewing room.

Later today I plan to make more vines and stems and get them pinned.  Maybe by next week I'll be ready for flowers?  I have a plan for what they'll be - something very different from the previous quilt, but still working within that inspired-by-what-you've-done theme.

I'm very happy with myself for finally getting going on this.  And the cold, snowy weather is perfect for sitting under a quilt - whether to read or sew!

And speaking of reading - two more books finished this week!

A story of a young woman, a librarian, struggling to keep up appearances after her father passed away and left her and her mother rather poor and a young man who brough himself up from nothing to be the owner of a notorious gambling den in Chicago.

Pulled from the shelves of the library and into the book sale to make room for newer stuff, it is clearly marked as "inspirational fiction" and the only thing I was inspired to do was throw it at a wall.  It was a romance.  Between two extremely unlikely characters, of course, who stumble around and mess things up every few pages.  Her because she's too sheltered, him because he's not been sheltered enough.

Set shortly after the World's Fair in Chicago (very late 1800s), I thought this one might be interesting after having read "The White City" but no - the blurb mentions the fair, in fact.  But no.  Just no.

Not a bad book, but I think the author hates women.  Or thinks we're all airheads.  Beyond that, it wasn't a bad story.  Just not at all what I expected.  And not one I would have chosen had the blurb been more accurate.

I guess the non-designated romance found in this book makes up for the designated romance in "The White Queen" that was not a romance?

Anyways, on to book #2:

Set in Croatia in the 1990s-ish (I think), it could almost be any small town.  A woman from England shows up to a house that her husband has purchased for them as a summer home.  She has two teenage kids with her.  Duro, the "hired man" lives nearby and is out walking with his dogs when he sees them newly arrived and offers to help with repairs on what I can only imagine is a very rustic home (though typical to the area).

As the story unfolds, there are multiple timelines, but they are all the story of Duro, after triggered by things that happen at the house..  HIs childhood, teenage years, and recent and current life are all in there.  The "blue house" that the woman moves into plays a role in his life, which I think is why he was keen to help her get it fixed up after it sat empty for a while.

I enjoyed the book.  It was one of the better ones I read last month.  Well, I guess I finished it this month, if only by a day!

I started the next book last night - so far, so good...

Happy quilting!

Katie

a little sewing, still lots of reading

I tried so hard to motivate myself to sew this past week, but it just didn't happen.  The super cold temps make the upstairs (where my sewing room is) even colder, but in general books just grabbed my attention more.

I DID sew a little, though!

Forever ago, I joined the Bramble Blooms Quilt Along - a very slow paced improv-style project.  The first quilt, once I finished the prompts, seemed to need something more, so I decided to use these blocks that were started and then set aside for an earlier prompt, as cornerstones for one last, solid, border.

Though I was trying to use what I had (and up to this point, I did), I purchased some darker green fabric to use as borders.  And then stalled out.  The second quilt in the quilt along was started and this was abandoned.

So last week I picked up the applique flowers and finished them - they were nearly done anyways - and then stalled out again.  Maybe this week the top will officially be completed?  (Now where did I stash that green?!)

So instead, what have I been reading?

This is the book I was a little ways into last Sunday - it's part of a series (maybe three?) that all deal with the same set of historical characters (royalty in England in the 1400s), but each one deals with a different woman, so a slightly different time period.  I've read one other in the series and vaguely remembered it being a bit of a slog.  This one also was.

The "white queen" is a young woman who somehow catches the eye of a man who is fighting his way into being king.  There are two (three?) families all vying for the supreme spot - literally raising armies and killing each other.  She marries the man in secret, but worries once he does win the crown, he will deny the marriage.  He doesn't, and they go on to rule for a while until he dies.  (Sorry for the spoiler, but if you look at history, that would also spoil it for you.)

There is a LOT of fighting and battles.  A lot of detail, a lot of death, a lot of plotting.  I suppose if you're a history buff, this would have been more interesting, but to me it felt more like reading a high school history textbook.  With some of the story of the queen mixed in.

It was difficult to keep track of who was who (never mind they named their children after himself and his brothers), who was loyal to who (changing sides was a daily thing apparently) and sometimes I just gave up and kept reading to maybe get to a part that wasn't about plotting.

The book is categorized as a romance (among other things), but other than her seduction of him (which is honestly not very much described) and the information that he returns from battles to put babies in her (again, not much detail), the only thing I'd say makes it a romance even a little is that I think they truly loved each other.  Or at least he loved her.  But she was often accused of being a witch (you know, the normal for a woman of that time period who allowed others to see she could think for herself), so maybe she enchanted him?

So that's a lot of words to say "meh".

Next up:

Best book I've read so far this year!  (I know, I know, it's not even the end of January, but still, this one was good!)  (And the cover is not creased - it's printed to look that way and the lighting when I took the photo didn't help.)

Set in 1925, during prohibition, the narrator is a plain girl working as a typist at a police station.  She is very proper and careful.  Then, due to one of the other typists becoming pregnant, another typist is hired to cover things.  In comes the "other typist," a flapper in all the senses.  She is glamorous, wealthy and wild.  Of course the two become friends and the proper girl learns all about the world the police she works for are trying to fight against.

As you might expect, things start to go wrong and get worse as the book goes on.  In the end, it's all a mess and I'm not even sure who was telling the truth.  I read a few reviews after I finished the book (dangerous to do before, I've learned) and many complained that the ending was muddy.  I think it was meant to be.

Some of the details reminded me of the Great Gatsby - the lavish parties and lifestyles, so my next book was a free e-book:

I vaguely remember reading this in high school.  Or maybe I read it myself because I missed the class that everyone else read it in.  Anyways, what I remembered was the lavish party lifestyle of Gatsby and a girl named Daisy that he was in love with.  Or fell in love with.  Something like that.

Rereading it, I read a whole other tragic love story with very little wild parties.  (There was the one that was well described, but just the one.)  Maybe teachers were guiding my focus, maybe my youth focused on different things.  It was enjoyable and quick to read.

I've moved on to another book, just started last night, and it seems to have promise...

I also cleaned off my bookshelves at home.  Years ago, I purchased two nice bookshelves and gradually filled them.  But I was keeping all the books I'd bought and eventually realized that was not sustainable and so I started to read and re-donate books.  Every so often I find one I want to keep and that was making the bookshelves very messy.  So I took off all the books, dusted, and got rid of a fair number of them.  (They'll be donated, of course.)  Anything I couldn't see myself re-reading or loaning to a friend to read (it has to be pretty good!), got the boot.

I found quite a few I'm not sure if I've read and they predate my keeping track, so if they sounded interesting still, they made it back to the shelf, in a different orientation to remind me which is which.  And I suppose I'll have to figure out a system of working those into my other stash...maybe if I add one to the shelf, I have to read one from the shelf?

Anyways...that's been my week.  Mostly.

Happy quilting!

Katie