I Had To

I used this tutorial.

Strawberry Season!

 Mary Corbett ran a series in late spring, "Five Ways to Stitch Strawberries." I could not resist:

I learned a couple new stitches! The top/biggest strawberry is battlement couching and gives a neat effect, even when one's stitches aren't perfectly gridded (ahem). The third strawberry down is burden stitch, and it's pretty straightforward and quick to do. I also learned some techniques for satin stitching that gave it a neater finish; in the past I avoided stitching the outline of the shape first and stitching two or three layers of satin stitch, but it really is worth it. I still hate long and short stitch, though, and I did not enjoy stitching that big leaf.

Oh look ... I forgot to stitch one stem segment ... sigh.

I need to find a suitable frame now. And maybe send it to my aunt, who loves strawberries.

More strawberries! I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

And strawberry shortcake with lemon curd. 

Maybe I should bead some strawberry earrings, to complete the DIY trifecta.

The Earthsea Novels by Ursula K. LeGuin

 The original Earthsea trilogy was a revelation when I read it as a child -- the setting was not the usual pseudo-medieval Europe but rather the sea-faring communities of an archipelago, and more importantly most of the characters were brown- and black-skinned. As a dark-haired Latina used to reading about blond or redheaded protagonists, I can't tell you how much representation matters. 

Of course, the story was amazing, too, involving wizards, dragons, and an intriguing take on magic that depends upon an ancient, "true" language. The main characters have satisfying character arcs, philosophical concepts on the value of life and death suffuse the story, and the world felt lived-in, full of little details that suggest a complex world rather than just a stage for the main players.

Many years later LeGuin revisited Earthsea in a fourth novel, Tehanu, intended to address some of the gender-inequities of the both the world and the previous novels. It's a good book, and I appreciated what LeGuin was trying to do, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others; there's enough gender-based violence in the real world that I don't want to read more of it in fiction.

The final novel, The Other Wind, was an effective synthesis of the two styles, delving more into notions of gender, power, and obligations while giving us lots of dragons. It's a satisfying conclusion to a wonderful series.