vacation and more

Some of you may have noticed my absence last week.  We were on vacation.  I thought I might squeeze in a quick post right before we left, but it was not to be.  Too many last-minute details to take care of and then I was exhausted.  So this week you'll get extra, though there wasn't all THAT much.

We'll start with the quilty stuff because that's what this blog started to be and I want it to continue to be...you know, with books, too...

I've been working on the baby quilt for the friend at work's daughter, and I got all the truck parts made, but had to make the animals to go in the trucks.  That was a daunting task, as it was nine different blocks and if any of you are familiar with Lori Holt's patterns, a LOT of pieces.  I planned to pull from my stash, but I didn't want to take that all with me.

I think I may have cut some after the plumber was here?  Or maybe while waiting?  But eventually I had them all cut and put into bags by block.

As I was cutting pieces, I kept the fabrics out and put them into the bin with the other fabrics.  It's a good thing I did because of the nine blocks, not one was made without error.  Either I cut something wrong or I sewed something wrong.

But I dug right into this soon after we arrived because I just want it done.  In a couple of days, I had all the animals (and an extra set of hay bales) done!

the cat

the cow

the goat

the hay bales - in two sizes because I was so used to cutting six inch block pieces for the animals, I forgot that the hay bales were the original contents of the truck and needed to be cut for the 12 inch block.

the hen

the horse (with a modified blanket - I used a gingham print instead of piecing it with teensy squares)

the pig

the rooster

and the sheep, who got legs after I sewed him into the truck.

At this point, you lop off the bottom part of the block to make it the right height for the bed of the truck.  So the sheep got legs later because I didn't want loose threads from embroidering legs hanging out.  And some of the animals that had grass beneath their feet didn't get that at all.

The following day I made myself decide on a layout and start sewing.  Somehow my layout photo got deleted, so all I have is the finished product.

I hiked through the grass between our cabin and the water, dodging goose poop all the way, to get those two rocks.  The neighbors probably thought I was nuts.  (They probably confirmed it when the hubby locked us out a few nights later and I had to crawl through a window to get back inside.)

The cornerstones match the binding and the decision on what color to make it all was based on what I had enough of.

Now to get it quilted.

Oh, and I'll need a back.  Of course.

With this done, my list of time-consuming projects was also done.  I took quite a few smaller things and decided Bramble Blooms 2 needed to be next.

All it needed were the ovals sewn down in the flower centers.  Oh, and a stem removed that I forgot about until just now.

It took a few days because I'm lazy and decided to read instead of applique, but it was vacation, so I can do what I want.

Those same rocks came in handy, but then I returned them to the beach because I was done making quilt tops.

This top is done and I'm fairly happy with it.  It was an experiment and a challenge and it came out okay.  But mostly I'm just glad it's (mostly) done.  (Darn that stem!)

What else did I do?

Read.

A LOT.

The week before we left I finished two books and while I was gone I read four more.  So lots to share here!

Set in a previous century, the author manages to forge a friendship with Robert Browning and they go around figuring out some murders like amateur sleuths.  I don't read a lot of mystery novels, so maybe the investigators jumping to conclusions frequently is normal, but this seemed ridiculously frequent and based on little evidence.  Evidence that Mr. Browning seemed to like to remove from the scene of the crime.

The murders start adding up and they attempt to find links between them, but instead find some obscure references to works by Dante at all the crime scenes.

Then the narrator ends up in a time-racing effort to figure out a series of clues that have been left to help him find a stash of documents that will pin him as the killer - clues left by none other than Mr. Browning.

There are two final twists to the book, one that is somewhat predictable, but another that is waaaaay out there.  I won't spoil them unless you ask.

In general, there were a lot of things that I found hard to follow (perhaps literary references that I either didn't know or was too distracted by blaring television shows to focus enough on) and there was a lot of jumping to conclusions that I didn't care for.  Interesting at least, I guess.

This is one that someone on Instagram had shared and I was intrigued, so I actually ordered it and the random number generator gave it to me for my last hurrah before vacation.

I read it in one day.  It was 150 pages, but the layout made it many more pages than it actually could have been.

A middle-aged woman, having seen Amish quilts used as a backdrop in a clothing storefront in the 60's, goes (in the 1980's) to live with an Amish family for a while.  A number of events came together to eventually lead her to actually even try to do this, but she feels drawn to them and their way of life and so she makes it happen.

I had hoped to learn more about the Amish through this book - their life intrigues me too, but probably not enough to go live with them - but it is more about her own self-discovery and paring down of her life over her three stints living with them.

I did learn some about their lifestyle and the book in general made me think about mine, too.  I did enjoy reading it.

And then the vacation books!

I actually started this before we left...I think?

Though nowhere in any blurb about this book does it mention this, it is a collection of short stories, all based around Olive Kitteridge and her town and the people living in it.  Some stories she is the main character, others she just barely passes through.

The stories are just about ordinary, small-town kinds of things - getting older, children, neighbors - and some are a bit more extraordinary - getting held at gunpoint in a hospital!  The characters all feel real and though Olive seems to be a cranky woman, she is assertive and expects a lot out of people and I think actually cares about them.

Some of the stories I enjoyed more than others, but mostly I was frustrated about the short story setting, as each "chapter" is a whole other story and not a continuation of the last chapter.  I know that's how short stories go, but since these were all the same characters, it was a little harder to adjust.

Not bad, though.

This is another one that was recommended somewhere on the interwebs, but I've read another by this author and enjoyed it, so it made sense to order this one with my gift cards from the holidays.

But I'll say the thing that no blurb, or even anywhere in the book, i think, says.  It's about time travel.  Okay, okay, maybe I spoiled a little of the story, but it all makes a lot more sense when you figure that out.

June is a 30-something woman, unmarried and living with her grandmother as her grandmother slowly loses the battle to dementia.  All the women in her family have had this happen and she has decided she will end things and not have children.

But it's not madness.  It's time travel.  And the chaos that comes from it.  And she is not free from it, but still tries to stop it.

It was a good story and the characters were great.  The author is good for that.  I enjoyed it and it was a quick read.  Probably what one would consider a good vacation read!

So this is a weird one.  I'm pretty sure I picked it up because it said something about the main character's DNA containing all the DNA of all the people on earth.  I thought it was going to be a sciencey book.

Well.  Science fiction probably.

And creationism.

But not in a churchy, preachy way.

Lilly, a 15-year old girl, found in a "container" washed up on the shore of a foreign planet, is very damaged and the people who find her heal her.  While she is healing, she has visions or something and sees the creation of Adam and Eve and their downfall and leaving Eden.

Not in any linear fashion, though.

Eve guides her through a lot of the visions, telling her she is her daughter, which I guess makes sense in the DNA scheme of things.

And the people caring for her call her a Witness (so the hubby and I were trying to decide what religion this is promoting, but still aren't sure) - and they all have titles like Finder, Healer, Scholar and Collector.

Lilly isn't much of a churchgoer, though, having been sold as a sex slave before she wound up on this planet all broken and nearly dead.  But, of course, through these visions and the guidance of those around her, she accepts God and whatnot.

And then there's a big twist at the end where you go WHAT THE HECK???

Better than I anticipated when I found out it was fairly religious.  But thankfully it wasn't one that was trying to convert me, just teach me I guess.

And the last book I finished on vacation.

A black man is born to sharecroppers and becomes one himself until one day he can't take it any more and runs off to live as a homeless man in Fort Worth.  It sounds like bad to worse, but the way he tells it, being homeless is a lot easier.

Taking free meals at a mission, he meets up with a husband and wife team that serve meals every Tuesday.  The wife felt called to do it and the husband understands that this is something he needs to join.  (They both attend church regularly, but he is definitely not as committed as she is!)  It takes a while, but for some reason the husband wants to befriend this man and eventually wins him over.

Their lives intersect in odd ways and the homeless man, Denver, eventually becomes a part of the family, helping out with odd jobs on their ranch and at the mission and whatnot.

The story is true and interesting in a number of ways, but I also still don't much like the husband.  The wife seems great, but she is not one of the author, so...

It also had some religion in it, but more as a means to an end than any preachy sort of thing.

I'm most of the way through another book and might finish it tonight, but Mt. Washmore is still there (getting smaller by the hour), plus a number of other chores that need to be done after someone stayed with the cats all week (the cats and cat-sitter don't vacuum or clean toilets, which is fine, but now I have to!), but I'm getting there and took a break for blogging.

Speaking of cats...

I think Lily might have had a death wish.  I'd just kicked these off after a long, hot day at work.  How she didn't pass out from stinky feet fumes I'll never understand, but she and FInn both like to wrestle stinky shoes.

And when I was unpacking my sewing stuff (yep, it gets a whole suitcase to itself!), she wanted to make sure if I left again she got to go along.  She probably would have been fine with us up there, but it's quite a long ride to get where we were going, and that would have been the issue.  (Salem stopped by to check it out, too, but she didn't get it.  I think she liked staying with grandma.)

Not to worry, I'm home for a while again, with only time away to go to work.  So the familiar routine will resume again and she can relax.  And for the most part, the kitties are all happy to have us back.  Gabby is going to take more convincing, but she did eat her dinner after I put it under the bed for her, so at least there's that.

Happy quilting and reading...and I'd better go check on my garden in the morning when it's not 400 degrees outside!

Katie

just books

No sewing this week.

Some weeding.

A lot of shifts at work and a good chunk of a day spent doing odds and ends, waiting for the plumber to arrive.  A task I am doing again today because they did not fully fix the slow drain.  (The fact that it runs slow sometimes and not others makes it hard to know if it's truly fixed, but also annoying because maybe I didn't need to call them after all?)

So mostly reading.  With a companion some days - see photo above.

Set around the turn of the last century in New Orleans, particularly in the "red light" district, this is a murder mystery.

A prostitute turns up dead in a brothel and the main character, a private investigator who was formerly a cop, decides to investigate because he knows the authorities won't.  Of course more prostitutes end up dead and the plot thickens.

Pretty much every character is shady: involved in gangster-style government policy, crooked cops, church men of questionable character, early jazz musicians and, of course, prostitutes and the women who run the houses they inhabit.

So pretty much everyone is suspect.

There are some twists and turns and the ending is a surprise, but we all knew it would be considering it's a mystery, right?!

It was pretty good and I enjoyed reading some about the development of jazz, though that was pretty much a side note.  And the blurb mentions Jelly Roll Morton, though he has like zero to do with the book and appears maybe twice for about as many sentences.  (But a quote attributed to him is where the book got its title, so...)

This one I don't know if I read the blurb or just giggled at the title and stuffed it in the bag?

Published 100 years ago, it's set starting about that time, but spans about 40 years.

A young woman, raised sort of with money and definitely around it, in the bigger cities, takes a teaching job in a very rural community south (I think) of Chicago, after her father passes away when she is 19.

Culture shock, of course.  But she viewed it as a grand adventure and planned to spend a few years there and then transfer to a school in a big city to resume her life.

Then she meets a man and marries him and ends up a vegetable farmer like all the rest of the community she had been teaching.  Anyone see that coming?

They have a son, who ends up nicknamed "Sobig."

The husband dies when the son is young, but she refuses to give up on her new dream of being a fancy vegetable farmer.  She works hard and, thanks to her city upbringing, doesn't let the country men tell her she can't do things.

The story shifts mostly to Sobig about midway through and takes some large leaps in time, but you do see how she and her farm are faring as well.

I feel like this fits well with the Great Gatsby somewhat.

The ending is just done, though.  Leaves you hanging a little.  But overall an interesting book and not bad.  It took a little to get into since the writing style is older, but not quite as stiff as some of the even older classics.

Lots of Toby today - this cube is a cat thing...it's a PVC frame that has fabric stretched over it, so the top is kind of like a hammock and the bottom a cave.  It was in high demand a few years back and then fell out of favor.  When we put up the catio, it was moved from the wall under the window entry and suddenly is all the rage again.  Toby climbed in the other day, flipped over like this and proceeded to have a bath.  Sometimes he does weird stuff.

Time to go figure out what else to do while waiting for the plumbers...

Happy quilting and reading and gardening!
Katie

baby quilt progress and more

Gabby doesn't get much time here on the blog, but she was being so sweet last night, I snagged this photo.  She moved, so it's not as cute as it COULD have been, but it's still good.

Okay, let's move on to what you're really here for: quilt stuff!

Progress was made on the trucks.  Now they're ready for their loads of whatever and then I can sew the top to the bottom.  There are nine of these and I'm quite glad to be done with them.  Particularly after I had to unsew and resew some parts yesterday.

This was also a project this week.  I've had this "done" for a few years.  But apparently, in my haste to finish, or maybe my focus to figure out different motifs to put inside each circle, I managed to miss the diagonals put into the ring pieces on not one, not two, but THREE of the circles.  Not the whole circle, just part of it.  (They were too big to do an entire circle on the longarm, so I had to do them in parts, which is how I missed some.)

So I threaded up the little machine with the same thread, lengthened the stitches to accommodate for a lack of walking foot (this machine doesn't have the bar to attach it to, but it's fine...it never worked all that well for me anyways when I had a machine just like this WITH the bar, and the stitching I had to do was in short stretches anyways) and got ready to work out my arms good.

It didn't take long and only a few swear words when I kept snapping the presser foot down when trying to shove a little more quilt under the arm so I could quilt a straight diagonal in the direction I wanted it to go.

Now Single Girl is truly finished.

I spent a chunk of time outside again, mostly trying to get the "flower bed" next to the house cleaned up a little more.  You think you've got it under control and a week later Mother Nature tells you otherwise.  Or you just turn around and realize you got the tall weeds, but now there are SHORTER weeds to be pulled.

It's not done, but it's better.

And then there's the reading.  I feel like I spent more time reading than this one book proves, but it's okay.

This book was quite good.  I believe I'd read some talk about it a while back, but you never know...it seems the more hype a book gets, the less likely I am to enjoy it.

The story of a young girl (it spans about 12 years of her life, though there are some big jumps in there), the daughter of a drug addict and a meth maker (who also I'm pretty sure uses some illicit substances), Wavy tries to make her way in the world.

She grows up young and is making meatloaf at 8 - from a recipe (I'm not sure I even knew how to turn on the oven at that age!), and manages to handle a lot of things while the adults around her (all of them) fail her over and over.

Except Kellen.  He's in his early 20's when she meets him and they form a bond that she isn't able to find with anyone else.  He takes care of her and her younger brother when and how he can, though he is not the product of a happy home either.

Eventually the relationship turns romantic (I kept expecting it, so I'm guessing you would, too, so it's not really a spoiler) and, of course, this delves into the world of relations with a minor and I'm sure that set the world on fire when it was published.  (The interview with the author at the end, she acknowledges this, but wanted to explore the nuances of consent and I'm bungling the description, but she intentionally wrote it this way to make us think about it, not just get mad.)

She is often put into awful situations, but has resilience to survive.  And tries to make the best decisions for her and her brother.  Surrounded by such chaos and negativity, she manages to make her way out of it and not become part of it, making this book a lot more hopeful than you might imagine.

I was glad I finished it early in the day so I could have the evening to ponder and settle with the ending (and the whole book) instead of going right to bed.  (I read a lot at night.)

Now I'm more than halfway through the next book and it's pretty good, too.  I'll have more to share next week!

Happy quilting and weeding and reading!
Katie

starting a quilt!

Shifts at work continue to keep me busy, but I had two days off in a row (!!!) last week, so once I got all the chores done that pile up while I'm at work, I actually had time and energy to do something else!

What did I do?

I cut out pieces for the baby quilt!

I had cut the background and a few other parts earlier, but when I had a whole day to play, I cut out all the single pieces from each color to make nine different trucks.

And then I started sewing!!!

After a LOT of lost corners and pieces, I have the trucks looking a little more truck-like.   But those wheels - two per truck and eight lost corners per wheel - I felt like all I was doing was sewing diagonals for a little while.

Each truck will have something different in the bed, so those will just be cut from the stash as I go, but I thought if all I had to do was sew them into the truck when they were done, that would be good.  And some mindless chain-sewing isn't a bad way to spend a rainy day.  (I weeded the garden for a little while and then it POURED on Thursday, so I didn't feel bad about not weeding anything else.)

I have a three-day weekend coming up (I had to ask for the whole weekend off, otherwise the boss thinks one of the weekend days off every now and then counts as a weekend off), so I hope to make more progress then.  But we'll see - depending on the weather, I may be outside a lot.

Speaking of outside - my tomato plants are HUGE!  There are some little cherry-sized green ones on most of the bushes (yes, they're bushes at this point), and a lot of blossoms.  Here's to hoping for a lot to can later this year.

(I should have taken a photo when I was out there reconnecting the hose to water this morning - hubby rolls it up (rather, ties it in knots) when he mows and that was yesterday - but I forgot.  I was too mad at the knots.)

In other sewing news, I pressed and folded and cut another piece of fabric for cat covers...

I think these ambulances are super cute and pretty appropriate.  Of course, my phone thought it should all have a nice orange tint, but it is a pretty turquoise and the reds will be the handle facings.

In addition to sewing, I baked some AMAZING cupcakes on Saturday.  One of the younger guys I work with seems to have never had anyone make any fuss over his birthday - something I didn't know until I brought in cupcakes specifically ON his birthday a few years ago to celebrate with him (who doesn't like free cake on someone else's birthday?) - had a birthday yesterday.  I was planning to make something, but he very humbly approached me Saturday as I was leaving (to run to the store for a cake mix) and asked for something for his birthday.

Well.

I guess I'm not making funfetti cupcakes any more, am I?

So, sitting in the parking lot before heading into the store, I found this recipe for Chocolate Caramel Turtle Cupcakes stashed in my Pinterest file of cupcakes.  (The website takes forever to load (yay ads and pop-ups...), but it is 100% worth it.)

It gives itself five stars.  I might give it more.  (And I'm not a chocolate person and usually decline foods with nuts in them because it's a texture thing.)

Labor-intensive - yes.

Messy - yes.

Worth it - yes!

I did use store-bought chocolate fudge icing and stiffened it up with about a quarter cup of powdered sugar (nope, I didn't measure) so I could pipe it and make it fancy.  And I have no photos, but mine look about like hers.

My kitchen was a bit of a disaster area, but again, totally worth it.

He was very happy.

I'm sure the folks who benefited from this by getting cupcakes also (it did make 24) will also be happy.  I'll be in later today to find out.

And finally, the books I read this week.

Yet another book set during World War 2, but not so focused on the war, so that's good.  And not a "romance" in any way, so that's also good.

A teenage boy at the start of the war, the main character is sent to a Nazi summer camp and is basically indoctrinated into their way of thinking.  But it's fun because he gets to do all sorts of boy stuff - shoot guns, learn navigation, and compete with other boys - so he also has fun and makes some friends.

When the British Air Force bombs the factory his father owns (he makes lightbulbs and I had to giggle when, early in the book, the father intentionally sabotages a LOT of bulbs that are going to German military vehicles - the boy doesn't understand and the father disappears after they figure it out), killing not only his mother, but his two best friends, he sides with the Nazis and joins the military.

Because of his summer camp training, and because his uncle has a boat that he has spent a fair amount of time on, he is selected to join a group of men who will train and pilot single-man submarines and is eventually sent out to find and destroy enemy boats.  He is thrilled and excited until he actually accomplishes the task and then has a real moment of reckoning, which leads him to desert the military as soon as he can.

Then the book DRAGS for a while as he makes his way, on foot, to safer ground.

All this while, I'm expecting something of a boat that runs something out of somewhere illegally.  It takes until the last part of the book to really get there.

I don't want to spoil it, but it takes all of the things that have happened to this young man to add up at once and he becomes a boat runner.  It's a good ending, though sad situations that he enters to do his illegal work.

I mostly enjoyed it, but could have done with less of the trekking hungry, cold and wet through the countryside.

And then this gem:

I liked this one A LOT!

It reminds me some of A Circle of Quiet, which I read back in October of last year.  That one was nonfiction and this one is fiction, but based on the life of a real man who, after being diagnosed with tuberculosis (set 100 years ago), his doctor suggests he move south from his home in Idaho to help with his symptoms.

He buys, sight unseen, a 10-acre plot of land in Alabama, and takes the train there with few belongings, planning to live in the barn that is on the land until he can figure out what else to do.

He doesn't expect to live long (his doctor said maybe a year), so he doesn't make any big plans and, until a hurricane half-destroys the barn and the living area he built within it, I don't think he had any plans to build any other sort of home.

After surviving the hurricane in an old cistern, he decides to dig that out and build a round house on the site.  It won't be large, but he doesn't need or want much.  And 100 years ago, the things a person had (and "needed") were far fewer than we have today.

He builds the home and it becomes a curiosity to the town, but his journey getting there is the story of the book.  Though some of it is surely based on fact (he mentions that he dates the cement blocks he pours for the walls, so I'm guessing that the author was able to use/see those dates), the thoughts of the man are what caught me.  He decided to live deliberately and be present in the now, not worrying about the past or the future as much as he could and, to me, that was a good reminder to enjoy what we have when we have it and not worry about what we might have tomorrow as much.

The life he leads is a poetic one, though I don't think he intends it to be.  He just notices nature and appreciates it.  He does write some poetry, but I don't think he realizes how his life is also such.

It's a fairly quick read, though I did take my time with it a little more than I might have if I hadn't enjoyed it so much.  This one actually might be one I choose to re-read again some day - and that's rare for me!

I've started another book, of course, and it also seems like it is going to be good, but it is VERY different from this one.  (I love it when the books don't all seem the same.)

Time to go get a few more chores done and maybe take a quick nap before work.  Finn, the orange boy, did not let me sleep well last night and I'm tired!

Happy quilting and gardening and reading and baking!
Katie