blocks!

I sewed a lot this week!

I went from individual geese to double geese - the big stack you see here.

Pressing took forever on each step, but I got it done.

(Sewing also seemed to take forever...)

And then the double geese were sewn into half-blocks.

And then...

Whole blocks!

36 of them!

They're quite large, but if you want a queen-sized quilt, you need a lot of blocks or large blocks (or, what it seems here, both).

I may put this one on hold for a bit and get the baby quilt done first.  The shower is about a month away, so I need to make sure it's done in time and right now I just have three individual monsters.

We'll see where the day takes me.

I had a couple of days off this week (which lead to the sewing marathons), but one of them started out with a little headache that, by the end of the day, was a big headache.

Toby to the rescue!  He's so funny that he starts out a little wary of his surroundings (who might pounce him - when no one is likely to pounce him) and eventually relaxes and turns himself half upside down like this and purrs himself silly.

The headache took a few more days to finally be gone, which is odd for me, but I'm glad it's gone.  They're probably only second to sore throats for pains I detest.

I finished one two books - I've been trying to be more mindful and reading instead of scrolling, but some days it goes better than others...

The second book (I published this and then went WAIT):

To be honest, when this one was chosen by the random number jar, I was skeptical.  Somehow it just seemed like it wasn't going to be good.  I can't really explain why - just looking at it?  Maybe it was the blurb?

And then I saw that it was from a publisher that generally has a religious spin somewhere in the book.  Not an overbearing theme (from past books I've read), but enough.  (I need to be better about checking publishers, I guess?)

So that didn't help.

But I'll give it a go.  I'm nothing if not stubborn.

And I got about 200 pages in (it's 350 pages) before it hit.  I thought I'd escaped it, but nope.  It went on for a bit and I was getting to a point where I might give it up (because if I wanted a religious preachy book, I'd read that instead of a novel), and it quit.  Yay!

So the story...

Actually, two stories.

First, there are the pirates in the 1600's, in the Caribbean, doing their pirate things.  Oh, wait, they're PRIVATEERS.  Sure, sure.

The captain takes a ship full of people headed to slavery and somehow one young man (about 15) ends up staying on with him to also be a pirate...ahem...privateer.

Second, there are the treasure hunters in modern day Key West, looking for a ship that said captain sailed.  Of course they find a ship (not a spoiler because seriously what else would the book be about then?).

Both stories have younger men dealing with father relationship issues and that's where the religious part comes in.  Both fathers have careers that keep them church-adjacent.  I could have done without all that part, but the pirate stories were interesting and the treasure hunting part was informative (lots of info about diving and careful grid surveys and whatnot).

So in all, it was a decent book.

The first book (yes, out of order, but as noted above, I realized after hitting publish that I had another book to share, so we're gonna roll with it):

This one was much better, though it also flips between two stories.  Sort of.

Story one is present day - a recent college grad is chasing an obituary for an old eccentric man who passed away in his home.  The elderly man was a professor at the college he attended, so he starts there.  And it just gets weirder and weirder.  Unfriendly "acquaintances," mob-style threats and pleas from others to just let it go.  Of course he doesn't.  His curiosity goes way beyond writing the obit, but that's what makes the story.

Story two is actually a bunch of stories...  There are a number of objects, I think that were owned by the recently deceased professor, that have some magical life-extending properties - alchemy they call it.  And these are the stories of the objects, or maybe just descriptions of them, where they came from and where they were last known to reside.

Through the book you learn more of the professor, slowly, and finally at the end it all sort of comes together.  Some is still left for the reader to ponder, but there is a sense of closure.

I enjoyed it.

And I started another last night and it's...good...

Time to go figure out what the day holds!  No work today at least!

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie