four and two and strawberries

I can't say my sewing room saw a lot of sewing this week, but...

The remaining two butterflies have been put together!

Now I need to decide if I want to make five more and do a 3x3 layout (which seems kinda busy and these are 24" square), or figure out something to do for the center and corner blocks.  Remember, this is the original:

And the top left arrangement was chosen (hence the ginormous blocks), but I worry that the those flower blocks will be lost when they get so big.  The center will probably be okay, but again, it's large, so...  I've been perusing the interwebs, but haven't settled on anything yet.

If anyone has suggestions (that do not include applique), I'll take them into consideration!

And then there's the reading, which I often do in the comfy chair in the sewing room.  So I see the room, just don't sew much lately...ugh...

A dystopian young adult (but I didn't realize that part) dealing with the "after the detonation" of what I think is probably nuclear.  There is a protective dome that a select few were allowed into before the bomb(s) were set off and they are now awaiting the fallout and whatever to settle and they will recolonize.  But people were fused to their surroundings - and not all died.  The main character has a doll fused where her arm once was, as she was carrying it with her when the blast hit her.  She teams up with a guy who has his younger brother fused to his back - they were riding a dirtbike together, so I guess it could have been worse.  

Anyways, the people in the dome are referred to as "Pure" and they are undamaged and undergoing genetic enhancement (well, at least the boys, as they're afraid to screw up the reproductive systems of the girls) while they wait for the all-clear.  But of course, these people in the dome are elitist jerks and of course there is a resistance.

The story is really about a Pure who escapes and the doll-head girl and the people they accumulate to go on their quest.  He wants to find his mother.  She is resisting the training to become a part of the kind-of police force among the damaged.  They think the mother has a key to fixing things...or something along those lines, but it's a bit murky...

But the story is good, it moves along quickly, and it gives you hope for humanity.  I mean, it's fiction, but still.  There is still good among those who are left.

It left a lot of loose ends, though, as it's part of a trilogy.  And while I understand you have to leave something for the next book, I'm not a fan of those that leave you with so much hanging that you feel you must go read the next book.  Because with the way I get books?  Finding it will be unlikely.  (I suppose, though, that's not how publishers work...)  

Categorized as a romance in my reading tracker app, this one isn't as romantic as you might expect.  Yes, there's a romance, but it's not obnoxious.

A 13-year-old boy and his mom go to a department store for school clothes and the boy encounters a bleeding man who asks for his help.  He gives it, and his mother, who has not been right for many many years (we find out why near the end, so I won't spoil it), accepts the strange man and brings him home with them.  Turns out he's a prisoner who escaped the hospital where he was taken for an appendectomy.

So what do they do?  Hide him.

The mother rarely goes out, so things don't seem as odd as they might, I guess.  And he's a kind man, despite the authorities saying he's armed and dangerous (what he's armed with after falling out a hospital window is beyond me, but whatever), who cooks delicious foods, repairs small things around the house and patiently teaches the boy how to play baseball.  The mother also falls in love with him, though that's seen through the eyes of the boy, so its not entirely obvious until they start nighttime activities in a bed that shares a wall with his bedroom...

It was a quick read.  Some suspense, but things do work out in the end, as you'd expect.  I thought it would be cool if this one came up for Labor Day, but the random number jar did not agree.

I'm mostly through the next book, which is not listed as a romance, but good Lord it is.  I'll share more in my next post when I'm finished.

And today my house smells of strawberries...

They were on a good sale at the grocery store, but to get the deal you had to buy quite a few.  So about half went into my dehydrator (that I often forget I have because it hasn't been used much) this morning and within seconds of the fan turning on, my kitchen started smelling heavenly.  It's spreading through the house and I can't think of anything better to scent my home!

We'll see how they turn out.  I'm still quite new at this, but these required no prep other than rinsing and slicing, which was nice.  And if they go well, we'll see what other fruits come up on a good sale as they come into season!

Off to do a few more chores.

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie

PS  Thanks to Cathy who mentioned in a comment that the show based on the book from last week was called "Manifest."  I do remember seeing that one advertised and thinking it looked interesting.  I never got around to watching it, but apparently it's still my jam because I bought the book!  It's not exactly the same story, but a similar event.

and then there were two!

Two butterflies and two new books read!

They're identical.  I debated moving the fabrics around a little, but decided it was best to just let it be.  To me, the variety would be fun, but to others, it can be jarring (like the one time I put a single yellow leaf in an otherwise all-green leaf quilt!)

I have cut pieces for the two purpley butterflies, but time flew (hahaha) yesterday and I wasn't able to start sewing before work.  Soon I hope!  (Not today - lots to do before work, though the list IS getting smaller.)

And then I read a bunch.

Two from the new batch, but that's now the random book selection goes sometimes.

This book was very good.  A plane full of people goes through some turbulence in a rare-for-its-intensity storm on a Paris to New York flight, but land with a little damage to the plane and some upset stomachs.  In March.

At the start of the book we meet a number of these passengers and learn of their lives.

Three months later, in June, the exact same plane, like a carbon copy, comes through the storm into beautiful sunlight and requests to land.  Same people, same crew, same luggage, everything.  They are rerouted to New Jersey, accompanied to land by military jets and the whole shebang are quarantined at an Air Force base while the powers that be figure out what to do with them.

Scientists, doctors, religious leaders and, of course, government officials are gathered hastily to put together a "what do we do now?" team.  The scientists put together three theories of how this could happen, and the book seems to continue, without directly saying so, supposing one of them is true.  The doctors work with the people.  The religious leaders have a debate that is interesting, but doesn't seem to help.  And the government people?  Well...I guess they make final decisions.

(Funny, though, that the author portrays the American president (author is French) as a buffoon who says little, but what he does say makes an impact.  On me, at least.  Published in 2020, the events take place in 2021, and the president is never named (other world leaders are, as this is an international flight and they need to be alerted to the holding of their citizens), anyone who has been paying attention to things will probably guess who the author assumes will have been reelected by then...)

My only complaint is that there is a LOT of character development for a LOT of characters.  It seems unnecessary, but midway through the book, one of the passengers, an author himself, wonders how many characters an author can get away with introducing before readers are unhappy.  So it seems the author has a good sense of humor.

Eventually things are resolved and we think all is well and life will go on.  And then the last chapter happens...

And then there was this one, I read in a single day, as it's only about 120 pages.

This is the story of Japanese immigrants coming to the US.  The blurb says it's the women, but it includes the whole families, as those develop.

But it is not told as the story of a family (or single character) or two.  Every sentence is a statement of what one person did/saw/had happen.  Each one is different.  Each one is a different experience, but collectively, they form a story of a group of people.

Each chapter deals with a different part of life - the journey over as "picture brides," marriage, parenthood and eventually the evacuation to camps during World War II.

Often it seems sad, but maybe I focused on the sad sentences too much.  Or maybe it was just because coming to a country with such different ways of doing everything made it hard for them and that's what seemed sad.

It was good and made me see some things I hadn't thought about for immigrants and their families.  It didn't go into detail about the camps - it left off with them leaving on trains - but I expect more books have been written about that and this was everything else.

And now I must go finish the cupcakes for a coworkers birthday.  I've done this for a few years now and recently he's taken a keyholder position, but is being worked half to death (we're short-handed in the keyholder division...well, also the non-keyholder division too) and I want even more this year to do something nice for the kid.  I baked them last night, so they just need some icing and fancy-making for toppings.

Happy quilting and reading,

Katie

books and a butterfly

It's been A WEEK!

Then again, so have all of them lately, so I guess we'll just move on...

I DID sew!

Yesterday.

First I had to press and neatly fold all the new fabrics so when I cut pieces they weren't all wonky.

Then I went through my self-drafted pattern and made a list of what to cut for each fabric.  That made it easier - I could cut strips and then subcut those.  And then my fabric wouldn't have all sorts of wonky chunks taken out of it.

And then I had to talk myself into actually sewing.  The pressing and folding and organizing took over an hour, but the background is about 5 yards, so that took some doing.  Freddie "helped."

But I decided to just get going.  The first (half) butterfly took a bit because I was doing it piece-by-piece and I made a few errors that needed correcting.  I wanted to get an idea how long it would take to make one.

Turns out not long.  Even with sewing a few pieces on the wrong place - I was making two halves, mirror-images of each other - and that made for a few oopsies.  Thankfully I caught them before trimming off any corners!

After a little editing of this photo, I got the colors close to right.  What is it with this phone that wants everything to be dull?  I feel like it wants to put an "I took this in 1982 and it's faded" filter on every photo I take.

Anyways, I think this fits the "bright" request.  I wanted that darker blue on the outside, but it was a small piece and wouldn't be enough for two butterflies, so I decided to go inside.  And the two bolder prints kinda get lost in each other from a distance, but they're in there.

The original had a lighter body and dark head there for the body, but I've never seen a butterfly with a multi-colored body/head, so I went with black.  I think it looks just fine, though maybe I need to embroider some antennae?  We'll see how the motivation goes.

Three more of these to complete the arrangement that was most liked, though I'm not sure once I get to that point the verdict will be the same.  I have plenty of background to make a 3x3 butterfly-only layout and can always raid the stash to see what other colors I can make.  Another one to decide as I get there.

Mostly I'm excited that the first one is done, the pattern is working, and it's not as hard as I anticipated.

On to other things:  BOOKS!

The 4th was the annual sale (though they do them quarterly now, this is the biggest one, even if it's not as big as it used to be) and the hubby and I stopped at home to pick up my dad and their wagon before heading in.

It seemed smaller, but it always does.  That doesn't mean there aren't treasures to be found.

I should have take more photos, but, well...

I got everything home and hauled into my bedroom for sorting.  I always think Gabby (the cat that lives up there) will come and help me (because she's a cat and they are curious), but every year she hides like it's the end of the world.

Lily helped, though.  See her in there?  She helped a lot.

Anyways, two paper grocery bags of books - this year a local veterinarian donated reusable fabric shopping bags to reinforce the paper while supplies lasted and I got there early enough - and a hat.

(You can kinda see the hat.  I should go get a better photo.  But I got a hat for free!)

I took everything out, sorted into stacks by size (because that's how I roll and in my mind they fit on the cart better that way), put number labels in each book, wrote the title and number in my notebook, made little papers with their numbers on them to go in the random number jar and then tucked them all onto the cart.  And rolled it back out into the hallway just outside my bedroom door where it lives.

Two books didn't fit.  Oops!  I found the green bucket in my sewing room, nearly empty, and repurposed it for those books, the jar and the book covers.  For now.

But this looks so tidy!

(Salem isn't so happy because the bottom shelf was empty of books - just housing some covers and the jar - and she would get on there and "sneak" into my room when I opened the door.  Now she walks up to it and can't figure out where her spot went.  Not to fear, little one, I read fast!)

Anyways, now I just want to read, read, read and make room for more when the sale at my truly local library happens in October.

How many books did I get?

54

But one I bought twice.  One in each bag.  Ha!  Hopefully it's a good one!  (I'll do my best to remember to mention which one when I read it.)

Otherwise, I don't think there was any overlap from what I already own.

I think.

And since my last post I've finished two books!  (The last one I finished the night of the 3rd, so I started Saturday with a clean slate!  That was finish #42 for 2026.)

Written as letters from the main character to her sister, set during the Civil War, this follows the theme this author seems to use of old-timey women making do without men.  Not a bad thing and I haven't read one of hers in a while, so this is not a complaint.

A young woman's new husband volunteers for the army to fight to save the Union.  She goes to live with his mother on their farm - she's something of a city girl, though in Iowa at the time I'm not sure how big the city really was - and grows into the farming life.  She deals with small-town gossip, vagrants (indirectly) and the town troublemaker, all while making friends and quilts.

It was a good story.  One that has a happy ending and loose ends all tied up.

And then this one:

Another written in the form of letters, but this time to and from a variety of characters.  Set on a fictional island somewhere off the Atlantic coast of the US, named for the man who invented the phrase "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," they seem to be more literate, or perhaps just wordy, than others.  On their town hall-type building, the sentence above has been glued up, letter by letter, until one day the "Z" falls.  The town council, in their "wisdom," decide that this is a sign from Nollop (the inventor) to stop using that letter.  Punishable by first offence: a warning, second offence: stocks or whipping, and third offence: death or banishment.

And this is where the book makes you go WHAT???????

Even more so when additional letters begin to fall.

The letters between residents (and one non-resident) do not use these letters either, as using them in speaking or writing is punishable.  At first, the residents get creative, using alternate words or phrases to get their message across.  The days of the week are renamed early when "Y" falls.  But by the end of the book...whew!  Phonetic spellings, or near phonetic, are used and it takes a while to figure some of them out.  (I found myself saying things out loud a few times even!)

And yet the councilmembers hold fast to their rules.

Many are exiled.  Commerce is failing.  And there is a group trying, after it is agreed that they will reverse the decision if it can be done, to find another sentence with as few letters yet using the whole alphabet.

And though we don't have letters falling, I feel that some of the nonsense going on in this book with those who make decisions feels all too real in our world right now.  I wonder how timely it would have felt reading it two years ago.  Or longer.

But.

I enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the story (it was sad, but the community sticking together was nice).  I enjoyed the wordplay.  Definitely one of the best I've read this year.

And with that, the chores must continue.  Today has been a doozy and I still have a few to go, plus a doctor appointment before I get to work tonight.  Yikes!

Happy quilting and reading

Katie

sewing quilty stuff!

I sewed some quilty stuff this week!!!!

It all started on Father's Day when my mother-in-law asked if I'd make a quilt for her long-time friend for Christmas this year.  Of course I said yes!  She wants butterflies on it.  Bright colors.

Let the search begin.  I made a separate board on Pinterest for ideas so I could keep them all together and then shared them with my hubby.  He narrowed it down to two.  One was a bunch of single blocks, in bright colors, arranged in a grid/row layout.  Rather basic and it felt juvenile.  But this one...this one was a favorite of all:

The photo quality isn't great (the larger it gets, the worse it gets), but there's a reason: it's a screenshot from nowhere.  The pattern is from Pam Bono, published in probably about 2012, to her newsletter subscribers only.  And I cannot find it ANYwhere.  Believe me, I've looked.  Ebay, Etsy, the google and beyond.

I'd love to actually pay for it, but since I can't seem to even locate a person who has made it and shared a photo in the last 10 years, I guess I'm gonna have to draft this for myself.

THAT was a whole other disaster.  It took a few tries - Ms. Bono is the queen of stitch-and-flip (lost corners), so though her patterns look simple, you have to assemble them log cabin style and lose corners as you go.  But I FINALLY figured it all out Saturday.

Yesterday I got up early, hurried through my regular chores and worked on a test block (well, half block) before I had to go to work.  I had a few errors in my pattern, so I was glad I used fabrics I'm not really in love with to test.

Lily helped in the most unhelpful way possible during all this:

Everything I tried to do, she tried to sit on.  Every space I emptied to use, she moved into.  My sewing room has limited space to start with.  Add in a determined 8-pound terror and you really can't do much without getting bit or at least growled at.  The only thing she respects is the Spicy Dragon (the iron that steams).

I had already been shopping for fabric - the hubby is having issues with his sciatic nerve and wanted to do some walking.  We went to my local quilt shop and he walked around downtown (old-style downtown with shops below and apartments above) and I wasn't quite satisfied, so we headed about 30 minutes south to another shop where he again walked around town while I shopped.

I may add a little more from my stash (or may need to shop a little more), but I think I've got the color scheme down!  I'm going to do two butterflies in each color and make the version of the quilt seen in the top left corner of the photo above.

The butterfly fabric, found in the sale section at my local quilt shop, will be the back.  It didn't guide my fabric colors, but still looks great.  (But if I could have, I would have chosen a more purpley purple, not this reddish one, but it seems true purples are nearly impossible to find.)

I haven't cut into these yet - lots of work shifts this week - but am hoping to dig in over the weekend, where I have three days off in a row!  (I requested the 4th off for family gathering and the infamous book sale, but got the 3rd and 5th off too.  Not sure what I did, but I'll take it!!!)

Of course, I have a fair amount of time to get this done, but new projects are always exciting!

There were also two false alarms for baby quilts since I last posted.  My nephew (the one who has the quilt that I haven't quilted yet...) and his wife were pregnant, but she lost the baby.  She wasn't far along, but they'd been to the doc and heard the heartbeat, so that's sad.  I know they want four kids (they have three), so they'll try again when they're ready.

The second was apparently a false rumor.  A cousin's son eloped and there was rumor that his new wife was pregnant.  I talked to the cousin on Saturday and she told me that was not true.  The pregnancy.  The marriage did happen.

And though it's sad to lose an opportunity to make a quilt, it may be for the better right now since I'm not doing too well in the arena of actually making and finishing quilts.  (Those two I quilted?  Still not bound.)

In other sewing news, I've made a few more carrier covers.  Those, too, have suffered some due to lots of shifts at work.  And the hubby not only being off work the past two weeks, but the second of those two weeks him being a gimpy old man.

Freddie wants you to see how good he is at putting extra love into the covers I've made and folded neatly:

Yep, he's a chonk.  A goofy, loving chonk.

And then there's the reading.  It's gonna look like less, but that will make sense as I get there.

Set at the end of WWII, a father injures his hand and can't work for a while.  His scheming stage-mother wife arranges for their daughters to perform a vaudeville tumbling act to earn money.  The daughters are all quite different and the story is told, alternately, through the eyes of two of them.  It was good, but a lot of it seemed sugar-coated and predictable.

And this photo, though it's just one, represents seven books.  The Chronicles of Narnia are well known and I've read the first (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) as a kid (though I remember little).  Somewhere along the line, I acquired this box set, published in 1974 or so, and had never read it.  When sorting my shelves last year, I added it to my cart, with a single number tab, deciding that when the number was pulled, I could either read one and put the number back for another draw later, or keep reading.  I enjoyed rereading the first, so I kept going.  I read them all.  In chronological order.  Some people say you need to read them in a different order.  I don't think it made any difference except reading the first one first.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the best and we all know this is about four children finding their way to the world of Narnia through a wardrobe.  They help set the world to rights after an evil queen has turned it to winter.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair were my next favorites, as they also take the children (well, some of them) on epic journeys to meet people and save the world and whatnot.

Prince Caspian and The Horse and his Boy were next as far as my liking them.  Prince Caspian is a long adventure into battle and it gets tedious.  The Horse and his Boy is another adventure of two children, but just wasn't as engaging as other stories.  Maybe I was getting worn out by book 5?

The Magician's Nephew is the story of the creation of Narnia and was interesting, but got long and felt like an alternate Bible story.  (I know, I know.)  And my least favorite was The Last Battle, which is essentially a war story throughout.  It tidies up the world of Narnia at the end, though, and makes it hard for further books to be written.  (I won't spoil it any further than that.)

In all, they were good books and I enjoyed them.  Most of them I read in 24 hours or less.  They're short and they don't use fancy language, but I also didn't feel like things were dumbed down for the sake of kids.  I liked that.

But...there are seven books, so even at one a day, it was a week of reading!

Science nerdy as this one could have been, it was actually interesting.  A few parts got a little tedious, but in general the stories of the two men who invented the Haber-Bosch process of extracting nitrogen from the air to convert into fertilizer or explosives (Haber and Bosch) moved along nicely.  It felt less like non-fiction that I expected.

I'm not entirely sure why I picked this one up, but maybe to change up my usual genre?  Dinah of the Bible is (according to the blurb) mentioned little in that book, but this author has taken what she could find and extrapolated that into a whole life story of this woman, from birth to death.  Set before Christianity, she is the only daughter of her father (who has four wives, none who bear living daughters except her) and a pet of her four "mothers."  She learns to be a midwife from her elders as well as a local woman and that serves her well in the life she leads.  It was interesting and didn't feel like a religious story at all, despite its subject.  Except when they started with the family lineages like the Bible does, then my eyes glazed over and I may have missed something.  (Good thing for the family tree at the beginning!)

I'm working on the next book, about halfway through.  That will make book #41 for this year!  And the book sale is Saturday.  I can't wait!  My book cart is in a sort of shambles for all the books I've removed and I'm forcing myself to let it be messy because the joy of tidying it up and adding more on the 4th is worth it!

Of course, there will also be family stuff on the 4th.  We all gather at my parents every year (assuming they're not off camping somewhere) to celebrate both the nation's birthday and my dad's - his is on the 6th.  It's as good an excuse as any to get together - probably better, actually.

And with that, it's lunchtime, the banana bread is out of the oven and I need to get going.  Working tonight, so I need to make the best use of my time this morning!

Happy quilting and reading,
Katie