A favorite pair of jeans started showing signs of wear by the left front pocket (probably because of my phone), so i did some visible mending using sashiko and boro techniques:
These magnetic bookmarks are from a cute pattern from Craftapalooza.
I used interfacing scraps which were a bit stiffer than what was called for, which added to the bulk a bit. I plan on making more with a lighter interfacing, maybe fall-themed. They'd make a good gift, too!
This is the second novel in de Lint's Newford series, and a re-read for me. It's a fascinating concept -- especially talented artists are able to use their paintings to open a gateway to another world, inviting in fairy-like beings -- and as always I appreciate the urban fantasy setting and his commitment to both art and social justice.
However, his protagonist, Isabelle, was a frustrating character who made a lot of bad decisions for almost the entirety of the novel. Some of it is, understandably, a function of the abusive relationships she has been subject to; they do a number on both her self esteem and her understanding of what's normal. But her actions are also the result of her own selfishness and obsession with art; she is willing to overlook or justify all manner of bad acts committed by Rushkin because of his artistic talent. It's one thing to separate the artist from the art, a topic that is especially relevant today. It's another to let the artist get away with murder because he's fascinating.
Late in the novel we meet another painter who serves as a marked contrast to Isabelle; I wish we could have spent more time with her.
A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva: My first Silva novel, recommended to me by my husband because the protagonist has retired from spying to become an art restorer. It was fine, but the descriptions of how beautiful and wealthy every character was got tedious. I'm starting to believe there is an inverse correlation between how much time is spent on what the characters look like and the quality of the book.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells: This satirical sci-fi novella was utterly delightful. Murderbot was just so much fun to read about, and I actually teared up at the very end. I can't wait to read the rest.
Back After This by Linda Holmes: This wasn't my favorite of her novels (the podcast industry setting wasn't my thing), but I continue to love the wit of Holmes's writing, and the fact that her characters act like grown-ups.
The Sorceror's House by Gene Wolfe: My first Gene Wolfe was kind of a disappointment. I liked the structure (epistolary) and there were some neat ideas and intriguing motifs, but the attitudes of the characters were straight out the 1970s and 1980s, despite the novel ostensibly taking place in 2000s.
There is a certain pleasure in rereading a favorite book, in experiencing again its pleasures and in finding new ones. It can be especially worthwhile to reread a book when one is in a different stage of life.
I first read Orlando in college. I enjoyed it and admired it, but I didn't get much out of it other than the story itself and the commentary on the limitations historically placed on women. Rereading it 30+ years later -- wiser and more experienced, with a more nuanced understanding of the messiness of life -- was a different experience entirely. For one thing, I don't think I appreciated just how funny it is. The satire of not just gender norms but poets, publishing, and British history and culture is sharp, sometimes brutally so. Woolf has a keen eye for absurdity, as befitting a gifted writer who not only struggled with gender and heteronormative expectations but also the deeply flawed people she loved and with her own mental health. In this way the novel is strikingly modern, even though it is almost one hundred years old.
It's a postmodern novel too, purporting to be a traditional biography of Orlando, with a narrator who refuses to record some events because they are allegedly too distressing for the reader (such as Orlando's transformation from male to female, or her pregnancy), but seemingly accepts without question her subject's centuries-long life. Woolf includes portraits of real-life aristocrats as illustrations of her fictional characters, adding an element of playfulness. Moreover, each section of the book corresponds to a particular time period of English history, with heightened descriptions to match. The Frost Fair of 1608 is depicted with a cold beauty and startling details, such as the woman sitting with a lapful of apples for sale frozen at the bottom of the Thames and perfectly visible through the crystal-clear ice. Victorian England, by contrast, is pervaded with damp, resulting in lush, overabundant growth; so of course this is when Orlando gets pregnant.
But most of all, this novel is a love letter to Woolf's friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, who inspired the character Orlando. Without the benefit of Wikipedia to educate me about Woolf's life, and reading this on my own rather than with a professor who could point me in certain directions, I completely missed this the first time around. This knowledge makes for a poignant read, because Orlando is very much an idealized (but not perfect) version of Sackville-West, without her selfishness and unfaithfulness, who finds true love in Shelmerdine (who was once a woman, and who is as unconventional as Orlando is).
I'm so glad I reread this.
Done!
I’ve been working on Satsuma Street’s Egg Hunt since the pandemic, but only for a couple of weeks around Easter each year. This year when I pulled it out I saw how close I was to finishing, so I made a big push to do it. Now I just need to find a nice frame for it.
A young couple with a newborn in a cramped apartment invite a friend over, who opens a closet door onto a spacious terrace with a spectacular view.* It's the dream of anyone living in an overpriced city, and it's the start of Leichter's wonderful novel. The first part is about that couple as they invite that same friend over and over so they can enjoy the terrace, but it ends with a devastating act. The next section follows a different couple as they attend a funeral out in the country. The third is about a young woman who struggles heartbreakingly to connect with other people, and the last one takes place on a space station.
How these characters and spaces relate to each other is opaque; names are repeated, images recur, and connections are hinted at. It can have a destabilizing effect on the reader, but Leichter uses that to meditate on grief and loneliness, something the characters experience in different ways. Space -- the magical terrace, literal distance, an inability to communicate -- represents the difficulty in connecting with others, and the fragility of such connections. It's a melancholic novel but the payoff is gorgeous.
*Once again, marketers and reviewers label a novel as magical realism when it's really, really not. I fear I'm fighting a losing battle, though.
This bead embroidery project was inspired by The Beadshop's similar Intentional Heart project. A milagro of a dove is at the center of the ultrasuede heart and I added seed beads and metallic spacers around it, with a beaded picot stitch to sew together the front and back. As I sewed the edging I inserted two jump rings at the top of the heart. I have since added a small chain to the rings to hang the heart with the rosaries hanging by my bed, but if I ever want to wear it it I can easily replace it with a longer chain.
It's shaping up to be a terrible year, and because of the ridiculous amount of personal crap I'm dealing with, I can't fight back against the administration as I wish I could. But I can pray for peace and justice.
The Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vásquez Gilliland: A romance novel with a touch of fantasy. It has been advertised as magical realism, but it's not really that because of the efforts to make sense of and explain the magic. I liked the plot and the characters, but once again the melodramatic, YA-influenced style of writing kept me mildly annoyed. Occasionally, though, a different narrative voice shone through that was much more engaging. I may someday read the rest of the trilogy.
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery: These really are a comfort-read for me. As a girl I was intrigued by the depictions of college from almost a century ago, although there was less of that than I remembered. And it was amusing to see Anne delude herself about Gilbert for almost four years; what an ending, though!
Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt: Another novella in the Canongate Myth series. Byatt relates the myths of the Norse gods through a young English girl who has evacuated to the countryside during WWII, and her version is beautiful, visceral, and bleak.
Swordheart by T. Kingfisher: This is the third of Kinfisher's novels set in the Temple of the White Rat world, after the Clocktaur books. Like all of her novels so far, it has wonderfully rich world-building, endearing characters, serious topics handled with a light touch, and plenty of humor.
60 Songs that Explain the 90s by Rob Harvilla: A fun series of essays on popular songs from the 1990s, linked thematically. The essays are more impressionistic than critical, and had me seeking out a bunch of songs I haven't listened to in years.
Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher: Kingfisher has feet of clay! The fourth in the Temple series and the first in the Saints of Steel subseries. These books qualify as romantasy, meaning the romance is the primary story, but unfortunately this romance did not interest me too much; the beats were just too similar to Swordheart. The fantasy part, on the other hand, was great, and will be continued in the next novel.
Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett: A wonderful conclusion to the series. I'm 90% sure Fawcett wrote this in response to certain popular romantasy series out there, because while Wendell might be tall and a fairy king, but he is blond, genial, friend to the fairy equivalent of the working class, and kinda lazy, rather than dark and brooding. And when he has his big, angry show of power, and Emily points out that based on her research he will regret it, he's happy to take her advice. I hope Fawcett writes more fiction for adults.
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart: An unexpected discovery in the little free library across the street from me, it's a thoroughly enjoyable romantic thriller with gothic elements and a dozen allusions to literature including Jane Eyre.
Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher: The second Saints of Steel novel had a much more interesting love story. And it was so much fun -- Nuns! Paladins! Gladiators! Bears! Really creepy golems!
These earrings are made from flower components in Wendy Ellworth's Monet's Garden Lariat:
I don't like lariats, so after making two of the flowers I spent a good amount of time trying to come up with another way to turn them into a necklace, but dissatisfied with every idea I had, I finally set them aside. I found them again a few weeks ago and decided the simplest (and funnest) thing to do would be to turn them into earrings. They are super fun to wear.
These cuties are two of Anna Lindell's Wildflower Bouquet Pendants:
The perfect use for two porcelain beads I didn't otherwise know what to do with.
Finally, I realized I needed a pair of small gold and ruby earrings to wear with certain necklaces. Easily remedied:
Well, except I didn't have a bunch of fancy ruby beads lying about, just lots of garnet chips.
The paradox of choice can become a problem in online dating. With a prevalence of apps and a plethora of choices on those apps, some people struggle to make any decision at all, fearing the wrong choice. Others cannot settle down with the good choice they make, always looking for someone better. This is the plot of Gramazio's The Husbands, only the problem here isn't that Lauren can't stop swiping; instead, every time a husband enters her attic, a new one comes out.
This was initially big surprise for the single Lauren, who comes home tipsy from a bachelorette party to discover she has somehow acquired a husband. It takes a few trips up and down the attic stairs but she eventually figures out (sort of) what's happening, and eventually she delights in the opportunity to try out new men (and new lives -- each husband represents in effect an alternate universe). If one husband is too annoying or mean, she sends him up to the attic to fetch something and waits for the next one.
But after accidentally losing a husband she really liked, Lauren sets about trying to find the best husband, rapidly cycling though many of them as she sends them off to the attic for trivial faults, or because the world is a little too different from her original one, or because she can't shake off a general air of dissatisfaction. Rather than find the right life to settle into, however, she becomes increasingly lost and anxious -- the paradox of choice at its most extreme.
The parallels to online dating are obvious (hence my opening paragraph), but this is just one facet of a larger societal problem we have. As our technology advances and our ability to shape our lives and our environment increases, we become ever more focused on trying to make sure everything goes exactly as we want it to. Life doesn't work that way, though. No matter how much we might want to, we cannot control every outcome, we cannot plan for every eventuality, we cannot avoid suffering. It's a necessary part of being an adult to become comfortable with uncertainty, which is why I thought Gramazio's divisive ending to the story worked perfectly.
My December Necklace, so of course I finished it in January.
It consists of three strands: African "Christmas" beads, turquoise crystal with a little red mixed in, and gemstone rondelles that remind me of a string of lights on a tree. I debated adding a pendant (maybe a Christmas tree), but this way I can wear it all year.
Pretty crystals with charms:
I got this strand of crystals a while back, and not knowing what to do with them I knotted them on a strand of novelty yarn. After some pondering I thought a cluster of charms, Candie Cooper-style, would make a good focal pendant.
This wrap bracelet/very long necklace was made with the Pear Festival mix from The Beadshop.
I kept it simple but added some beads of my own for contrast -- opaque red faceted glass, ecru size 6 seed beads, bronze glass pearls, and a vintage button for the clasp. I can't wait to wear it (in the Spring, when I no longer need to wear oversized wool sweaters).
