just reading this week

Okay, okay, there WAS some sewing this week, but since it was just the cat carrier covers, no photos and nothing truly exciting to report.  (Unless you count the excitement of using up a little more of those bazillion sheets I got a while back?)

And I suppose weeding and harvesting in my garden counts, too, right?  As something?  (The cucumbers just won't quit...)

Of course there were cleaning chores and cooking chores and this morning I made a pineapple upside down cake, so it's not like ALL I did was read.  (And you know I went to work a bunch of days too, of course.)

There was also my little town's Frontier Days festival this past weekend.  Lots of crafty vendors, a rodeo at the fairgrounds, a parade and all sorts of stuff.  The hubby and I checked out the vendors - we often find a Christmas gift or two and this year did not disappoint.

No photos of anything.

The reading?  Just one book:

This one weighs in at just under 1000 pages and I finished it in 6 days.

It's the story of World War I and a little of the times leading up to it and after it was over.  Told through quite a few different viewpoints.  There is a wealthy British (Welsh?) Lord.  A boy who works in the coal mines on the land the Lord owns.  A German diplomat/spy.  The sister of the boy working in the coal mines.  The sister of the Lord.  Two Russian brothers who are very different and bring two more viewpoints.  An American diplomat.  And many other characters with smaller parts, but who do add even more tidbits.

It was interesting and, considering the subject, quite easy to read.  We follow the characters above through their struggles and successes rather than just a list of battles and dates and who won.

It helped me understand that there are a LOT of factors when a country is determining whether to join a war or not.  A lot of consideration of how their actions will affect relations with other countries as well as within their own.  It also explained some about the cost of war and how countries borrow to fund it and the losers are often the ones to pay back those debts.

I enjoyed the stories of the people most, though, if we're being honest!

Two things that bothered me though:

1. (Spoiler alert) Every single main character lived.  Considering how many there are and the dangers that some of them went through, I expected to lose a few.  Lesser characters were lost, but none of the ones fully developed.

2.  The influenza pandemic that swept the globe (and I've heard told helped end the war) was barely mentioned.  I think one person got sick and it wasn't a character we knew much about.  Not one person died from it.  And while this book is about the war, there were enough other side stories that this could have been dealt with a bit more.

In all, though, it was a good book.  I enjoy this author (I've read "Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" - I liked Pillars better) and would pick up more of his if they crossed my path.

And that's it for the week!

(A photo of tiny Lily because the post needs more photos and she wasn't feeling well yesterday, so we need to send her extra good vibes today so she has the strength and energy to make up for losing a whole day of goblining yesterday.  She's doing her best today...)

Happy quilting and reading!

Katie

PS  The baby quilt was loved and the wife of the hubby's coworker couldn't believe I'd made it for them.  Or that I made it.  Uhhh...quilting isn't that hard?!

cody's baby quilt

No sewing for me this week, but I have another finished quilt to share.  It seems these last few weeks were the weeks to give quilts away!

A few months ago (maybe February?), the hubby asked me to make a baby quilt for a coworker.  This is their first and, if I remember correctly, it's been a long time coming.

So of course I agreed.  (It seems the only quilts I even start any more have a deadline, which is okay.)

I searched for a pattern...with the help of the hubby (who is not always great in the "imagine it in other colors" creativity) and we came up with this single block that can be purchased as an entire pattern on the designers website here.

I think he liked the bright colors and since the baby is a boy, the soft, girly colors of the original weren't exactly going to be right.

(It's interesting how the color placement really changes the look of the quilt - this reminds me of roads you'd drive your Hot Wheels cars along whereas the original has a more color gradient thing going.)

Anyways, it was then off to get fabrics, as I didn't think my stash had enough and who is going to refuse a chance to go fabric shopping?

I don't have any photos of that.  I maybe took them, but I'm not sure where they went.

I took the fabrics to retreat in April and sewed this right up.

I don't think I even took during construction photos.  I did take this to send the hubby for final approval.  (I'm not changing anything at this point, but if he really hated it, we had time to make something else.  He liked it.)

It sat around for a little while, but by this time he had realized the due date was not May but October.  (Boys...)

This was the first quilt onto the longarm after the service visit and I opted for swirls (because they're easy to stop and start if I have trouble and go fast and will help me relearn some of the good habits I'd forgotten when dealing with a temperamental machine).

A back?

I was hoping for something with more primary colors to match the front, but woodland animals is never a bad choice for a baby quilt.

And a little closer on the quilting, though swirls are swirls.

The quilt went with the hubby last week to be given, but I haven't heard anything back.  The hubby is working off shifts these next few weeks (to make sure his second and third shift employees see him and he sees them - he's been in that position when management doesn't even bother to try and then complains that you don't do anything - how do you know?!), so I expect when things return to normal he'll see Cody again and get to chat.

On a sadder note, Charlie passed away last week.  I'm glad I got the quilt to him when I did and I hope someone in the family snags it to enjoy and remember him by.

I've been reading a lot, as always, but only finished one book this past week.

This one was pretty good, but disturbing also.

A husband and wife run a travelling circus.  They expose her to all sorts of things in an attempt to create deformed children to add to their show.  The husband does the research, the wife willingly submits.  They succeed (sometimes) and love their children, but it seems like a fairly dysfunctional family.

The eldest, a limbless boy, is insecure and wants all of the attention.  He also gradually takes control of the circus, though it seems most of the family don't see it.  The youngest girl, an albino dwarf, cares for this brother in the ways he cannot and loves him, puts up with his behaviors, but also sees what he is doing.

There is also a pair of conjoined twin girls and a telekinetic boy (who looks normal and was almost abandoned for that).

The story is told by the albino dwarf daughter, both her current life (post-circus) and her past (growing up in the circus).  I expected there to be some romantic interludes, considering the title, but I think it more refers to the love found in even dysfunctional families, in this case where they stick together because of their differences.

I knew from the blurb that "geek" did not refer to the nerdy folks as the slang does today, but the carnival meaning also did not feature as much as you might expect once you sort that out.  (Yes, they were there.  But they were mentioned maybe twice, in passing.)

It was hard to see the way the eldest brother treated people and it was not only not noticed by the parents, but also no one tried to help him.  It was hard to see the parents more focused on creating additional children rather than caring for the ones they had (though there were some moments of good).  It was hard to read about the children being exploited for their differences.  Sadly, I'm pretty sure that this type of thing was more normal than not back in the time when these sorts of shows were common.

But it was also an interesting peek into a world I'm too young to have really experienced.  Much of what was going on here was gone or on its way out when I was young and I don't remember visiting anything like this as a child.

I'm on to the next book, of course, and this one is a mammoth.  More on that next week!

Happy quilting and reading,

Katie

tara and chuck's quilt

It's been a long time coming, this quilt, and the wedding that it was made for, but it finally happened!

Tara is a coworker.  She's been there 30 years.  She's worked her way up from cashier to assistant manager.  I like Tara.

But Tara is not great at choosing men, as shown by her two divorces and a few ding-dongs that she dated in the early years of our shared employment.

A few years ago she started dating Chuck.  He'd had a crush on her for quite a while, but she was never single when he was.  Things finally lined up and he jumped at the opportunity.  And he screwed up things quite a few times.  They went through a lot before she was even ready to consider anything serious with him.  But eventually they moved in together and got engaged.  He had grown up some in that meantime.  The engagement dragged on for a while.  And I had this quilt in mind for them, even before that (Chuck wanted a quilt and kept pestering me about it, not understanding that I am not a quilter for hire - if I want to make you one, you'll get it, if not, you can't pay me enough to talk me into it...I've learned the hard way!), but was waiting.

Then one day there was talk of more-or-less eloping over the July 4th holiday.

Well.

Get those fabrics out.  Buy a few more because though this fat quarter bundle is wonderful, I can't use two blacks and two whites in this pattern.  Thankfully my local quilt shop had some good options that I think paired well (those sitting diagonally in the photo).

And the pattern.

Cutting seemed to take forever, but I did this one just like the one for Charlie - cut one block from each fabric and then mix and match.

(But since the fabrics were fat quarters, I could layer things and cut multiples, which was nice and did make things go faster.  Of course, that saved time was spent ironing out the creases in the fat quarters that had been folded forever.)

Because I thought this was going to be needed sooner than later, I did get the blocks together quite quickly - though they do have a lot of parts!

I sewed the quarters and then worried about the sashings...

As always, I had help...

From both of my black cats and more.

And then the dreaded long rows...

Pieced sashings made this take longer, too...

But eventually I got the blocks together and had a (very oddly colored photo of the) top done.

But by this time, the bride and groom had not eloped and didn't really seem to be making any progress towards a wedding at all.

So it went into a holding pattern.

Maybe a year passes (every day seems like every other lately and they all seem to either stretch on for eons or pass in seconds, so I can't keep track) and Tara is sent to another store to help patch a management team together.  (This is what happens when the new district manager tries to fire his way to greatness.  He is no longer with the company - his choice, but I think there was some "writing on the wall" too.)

So there was again talk of the two of them just getting married to get it over and done with.  I'd hate to see a wedding happen just for convenience, but I also understand.

I ran out and got some fabric for the back.

Tara loves daisies.  And if something happens to this relationship, this is TARA'S quilt.  Sorry Chuck.  If you screw this up, you'll have to find someone else to make you another quilt!

And then it stalled out again because the longarm wasn't behaving.  Once the hubby got that sorted for me (I'm still angry at how easily he managed it) and I quilted one smaller quilt on it to test (you'll see that one next week as it's going to the new owner today), this one was up.

Somehow I managed to take no photos of it on the longarm.  Guess I was out of practice?  (I'm also just not a photo-taker...never have been...)

But I got it done.  The longarm behaved.

And another closeup of the quilting - this one is outside.

And I got the binding sewn on.  And then it got set aside again.  Because there was no upcoming wedding.

And then Chuck's dad, Charlie - of the quilt in the previous post - got sick.  Like really sick.  Like came home a week later in hospice care sick.

But before he was home, they'd decided to get married.  At the chapel in the hospital if necessary.  So Charlie could be there.  (Charlie loves Tara - who doesn't!)

Time to really buckle down and get the binding on this!  And a label, of course.  That won't take long - crank up some tunes (in this case a cool station I found a few months back - from NASA!) and sew like the wind.

With the binding on and ready to go, I was ready for the wedding a week or so later.  Charlie came home and they did the wedding in their front yard - a nice big yard.  Tara's family planned it in under a week and it was incredible.  Not in the over-the-top way of so many, but in a tent/good food/friend did the vows/country girl way.  Not too much fuss, not too much stress, and a focus on the friends and family.

I haven't yet heard much about the quilt - I checked that they got it, but I'm kinda shocked.  I thought I might get a more enthusiastic response.  I know there's a lot going on with their family.  I know she has a lot of hours at work (she came back to our store just a few weeks ago and is readjusting to all that was left for her to fix).  I suppose in due time I'll hear about it.  I just hope they don't hate it.

No actual quilting for me this week.  I just haven't felt like it, but I did sew down the binding on a baby quilt that's heading for a final destination today.  So a little time was spent in the sewing room.

I have read a bunch.  Of course!

  

These two are the first and third in a trilogy, of which I read the middle book last December.

Set in an alternative present (or near-present), humans have genetically manipulated most things as global warming caused extinctions and a need for species that could survive.  But one of the geniuses that was working on these projects was also working on a virus that would wipe out all humans - the theory is that he wanted to save the planet from humans, but we never see that confirmed.

He also seems to have created a vaccine, as a few humans - some he seems to have hand-picked - survived.  And these books tell the story through the survivors.

Also created were human hybrids - referred to as "the Children of Crake" - and I believe they were also meant to survive the pandemic.  (They did survive, but were isolated, so I'm not sure.)  Both of these books tell of the "Crakers," more than the middle book, and we see them as simple-minded, more like children even as adults, though the actual humans in the books care for them and teach them.

There is, as in the middle book, a fair amount of before and after storytelling that can make it a little difficult to follow if you're not paying attention, but the writing is so good, you do pay attention.

The worst part was finding it hard to take in considering all that is going on currently in our world.  I'm not going to get into the real world stuff here except to admit that it is concerning - or this book wouldn't have hit that hard.

They were all good.  I would recommend them to anyone.

This week the hubby is working second shift, so I'll have evenings to myself, which could mean sewing, but I'll probably end up not.  I'm still struggling with making quilts just because.  And finding patterns that just scream to be made is also difficult.  I'm okay with that, though I do feel a little guilty about my fabric stash just waiting for me...

Maybe some cat carrier covers?

Oh well.  It's all good.

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie

charlie's quilt

Two quilts given in the past week, but we'll start with the first one...

Charlie's quilt.

A gal I work with, currently our assistant manager, has been dating a guy for a few years and they've been engaged for a portion of that.  She's gotten close with his family (she's that kind of person) and calls his dad "dad."

She came in to work one day just a couple of weeks ago trying to hold it together because "dad" was in the hospital, awaiting testing, after not getting out of bed for two days.  Things didn't look good, but until test results are in, it's best to not jump to conclusions.  (Easier said than done!)

A few days later, I saw this quilt while cruising around the interwebs, and it just screamed "Charlie!" but I was afraid it would be overstepping or wierd to make this guy a quilt.  I do know him a little (he's a customer at work), but still...

I decided if the urge didn't go away overnight, I'd consider it more the following day.  And check my stash - I might have to buy some stuff.

It didn't go away.

And I realized I'd made a quilt for another coworker's mom when she was diagnosed with something nasty, so it was settled.

To the stash!

Well.  I had plenty.

Some of the fabrics in there have been in the stash quite a while (I think that funky one on the bottom right is oldest), and some are kinda funky, but they'll all work, right?

To the cutting and sorting!

Each star has its own plate.  This helps me keep things straight and hopefully deters the cats from "helping."  Sometimes I forget I can do these, but when I do remember, it's great.

Having a few days in a row off and focusing on sewing (not allowing myself to look at nonsense online, in other words) allowed these to come together quickly.

Somewhere midway through the blocks I did some math and, let me warn you, don't do that.  You'll figure out how many pieces you have and it will seem so much harder than if you just keep sewing and don't play with numbers.

Before long I had the required 36 blocks and then it was time to figure out where they all needed to go.  With so many fabrics I knew it was going to be difficult to keep the same fabrics from being too close to each other, but I did try!

I had help, but Charlie has 13 cats (I think that's the number I've heard), so a little stray cat hair from my beasties isn't going to be noticed much, right?!  (I did use a lint roller.)

Then came the long seams and getting the blocks into a top, but I got it done.  Again, with help.  (You can't do much around here without it.)

Off to the quilt shop for a back!

(It's more orange than you see here.)

And then onto the longarm!

It looks a little brighter here, but proof of quilting, right?

After quilting, I sewed on the binding and let it rest a day (I quilted another quilt the following day), but I knew this needed to be done sooner rather than later, so it was first on the list of bindings to be done.

I was off work the week I finished this and didn't want to chance getting roped into working by taking this in, so it waited until I went back last Monday to go to my coworker so she could pass it along.

She was surprised and nearly cried.  Though she's been given three quilts to give to her grandkids, I don't think she expected this one.

(And then I realized we're in the middle of the hottest month of the year, so maybe this wasn't so great?  But I guess he's struggling with temperature regulation, so it's a good thing.)

He got it a week ago, but I haven't blogged since.

He's been using it.

She said I made him cry.  This tough-love, old farmer-type.  Huh.

He came home the Thursday before he got this, in hospice care.  He seems to be doing a little better than before, but they've reduced the morphine dosage significantly and that seems to be actually helping.  He's coherent enough to ask for more if he needs it.  And the family is praying for a miracle, but the news is not good.  I'm glad I got it done in time for him to use it, even if just for a little while.

I haven't touched my sewing in a week, but it's back to work and juggling all the other things and I'm still having trouble justifying new projects when I have so many tops that are unfinished.  And do I really need another quilt - finished or not?  (So making them for others is a nice excuse!)

But I have been reading:

Part memoir and part writing course, this book was good.

The first part is stories about his childhood and early adulthood - things he did as a kid, owning a drinking and substance abuse problem early in his adult life, etc. - and though some of the things are known, the stories were entertaining and interesting.

The second part is his views on writing.  Not a textbook kind of book, but definitely instructive.  I think it will change how I read books some - evaluating things differently now that I see them from a writer perspective.  But really the takeaway for me was  that writing can be done however you want.  There's no right way or wrong way.  Which is kinda the opposite of a lot of what else I've learned and seen.

And then he added a third part, as this book was in progress when he was hit by a car while walking on the road, and told that story in his own words.  I remember hearing about it, but didn't realize quite how gruesome things were.  I'm glad he's still here.

I'll be honest that I don't read a portion of his work because it is too scary and disturbing (why did my mother let me read "The Shining" while we were on vacation, staying in a hotel, at age 13?), but I have read some of the less scary stuff.

And then it was on to:

Somehow, somewhere, I thought this was about spelling bees.  It seemed like that couldn't be right, but maybe?

It's about bees.  The kind that make honey.

But it's also about a young girl who runs away from home because her father is abusive and she sees the unfairness of the world in the 1960's south and just DOES something.

The housekeeper who has cared for her since her mother died is dragged along in the process and it felt a little Huck Finn-ish here.  Maybe it was supposed to?

They end up at a farm where bees are kept by three kind sisters, who take them in, care for them, teach them about bees and don't ask too many questions for a bit.  They're the healing, caring place this girl needs to find herself and heal.

The three sisters were all very different and gave her different perspectives on herself, which I liked.  They made her reevaluate how she saw things, which is part of growing up, but is also something all of us humans need to remember to do from time to time.

I enjoyed this book very much.

I've moved on to another book already and it's another good one!

Time to go get busy doing other chores (and fighting with the cell phone company who sends my bills out to arrive just days before they're due (if not after) - currently on the phone with them and being told they send them out 10-13 days before they're due, but I can assure you none of my other bills show up this close to the due date. Maybe they're mailing them out more than 10-13 days before they're due because they NEVER arrive that close to the due date...so they want to enroll me in automated payment.  Um...NO!  The whole reason I have a paper bill come to me is because I don't trust you!  And you're not helping me to trust you by refusing to send me a bill in a timely manner)...

Sorry, mini rant.

We might be getting a new phone company.  Between this garbage and their incapable internet service...okay, I'll say it.  They're AT&T.  They've been around forever, but it seems they're coasting on that lately.

Okay, enough.  This is a happy blog!

Time to go do happy things!

Katie