what it takes to get me quilting...

I'm back in the sewing room, but it seems deadlines and emergencies are what gets me there.

First up, I'm finally sewing down the binding on Tara's wedding quilt.

Lily is NOT helping.  She was growling and hissing and bit me.  She wanted the quilt all for herself and was absolutely offended that I would need to move it or "use" it when she wanted it.  Eventually she settled in and looked sweet, but don't let that fool you.  She is a GOBLIN.

Why the urgency to finish?  The marriage is likely to happen this week.  In a hospital chapel.  Because the father of the groom has been handed some really awful health news and no one is expecting a good outcome.  They want to be married before he's gone.

I don't know the dad really well, but he is a customer at my work and always friendly and happy and kind.  And I know the family is devastated.

So as I was scrolling through Pinterest Saturday, doing that instead of many other productive things, I came across this quilt, in the orange and blue colorway I hope the link shows you first, and it made me think of him.  No idea why, but it did.  I kept telling myself I don't know him that well, this would be weird and all sorts of other excuses, but it stuck with me.  I pondered through the evening and it just wouldn't leave me alone.

I told myself I'd check the stash in the morning and see what I had.  If I still remembered it.

I did.

I never thought I'd have enough.  There are 18 different fabrics (plus the sashing) in the quilt - made from fat quarters.  I had more than enough, though it took some time to add and subtract until I had what I thought was a good mix.  (And I did swap out some for what you see here as I was going too!)

Well.  I guess that settles that.

Time to cut.  And mix and match.

Freddie helped here some, but grew bored before I finished - and thankfully before he made much of a mess.  Each plate contains the makings for one star.

Time to sew!

I tried to remember to take photos periodically.  So here is one with the geese about half done.

Soon after this I realized I needed 144 geese.  This is why I don't do this kind of quilt math before I get started.  It's daunting!

And by dinnertime:

All of the geese are made.  I have to press them and add them back to the plates (I have a system - don't worry!) and then begin assembling stars.  There are only 36 stars, but a fair number of seams to go before they get there.

I had hoped to get these pressed before I was done last night, but after about 8 hours working on this quilt, I figured I could take a break and read.

I'm pretty excited to have this much done.  And only two shifts at work this week (that's a whole other debacle, but we'll just leave it there), so I should have plenty of time to get this top done.  I'll need to visit the LQS for a back, but considering the entire top will come from the stash, I'm not going to complain!

(And this made me realize that my stash isn't that bad.  I just have to stop procrastinating and get busy again.  I don't have a lot of larger pieces, but lately controlled scrappy has been my go-to anyways.)

As I was sewing, I realized, too, that I'd made another quilt for a coworker's mom when she was handed a terrible diagnosis.  And that sealed the deal, making the project settle nicely into my head.

I'd say that's it for quilting, but it seems like a fair amount even if it was all done in one day!  (Well, two if you count the binding.)

Lots of reading still.

Set mostly in New York, the story of a woman who flees Paris when it falls to the Nazis and makes her way into the world of fashion.  It spans most of her life, but deals more with personal drama than sewing and the fashion world, which was kind of disappointing.  (Even some of the sewing info seems off - she sewed an entire couture dress in a few hours, including cutting fabric from a sketch?)

Anyways, the drama part of the story was interesting and had you guessing about things till near the end.  There were a lot of characters and time jumps (the current timeline could probably have been eliminated without losing much, in my humble opinion), so it was hard to get sorted out at first, but eventually it settled into my brain.

Set in current times, this follows a woman who is struggling to run a fancy shoe company that her grandparents started many years ago.  She makes shoes by hand in her workshop, but also has some that are made in a factory.  As is the case with business (or life), things go wrong, the business plan must pivot, and she finds her way through.  Family plays a huge part in her life and the business.

She also has recently found the perfect guy and so we learn a lot about him and how he adds into the business as well as her personal life.  Thankfully there is enough about the business that it's not too much of a romance.

And the title comes from a factory building they purchase - it's the previous name and they keep it.  Sorry if that's a spoiler, but it seems a little odd that a book with macaroni in the title is about shoes, so I thought I'd help.

Unbeknownst to me, this is considered a classic.  It just sounded interesting when I read the blurb.  It's also considered literary fiction.

There is an introduction, written by another author 50 years after the first publication, that talks of literary fiction.  Of course she gives a dictionary definition, but summarizes it as "literature is classier than fiction."  Which makes sense.  But she went further and has a "semiserious consensus" from people in the book business to define it as "if an editor has to look up three words while reading the manuscript, it's literature."  That tracks from my reading.  And finally, her stepbrother provides the quote that puts a nice spin on it: "Literature changes you.  When you're done reading, you're a different person."  So yep.  Those all seem to track and sum up what I often feel when reading something listed as "literary."

Anyways, this is a dystopian style story in three parts, each taking place a thousand or two years after the previous one.  The first, we are introduced to a few men in a monastery who are keepers of knowledge.  They are copying books they find in the rubble after a nuclear war that occurred nearly 2000 years before.  There are few people, but they're starting to discover things.  The Catholic church (or some version of it) rules things, but they want the knowledge that is being discovered.

The second part things are looking like our society again - cars and nuclear weapons again.  (The cars drive themselves, which made me giggle since this was published in 1959 and we are just now starting to get those!)  Groups of people are unhappy with each other and getting ready to blow everyone else up.  And then they do.

The third part is back about where the first part was.  Rebuilding, surviving, and noticing that the past keeps repeating itself.

As I went on, it seemed to get harder to read.  I don't think the language changed, so I can't exactly pinpoint what happened, but it did.  It wasn't a bad book, but I don't think it's one I'll read again - despite the introduction telling me reading it multiple times brings about different meanings.

And finally, finished just last night:

My reading tracker app tells me this is a slow read, but I blew through it in three days.

Set at the turn of the last century, when women's suffrage was catching on in England, two girls meet in a cemetery after the queen has passed away.  They become friends and we hear the story through their voices (each chapter is another voice), but also from their parents and a few friends as well.  The girls are different as could be, but get along well and represent both sides of the suffrage movement, though it's not done in an obvious way.

There are many side stories, as the suffrage part of things isn't the main story, but it's an interesting part of it.  And I enjoyed reading it.  It wasn't preachy or too fact-filled, which made it easy to read.

The random book chooser has chosen another book by the same author for my next read, which is pretty crazy considering how many books are in the stash right now, but since I enjoyed this one, I decided to give the same author another go instead of vetoing it.  (I have that power, thankyouverymuch!)

And now it's time to get a label on that quilt and get it ready for presentation.  I'm not sure exactly when the wedding will happen, but I want to have it done to give to them soon after the event.

Happy quilting!
Katie

PS  I hit a milestone in my reading last week:

I have read at least one page of a book every single day for 1,300 days.  Woo hoo!