Jewelry Round-Up

A gemstone bracelet I whipped up to join the rhinestone one I made:

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what stones these are. I used to be very good at remembering the details of what I have in my stash, but no more.

Another gemstone bracelet, because they are fun:

 I also started this bracelet, done in tubular herringbone with regular and "skinny" (i.e. demi-round) seed beads.

The use of different sizes of seed beads reminds me of the cellini spiral, and I joined a facebook group devoted to that so now I'm itching to do some experimenting.

Book Round-Up

The Color Master by Aimee Bender: I tend to associate Bender with Kelly Link, for they both excel at short stories with a fantastical bent, and I discovered them around the same time, but despite the similarities Bender has a different feel to her work. Her latest collection is a mix of contemporary stories (with and without a magical element) and modern fairy tales, including the title one that connects to a famous Grimm tale. As always, her stories are smart and rich, and just a bit disturbing.

An Elderly Lady Is up to No Good by Helene Tursten: I loved these short stories about an murderous octogenarian (the victims kind of deserve it). The last two -- different perspectives on the same crime -- weren't quite as successful as the first three, but they were all so much fun to read. Tursten's heroine-cop from her mystery series makes a cameo, and I think I will be checking those novels out.

Baseball in the Garden of Eden by John Thorn: It's April, so it's time to read about baseball again. Most baseball fans nowadays know Abner Doubleday, who appears to have had no interest in sports whatsoever, was not the inventor of the game. However, not much is known about how baseball actually developed, something Thorn seeks to remedy with this book. The result is a description of the messy, chaotic, 19th century start to the game and the role upper class businessmen, working class brawlers, gamblers, Theosophists, and even some British cricketers (shhh! don't tell the America-first people!) played.

The Little Book of Fika by Lynda Balslev:  I bought my first book box from Julia's Book Bag, the Hygge box from this past winter, and it was filled with lots of delightful goodies plus this little book about the Swedish tradition of a coffee break. It includes an explanation of fika, coffee-related quotations, and a number of traditional recipes for drinks (not just coffee), baked treats, and other light fare. The insight into an aspect of Swedish culture was interesting, and I look forward to trying some of the recipes. Plus it's a cute little book.

E is for Easter

Not that this project actually has anything to do with the holiday. I've mentioned before that letters have distinctive colors in my head, and I've been working on a series off and on. E is light blue:

The blue calico fabric has sentimental meaning for me, as it is from my mother's stash and dates back to at least the 80s. The background is two different remnants of silk, and I added a bit of lace for contrast. The card is backed with light blue linen.

For those who are wondering, D is green, but I haven't decided yet how I want to represent it.

A Riot of Flowers

For the last month I've delighted in walking around my neighborhood looking at the blossoming trees. The petals are starting to fade and fall off, but I was inspired to stitch some of my own to enjoy:

I want to put something in the center, perhaps a short phrase relating to spring. One half of the circle is also a bit thin, so I might add a flowering vine, too.

The trees are losing their flowers, but now the azaleas are in full glory. I plan to bead a bunch of them (just as soon as I find the right color beads) and mount them on a tiny hoop.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

I didn't think it was possible, but Novik's Spinning Silver was just as brilliant as Uprooted -- maybe even better in some ways. Her latest novel is a loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, set in a country a lot like late-medieval Lithuania and plagued by ice-cold Staryk who are keeping spring from arriving and a fiery demon who has possessed the tsar.

The main protagonist is Miryem, the daughter of a Jewish moneylender who's too kind-hearted to do his job; fed up with starving, she takes over collections, hardening her heart to do so (cold, both literal and metaphorical, drive the plot). She soon discovers she has a talent for turning nothing into silver, and silver into gold, which attracts the eye of the Staryk king. But the story is not just about her; Wanda is a young Christian woman who begins working for Miryem as a way to avoid grinding poverty and her abusive father, and Irina is a nobleman's daughter forced to marry the terrifying tsar. Seeing these three characters find ways to survive and then thrive as they take hold of their lives was the very best part of the book.

This is a deeply moral story, teasing out the ways faith, prejudice, fear, love, duty, and gratitude color actions both ordinary and grand. Novik has a knack for starting out with fairy tale cliches and then gradually complicating everything as her characters struggle to do what is necessary and what is right. And it's thrilling! So much happens in this novel I had difficulty putting it down every night.

I can't wait to see what Novik writes next.

Spring Is Zipping Along ...

... Faster than I'm ready for. I made this pouch last week:

I needed a larger pouch to accommodate an 8-inch hoop, and I'd been wanting to do some of Minki Kim's designs from Sew Illustrated, and it occurred to me to combine the two projects. I picked the large sewing machine sketch from the book, using some of my precious, scarce liberty fabric for the applique and linen for the background. The stitching was a little too complex, though, given that thread drawing is a newish technique for me. And the heavy grey thread I used blended in a bit too much with the print (maybe that's for the best, though, heh).

The modern zippers I had were too short for the bag, so I used a vintage metal zipper with giant teeth and zip. It looks great, but I had a heck of a time sewing it in (don't look too closely, please).

More Liberty fabric for the back:

Despite my stumbles, the pouch was surprisingly easy to make. And I can't wait to tackle other (less complicated) designs from the book.