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I spend entirely too much time on YouTube watching chateau renovations, crochet videos and such. That has taken some of my reading time but I still managed to finish 6 books this month and made it part way through 2 more. This month I've added a TLDR feature. Every time I write a review I seem to have a one sentence review in my head. Now I"m writing them down. By far, my favorite book of the month was Listen For The Lie. Aside from the DNF books, none of them were bad. What book recommendations do you have from your reading this month? DNF: Guardians of the Valley by Dean King - It's the story of John Muir and after 2 hours I was kind of bored, unfortunately. It might be a narrator problem. I'll probably look for this in paper. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon - This is a very popular book but, 3 hours in, and I realized I wasn't paying attention  The Glassmaker By Tracy Chevalier, Read By Lisa Flannigan TLDR: Started strong but lost steam as centuries passed. The story opens in Murano in 1486. Orsolo Rosso is the daughter in a family of glassmakers on the island of Murano. Her father dies in a studio accident and the family struggles to make ends meet. Her brother isn't quite mature enough to run the shop successfully. Orsolo is introduced to the skill of bead making as a way to bring in extra money for the family. I love glass and I love history, I was hooked after the first chapter. But then there's this "stone skipping" that happens between chapters. You, the reader are skipping a stone and time moves forward decades. The people of Murano age slower parallel to the universe so that Orsolo is still living during the 2019 pandemic. I suppose the purpose was to tell the story of Orsolo and her family, but also tell the whole history of Murano glass. It's was a clever plot tool but I'm no fan of time travel stories. I also felt it got a little slow in the last third. Living for 600 years could possibly become a drag.  Listen For The Lie By Amy Tintera, Read By January LaVoy and Will Damron TLDR: Perfect melding of crime podcast into a crime novel with great narration. One night Lucy was found wandering the streets covered in her best friend's blood. Savvy was found bludgeoned to death in the woods. Lucy doesn't remember anything. Everyone thinks Lucy did it but there's not enough evidence to charge her. Lucy's wealthy husband divorces her and Lucy leave her small town in Texas for LA. Several years later a popular podcast, Listen For The Lie, decides to take up this cold case. Part of the objective is to get Lucy's memory back. There have been several books lately that integrate a podcast into the story but, in my opinion, none have done it as well as this book. If you decided to give it a try, consider the audiobook because the narration is outstanding. January LaVoy is masterful at doing Lucy and her inner demon that talks to her often.  The Midnight Feast By Lucy Foley, read by a cast TLDR: A good story but very much like her previous books Lucy Foley has a template so if you like a previous book, you will like this one. They are all very similar in setting, storyline and character type. Francine grew up in The Manor and has now inherited it. She's reimagined it as a luxury hotel and the book opens at the opening. She has meticulously curated the experience for her guests and planned a Midnight Feast for the Solstice. There are secrets on this estate and in the town. Many of those secrets go back to when Francine (Frankie) was a teenager. Unknown to her, old friends and foes are among the guests and staff. It moves along quickly and, like all of her books, there's some mysticism, half-told stories, darkness, and a young, arrogant, unlikable protagonist.  First Lie Wins By Ashley Elston, Read By Saskia Maarleveld TLDR: One of Charlie's Angels goes rogue in an outrageously complex tale. This one requires you to pay close attention because there are dozens of twists as the story goes back and forth in time. Evie Porter has a mystery boss: Mr. Smith and she's just met her new mark, Ryan Sumner. The problem is that Evie actually likes her relationship with Ryan. But Evie's past is super complex, starting with her life of thievery as a teen trying to care for her dying Mom. After being caught, she was "saved" by Mr. Smith and started working for him on "special cases". This book is really different but also very complex. Every chapter has a twist as it goes between her various jobs and current day. If you are looking for a different kind of mystery, you might like this one.  Hello Beautiful By Ann Napolitano, Read By Maura Tierney TLDR: Family saga with a nod to Little Women. Great character development. William Waters was born as his young sister was dying. His parents never recovered from their grief. He was greatly affected by their neglect. He found solace in basketball. When he went to college he met Julia Padavano and, through her family of 4 sisters, he found family. William has never really dealt with and recovered from his childhood neglect. Stresses of life after graduation cause a crisis in his life and in the lives of the Padavano family. It's a story of family loyalty, love, betrayal and forgiveness. The characters were very well developed and sympathetic.  Vanished Arizona
By Martha Summerhayes TLDR: Very interesting diary of an Army wife in post-Civil War Arizona. I picked up this book when we were on Tucson last January and just got around to reading it this month. It was fascinating! Martha Summerhayes was raised in new England and Germany. After the Civil War she returned to America and married an Army officer not having any idea of what her life would be like. They were immediately stationed in rugged and undeveloped Arizona. The book was put together after they retired from the Army and it's based on the collections of letters that she sent home. It's really fascinating and very readable. Chris enjoyed it too.  You may remember that on our family vacation in May that Chris fell and had a horrible accident......I didn't cause it, by the way. The result is that the early days of that vacation were spent in various emergency rooms and a hospital. The rest was spent keeping a close eye on him. I got one hour on the beach. I really missed the beach and have been thinking about it ever since. I finally decided to take Mom and a friend and go to the beach for a few days this week. We are going to Sandbridge, in Virginia Beach, and we are going to be blessed with beautiful weather. We will also get to visit family and some friends. Yesterday I started preparing and will take this kit to work on. This is the quilt that I surveyed you for the color of the alternating blocks. Although most people picked green, I was just too drawn to the orange.  The beach chairs and sewing are packed. Today I'll get on with the less important items, like clothes and food.  I also got started on leaf blowing. This is about 1/3 of one Maple tree. There will be lots more waiting for me when I get home.
We leave tomorrow around noon and will be home Monday in time to set up the precinct for voting on Tuesday.
In September I pulled these 5 and 6 weight yarns from the stash and made a plan to use them up. I would make winter hats for donation. I've shared 7 already.  I've been working on them steadily all month and this weekend I finished the rest of the yarn to make 8 more hats for a total of 15! There was a tiny bit of leftover yarn, but not enough to make another hat. These are all large and XL sizes. Because of the thickness of the yarn, these will be very warm hats. I'll finish the shawl that I'm working on and then I'll deliver all these things I've made soon.  While I was cleaning off my cutting table, I found these 2 chemo hats that I made months ago and never shared.
Today is election day so I'll be at the precinct from 5 am to 8 pm. You probably won't hear from me until Thursday. On Thursday, Mom, Kim and I are headed to Sandbridge to enjoy the beach for a few days but I'll post from there. We are having a little sewing retreat and we'll get to see my Great Niece.  It was a productive weekend! The first thing I finished was getting Estelle's quilt quilted. This will be a veterans quilt. It's such a simple block but has a great graphic impact.  The pantograph I used is called Macrame. It's probably my current favorite and it's nice to use to soften a scrappy quilt or a quilt with strong geometric lines.  I also finished my big yard project that I've been working on. This is what the area next to the road looked like. This photo is of my neighbor's yard. I talked to his caretaker while I was out working and we agreed to the property line. He'll tackle this part. Neither of our properties have been maintained on this road line in at least 20 years. The next 2 photos is of what mine looks like now. It was a lot of work because there's probably 60 - 80 feet of road frontage that looked like this.   There's so much more that we should take out be Chris and I agreed that we have done enough for now. We are very happy with the results and we don't have limbs hanging over the road anymore. The school bus driver should be happy too.  How much stuff did we cut? 4 or 5 piles this big. This pile is even bigger than it looks because the ground slopes down under it. It was a crazy amount of stuff but that Stihl pruning saw made it easy.  Now it's time to start a month of blowing leaves.
Today I have my annual physical and my last election training class. This one is on security and situational awareness. This one should be good for me because I do not pay any attention to my surroundings or the people around me.  On Thursday I had 2 election training classes where I learned that I've been designated the provisional ballot person for our precinct. We always get a number of people who want to vote in person but have received an absentee ballot (that they requested). Those people have to vote provisional. There will also be a number of people who will want to register and vote. In between classes I visited a friend so I didn't get anything else done Thursday. Friday started outside with my little pruning saw again. It was lovely to be outside with views like this. Out big Maple is showing off this year.  After I finished my yard work I got back to quilting and finished this veterans quilt. Now it's ready for binding.  Then I got another veterans quilt loaded and ready to quilt. Quilting this is today's goal (after more sawing) and maybe I can get the binding on my veterans quilt.
 It was out last beautiful warm day so I grabbed my little pruning saw and spent the morning cutting a lot of stuff at the edge of the road. After lunch my friend, Marcy, came to visit. It was so nice to finally catch up with her. We went to a lecture last night but I had a couple of hours before we had to leave. I used that time to get my veterans quilt loaded. I think I'm going to quilt it with white thread to kind of hide my poor choices of red and blue fabrics.
Today I have 2 classes for election day and visiting another friend so there won't be any creative time. I'll post again Saturday. Yesterday was way too nice to be inside. I can't believe the weather that we are having this week. Today is supposed to be another nice one. I've been able to hang laundry outside to dry and I stacked wood near the house for when it inevitable turns cold enough to fire up the woodstove. For now, though, we are enjoying open windows.  One of the projects that I've been working on the past few days is repainting this sign that my brother made for me a few years ago. It's really cut down on the mis-directed traffic that we were getting. Some delivery apps send people here for addresses that are behind us across the river. That has now stopped. This is all good for a couple of years and some bird has already give it the "seal of approval".  After lunch I was going to sew but Chris decided to go fishing at the lake. It seemed too nice not to take the opportunity to get the kayak out.  I usually do two loops around the pond but I always take a break in this cove. It's my favorite spot on the lake to stop and listen to the birds and see an occasional deer.  Chris stayed to fish longer so I left my kayak for him to bring home and I had a lovely mile walk home.  I saw Bart on the way. He seems to be missing his friend Magic.  This is the huge Sugar Maple in our yard and a smaller one right beside. It's a beautiful tree, some years are more spectacular than others. This will be a less spectacular year. We notice that the color is strongest in dry years. We've had a very wet year this year until the last few weeks. Soon I'll be out here every day blowing leaves. These trees drop an absolute ton of leaves. There are also 2 big Oaks and 6 giant Sycamores. SO. MANY. LEAVES.  We haven't killed any of the new plants yet. If you look at the Cedar trunk, you can see all the limbs that Chris cut off. We planted 3 Hydrangea, 3 Rhododendrons and 4 Lenten Roses. It doesn't look like much in this big space but we didn't want to invest too much until we see if we can keep these alive. It will look better in February after I dump some new mulch around the yard.  The squirrels have been busy preparing for winter too.  I did finally come inside and iron some of the fabric I dyed 2 days ago. This wasn't exciting dyeing. These are comparisons of 3 different fabrics for a Facebook group I belong to. We wanted to see if they dyed differently before we place a group order. As you can see, new and old versions dyed exactly the same. I also dyed 2 options for the background squares for this veterans quilt. My consultation committee still prefers the green but I'm really feeling that dark orange. What do you think?
Today I'm getting out my pruning saw again to destroy some more aggressive foliage near the road and then I'm going to get out the Cricut and start working on postcards. Unless something more fun outside comes along. It's really our last call on summer-like weather. Things cool down tomorrow.  I didn't post yesterday because I worked the early voting center again so didn't have anything to share. It was so busy that I couldn't even read a page of my book. That's a good thing! On Sunday we went to a local concert of the US Navy Country Current Band. It was a veteran featured event so our quilt club had a booth and we awarded 4 veterans quilts through a raffle. The weather was spectacular and it was a lovely afternoon. On Saturday I actually dyed fabric! I needed to dye some veterans quilt backs, fabric for that quilt I showed last week and some sample swatches. It's been at least a month since I've dyed anything and it was nice to be back. There's been lots of football watching so I've mostly been crocheting. I think I have about 6 rows left for the shawl and a whole lot of rows left on the blanket.
This week I'll be getting on with making some birthday postcards and planning the Christmas postcards.  Yesterday was another beautiful day to be outside and to go buy more plants. But the evening was perfect for finishing the last 35 surgery drain bags. That brings the total to 130 for this batch.  This is what they look like. The strap is a ribbon that goes through the loop on the other side. The patient will be able to adjust the length by tying the strap to the loop. Now I can get on with the Christmas card making.  In gardening news, I bought 3 rhododendrons for Chris to plant today and about 90 daffodil bulbs that I will plant. I'm also repainting the address sign that my brother made for me a couple of years ago. The weather here is just amazing and will be amazing for at least a week so I'll be outside as much as possible. Leaf blowing will commence very soon too.
 Yesterday was day 2 of sewing with my quilt club. Since I got the HST quilt blocks done and up on the design wall, I took another quilt kit to make and got all of the 4-patch blocks put together. Then I laid them out with the alternating 4" blocks and we all agreed that the pale tan does not work at all! I packed everything up and came home to search through my stash to see what might work better. I sent these 3 options to my opinion committee and I got a unanimous response of green. This week I will be dyeing some green fabric so I can finish this quilt.  Then I did a very nice thing. No one ever asks me to do alteration or repair things and that's a good thing. But Chris has a friend visiting town for a couple of days and they have been playing golf. Matt had just bought himself some new pants and I offered to hem them for him. I really don't mind doing hemming. I wish I had some thread in the orange color that Levi uses but he didn't care. He was just thrilled to have them done!  I had just enough green thread to hem the green pants for him! I love an empty thread spool.
Today it's nice outside so I'm doing more outside work and then meeting friends for a drink this evening. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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