trying...

I'm trying to get back into a routine, but it's not easy, what with the hubby taking off random Fridays and the constant changes in personnel at work that result in changes in my schedule...

This week I DID get into my sewing room some and worked on cat carrier covers!  I finished the check fabric ones I showed last week...

(Sorry, all you get is the stack photo again!)

And I pressed and cut and started another batch of eight.  (The piece also had enough for eight.)

The design is actually on the diagonal, but with my kinda cockeyed photo here, it's hard to really tell.  That yellow is the facing for the handle hole - sewn down, but not yet turned inside and top-stitched in place.

I had intentions of getting more than this done on Friday, my second of three days in a row off, but the hubby took the day off and we ended up at the apple orchard.  It's okay, though, because that trip resulted in...

Applesauce!

The first batch (half a peck) I did without cinnamon.  The second batch (another half peck), the hubby wanted cinnamon added.  I ended up with eight pints, which is a nice measure for future reference.

The problem?  My canner holds seven jars.  So the last "pint" is actually in a container in the fridge and we'll eat it in the next few days.  The rest of these will go in the pantry for later.  They'll be so yummy on a cold day and way faster than starting from scratch (like I did on Tuesday)...

I finished just one book, but I'm nearly through a second.  What did I finish?

This one was recommended by a gal on Instagram who does a lot of reviews on more literary-type books, but I trusted her.  Hmmm...

It's a version of the Iliad (which I swear I read at least part of in high school, but do not remember it at all, even after asking the google for a synopsis), but told (mostly) through the eyes of the women.

Briseis, in particular, a former princess (?) who, when her city fell, was given to Achilles as a prize.

But a chunk of the story seems to also be told through the eyes of Achilles.

And for anyone who liked it and thought it was fabulous, I'm sorry, but I did not enjoy it.  I didn't feel like there was much depth to the women characters (perhaps the author was leaving that to the expectation that we'd read and dissected and remembered the Iliad?) and the flipping between viewpoints was sometimes difficult.

I wanted to like it.  Some of the storytelling was good.  But in general, I don't feel like I learned much more than women were treated as objects, often worse than dogs.  Their work went unseen but all the while expected.  And most of the men were basically feral.

It was a long time ago.  Maybe that was normal.  (The treatment of less-than-royal women, yes, probably.)  But it was just not...not what I wanted, I guess.  I think I was hoping for more of what the women actually did, day-to-day, with the war efforts as a side story.  Mostly I got Achilles being an ass.

The next book is quite good.  Another random pick from the used sales, but I do get lucky with those at times!  I have about 100 pages left, so I'm sure it will be finished by next week.

And with that, I must be off.  I logged on to quickly pay bills before work, but it seems my bank has chosen RIGHT NOW to do maintenance updates, which means I can't do THAT.  So instead of blogging after work, you get it now!  (And I'll pay bills tonight instead.  In case any of you were actually worried!)

Happy quilting and sewing and canning and reading!

Katie

sewing? what's that?

Okay, I'm only mostly kidding.  I did sew a little this week.

What did I sew?

Okay, okay, technically this has not been sewn yet.  But it's waiting!  (Hopefully this afternoon?) And to get this 200 yards of fabric into this situation took some work!

(okay, okay, it's more like 10 yards, but it felt like 200)

The Clifford covers from last week are on this stack.  I didn't take a photo before this, but you can see the little green felt square on there identifying them as "medium" size covers.

I baked cookies...

The hubby doesn't like my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe (you know, the one that comes on the bag with the chocolate chips?) because they dry out and get crunchy too quickly.  I found a recipe on Pinterest with no link, but it had only brown sugar and less butter, which seemed odd, but I read the comments and it seemed like it would work.

It did!

But another of the comments (one that wasn't snarky), mentioned this is exactly Joanna Gaines recipe.  So I'll link that here!

Mr. PickyPants likes them and is eating them two at a time.  They didn't get crunchy, but I might have underbaked them a tad.  My new (not all that new any more, but compared to the old one) oven bakes however it feels like, so every new recipe is a bit of a challenge.  (Oh how I wish I'd just coughed up the cash to replace the broken glass top on the old one, but I stupidly assumed a new one would be just as good.)

I also harvested some rosemary from my garden to dry.

It's taking forever longer than the references I've used, but whatever.  This is a small, inexpensive machine, so I'm guessing it's not as good.  We're getting there.

And I went to ANOTHER used book sale!  This one is local and smaller than the one back home, but it's still fun.

I found myself grabbing faster at the start than at the end, but I can't say why.  I found a number of authors I like (books that I've not yet read) and others were just interesting.

Perhaps that the larger paperbacks were mixed in with the hardcovers?  (I prefer larger paperbacks, as they're easier to handle, but will read a hardcover if it's the only option.  For a sale like this, I don't even bother with the hardcovers)  That made it harder to shop.

Or maybe I just hit a vein of treasure early on?

Regardless, I'm excited to add a few new titles to my cart, but also a little relieved that I didn't find TOO much and overload my cart.

I didn't finish the book I'd just started last week.  It's not bad, it's just that life has been a little more chaotic this week.  (Our assistant manager at work took a store manager position at a new store a little south of us, which prompted the district manager to draft our receiver into the assistant manager position (I could not be more excited for her - she is going to be amazing beyond her wildest dreams) and we're still waiting for a second team lead to transfer in from a store north of us.  We have a new district manager (who is younger than some of my shoes) who is stirring things up a lot and while I'd like to THROW some of those shoes at him (ah, the ignorance of youth), he is also creating some good chaos.)

Here's to hoping for an equally productive, but less chaotic week ahead!

Happy...ummm...baking?

Katie

PS For that one reader who likes to roll her eyes at cover art - there is just one book here with a woman (actually two) with her back to us, staring off into the distance.  I hope you find that acceptable!  (*giggles*)

not much and cranky

This past week hasn't been very productive around here.

I'm cranky because we got a new internet router thing and last week I set it up and I hate tech stuff.  That took ages longer than it should have and my "better" service S.U.C.K.S.  It's not faster.  It's supposed to get a 5G signal, but about 85% of the time it does not.  I'm hoping it gets better as they upgrade the service in my area, but since they were going to shut off the old service, what can you do?  (Yes, there are other companies, but since they all run off the same cell towers, they're all gonna likely suck just the same.)

And THEN I went to pay my bill (that they will not send me in the mail because of reasons - never mind the extra hassle to get my printer to communicate with anything now that we have a new router) and I have NO mailing address and not even a NAME of who I'm paying.  You know, the things your bank needs to send them money?  I mean, I get they want me to do it in their app, but how convenient is that?  If I do it through my bank, I can log in ONCE for all the bills, not ONCE for EACH bill I have to pay.  But the bank wants to know who they are paying, picky folks that they are.

So I used my car and gas and drove to the store where I got my internet (we won't say who, but they have stores just for themselves) and paid my internet bill with my credit card so next month I can pay my credit card bill with my checking account.

HOW IS THIS EASIER?

Oh, wait, no one gives a rat's fart about the consumer.

Okay, enough complaining,  This blog is about quilting and happier things.  Assuming I can get the damn internet router to work long enough to publish it...

As I said, this week hasn't seen much sewing.  I had two days in a row off, which was great.  The first day I kinda blew it with getting much done, but I needed a little down time.  And I did make it into my sewing room and tidied up a bunch of stuff.  But then I was just not really excited about actually sewing, so I left again.  I knew having the space tidy would make it easier for the next time.

Which was the next day!  I worked quite a while on the cat carrier covers that I cut pieces for quite a while back.  They just need the little labels on them to designate size to be officially finished.

(proof of progress!)

Maybe I'll get there today?  I have to be in to work at 3 today - a late start, but the boss is trying to spread us as thin as she can to get the best coverage possible - so we'll see.

I finished dehydrating the tomatoes.  It took a while and I probably did it longer than I should because I forgot you have to let them cool before testing to see how done they are.  I put one on a grilled cheese sandwich to try and it was good, but a little chewy.  (It didn't exactly rehydrate, but it did taste good.  Maybe next time I'll break it up and then at least I won't get the whole thing pulling out in one piece!)

I haven't dehydrated anything else, but I have a couple days off in a row again coming up, so I think the basil and rosemary and maybe dill (if it's not too far gone) from my garden will be my next efforts.

And then I've been reading.  Shifts at work have been all over the place (as is usual), which makes it hard to have any sort of routine, but reading is a good thing you can just do a little of here and there.

I finished one book this week:

It was awful.

I'm sorry to anyone who likes this author or book, but I will not ever try to read anything of his again.

The main character (I thought it was an autobiography, but it seems more like he made up characters that were pretty much like him, from what I now understand) takes a number of cross-country road trips, getting there and back in various unreliable forms of transportation with friends who are idiots.  He is also an idiot.

There is drug use and drinking in abundance, as well as a lot of mistreatment of women and people in general.  Every decision is a bad one and leads to more bad decisions.  I cringed regularly.

I kept reading, hoping there would be some epiphany that led them to lead more responsible lives.  There was not.  (That may be a spoiler, but I really don't care.)

I have no idea what made this book so highly regarded that it is was reprinted by Penguin as an "essential classic" and no clue what made it a classic in the first place.  Maybe it represents a way of life within that generation?  Maybe I'm too young to get it?  Maybe it's just garbage and someone high enough up in the publishing world said it was deep and no one else had the balls to say it wasn't, so it stuck and no one really gets it?

I'm sorry if you liked it.  Please tell me what I'm missing.

But this also makes me wonder if, in 75 years, books that we're publishing now and certifying as classics will cause people to cringe and question our sanity as well?

So anyways, that was a bust.  I've known of the author for a time and thought this would be a great choice.  It was not.  At least for me.  Instead I think it's going to win worst book I've read this year.

Onward.

My book-nerd app where I keep track of what I've read also allows me to log pages read each day.  A reading journal, if you will.  On September 27th, I logged my 1000th day in a row reading.

Some days it was few pages (you can see the monthly graph there), some days it was a lot.  But it was every day and I'm pretty darn proud of that!  I plan to keep going, but a big number won't come around again for nearly three years...

And that's it for today.

Now to decide if I want to read a little of the next book, take a nap, sew or something else I have yet to figure out.

But at least all the chores are finally done.  Whew!

Happy quilting and whatever,

Katie

lauretta's quilt and more

Quick before I have to go to a 6th grade football game...

Not quite two weeks ago, my nephew had his third child - a little girl.  I'd been working on a quilt for her since the Colour Value Mystery quilt along happened many months ago.

I went to my local quilt shop and bought fabrics and then changed my mind a little bit...

The lightest fabric wasn't playing nicely enough.  It ended up being the back of the quilt.

Cutting instructions were given and those went quickly, but I was doing the smallest option.

As a mystery quilt along goes, clues (instructions) were given on a weekly basis, so a little encouragement to get into my sewing room was good.  And I kept up.

Eventually I had blocks...

And then a top!

(With cats, of course.  The colors are super off here.)

Then it sat for a while and when I knew the birth was imminent, I got it onto the longarm.

A little later I got the binding finished and put a label on it.

(These colors are pretty accurate, but being outside probably helped.)

Friday afternoon we dropped it off.  We didn't stay long and didn't even really get to meet little Lauretta (odd spelling to honor a grandma), but they had other family visiting and we know we'll get to see plenty of her soon enough.

The pattern is no longer a mystery (and not just because I showed it to you), but the pattern is available from Canuck Quilter on her website and maybe in your local quilt shop!

In other news this week, I bought a dehydrator.

I've been thinking about this for almost a year.  I purchased some books on dehydrating to make sure I knew what I was getting into and see that I could figure out something more than bananas.

Today I loaded it up on its maiden voyage with tomato slices.  I seasoned them with Italian seasoning and, from what I read, you can eat them like chips, put them on burgers or pizza, or even grind them up into a powder that can go in soups and stews and sauces or even be rehydrated into tomato juice or make ketchup!

I just did about five tomatoes (what I had in the house - it was raining earlier), but tonight (it takes 8-10 hours) we'll see how it went!

In addition, I made and froze pesto.  My basil plant has turned into a bush almost rivalling the tomatoes, so something needed to be done.  I'll use that soon and let you know how it came out.  (I tasted it before freezing, but that's a little different than when you actually cook with it.)

I also finished two books.

This one I have no recollection of adding to my bag of treasures, but I must have.  I accused the hubby of seeding my bag with extras, but he denies it.

Though found in the fiction section, as often happens when you have volunteers sorting, this is non-fiction.  That's okay - I've found some good stuff that way.

This one, not such a good one.  Not awful, but not as good as I'd hoped when I read the blurb.

It is three biographies in one - all women who owned this same palazzo in Venice.  All of them eccentric, but from the description of the building, it was odd as well, so I suppose it attracted a certain type.

I had hoped for more renovation and such, since it was a crumbling mess at the start, but mostly what I got were rich people cheating on their spouses and many failed marriages.  It was a lot like lives of the rich and famous, just with a focus on these three women.

The last was a Guggenheim and she did have a modern art museum there when she lived in it (sharing the space in an odd arrangement), but when she passed away, it was fully converted into a modern art museum.

It took a while to read both because it has a lot of pages, but also because there were sections that were kinda dull.  But for non-fiction, it wasn't awful.  I've read a lot worse!

With that done, the random book chooser got this:

This one was recommended somewhere in my travels on the interwebs and I ordered it with Christmas money last year.  It was a quick read.

But I'm not sure if I liked it or not.

The start is very sad and I almost quit reading.  I wasn't sure my mental state was up to what all happened.  But I kept at it.  It didn't get all those accolades posted on the cover for nothing, right?  And though I often distrust those, I wanted to give the actual people who had mentioned it a fair chance.

It got happier, but it is not a happy book.  Hopeful, yes probably.  And it made me think a little differently about my life and situations I find myself in.

But if we're being honest?  I'm glad it's finished.

I pulled another to start tonight.  It's one many of you will probably recognize, but I'll wait to share until I'm done!

Happy quilting and dehydrating and reading!

Katie