Advent Calendar Blog Hop Day 16

Welcome and happy holidays! As ever, I'm glad to participate in Jo's Advent Blog Hop. My stitchy work this year:

This is a sampler of my own design, similar to one I made for Halloween. It's also the last project in the #stitch9challenge on Instagram, and I'm hopeful it will be complete by the end of the year. So far I've stitched some tiny cookies (a Brooke's Books design, slightly modified), the iconic Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and a pretty gift (from a Stitchy Box sampler). The snowman is made of buttons, and I've also sewn on several charms and buttons.

I have a cross stitch ornament planned for my mother, from the most recent Christmas Ornaments issue, but I've barely started that one. I did fully finish off two ornaments I stitched last year:

but otherwise, that's it for cross stitching this Christmas. I did a whole lot of it earlier in the year for the Stitch 9 Challenge, so I'm a bit cross-stitched out (shh! don't tell anyone!).

Jo's question this year is about our favorite Christmas film. "Film" precludes my two favorite specials -- A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon, of course), but that doesn't make it much easier to decide. Other participants have mentioned Elf (so funny and sweet!) and A Muppet Christmas Carol (the best version, in my opinion), so I'll go with The Bishop's Wife. My mom introduced that movie to me, I introduced it to my husband, and now we both watch it on Christmas Eve. It's a lovely story, and funny, and if you haven't seen it yet do try to this year.

Have a peaceful and merry Christmas, and a stitch-filled New Year!

The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson

I picked up a free copy of The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom, the first in a series of mysteries with a librarian protagonist. And I couldn't finish it -- the petty humiliations the author heaped on the librarian became tiresome, and the dialogue was a slog to get through. So I switched to Amy Meyerson's The Bookshop of Yesterdays, which was much better!

Miranda Brooks inherits a bookshop when her uncle dies, and becomes obsessed with learning the truth behind his estrangement from her family. Despite the disapproval of her mother, the skepticism of the store's manager, and her neglected boyfriend on the other side of the country, she follows the literary clues he left her, a fun narrative device. Much of the mystery hinged on a couple of people not telling Miranda the truth, which initially I found annoying but made sense by the end. Refreshingly, none of the characters were perfect -- although genuinely good people, they all made mistakes and acted selfishly at times, as real people would. This added a sense of seriousness and complexity to the narrative, making it a deeper, more satisfying read. I look forward to Meyerson's next book.

A Quilt for a Dear Friend's Baby

After many struggles, my friend had a baby boy this summer. I am thrilled for her and her family, and excited to make something for her son.

The fabric is "Curious Dream" by Angela Pingel for Windham Fabrics, an Alice in Wonderland-themed set that I absolutely adore, along with some of the grey fabric left over from the Minecraft quilt. The pattern is Diary of a Quilter's Easy Lone Star Crib Quilt, which true to the name was super easy. I am steadily improving my quilt basting, and this one has only a couple of tucks on the back 🙄. Using spray-on basting glue seems to be the best method for me. For the quilting I did a simple 3-inch grid, and I'm pleased with the results.

I loved the fabric so much I used some of the scraps to make a log cabin for myself:

For the binding, in an attempt to be frugal, I used some strips I had cut for the baby quilt but didn't use. I may redo it.

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

The Twelve Dancing Princesses was one of my favorite fairy tales as a child. I had a gorgeous version illustrated by Errol Le Cain; I flipped through the pages hundreds of times, sometimes reading the text and sometimes searching the drawings for a new detail. That book has long since worn out, but I framed the cover, with its 12 dancers in ornate ballgowns.

Erin A. Craig's debut novel is a retelling of the story: Annaleigh is the daughter of a duke, not a princess, and grieving over the mysterious deaths of four of her sisters. The all-night balls and worn-out slippers are here, but secondary to Annaleigh's determination to find out what happened to her sisters.

The story was a little long; I think Craig could have skipped some of the numerous and lengthy descriptions of dresses, palaces, and festivals. But the world she created was fascinating: the People of the Salt worship an ocean deity, and their lives revolve around the sea and its denizens. Gods and demigods walk the lands and regularly interfere in the lives of humans. There are ghosts and storms and monsters, an ancient, crumbling mansion and a salt-covered lighthouse -- perfect reading for November.

And look at the endpapers!

It's rare that I find a modern book with artistic endpapers. A fun detail for an enjoyable book.

Book Round-Up: Autumn Edition

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-García: This was a good read, a supernatural tale involving Mayan mythology set in 1920s Mexico. The third-person narration was a bit inconsistent in its voice, sometimes subjective and limited, sometimes objective and omniscient. The ending was bittersweet, and entirely fitting for the characters and world Moreno-García described.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym: A melancholic look at four older characters, each lonely and uncertain to a greater or lesser extent as they approach the last phase of their lives. Pym's gentle narrative does not shy away from the sadness or regrets the four experience, but there are lovely notes of grace, too.

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths: a rather gentle but still creepy modern gothic novel. It's a little meta -- one of the main characters is an English teacher specializing in gothic fiction -- and a wee bit satirical, with interesting characters and suitably foggy, dark atmosphere.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware: a more traditional gothic novel, complete with crumbling mansion, nasty housekeeper, and cold, grey weather. There are cell phones and lattes, but the thrilling plot is timeless.

Yarrow: an Autumn Tale by Charles de Lint: in my early twenties I went through a period where I read a bunch of de Lint's works -- urban fantasy stories set in Canada, incorporating Old and New World mythologies and folklore. This fall I was in the mood to read more by him, so I picked up Yarrow. It's an early novel, and it shows. His storytelling style is there, in the use of parallel worlds and the importance of creativity, but the resolution wasn't quite coherent. On the other hand, his secondary characters, particularly the ones that aren't on the side of the protagonists, were more well-rounded than they would be in later novels. 

Day of the Dead Necklace

All Saints Day and All Souls Day rushed by too quickly this year, but I did manage to make it to Mass, and I whipped up a charm necklace:

It started with a set of Tierra Cast Day of the Dead charms I had. Blueberry Cove Bead's DotD box had teal and marigold beads, which I picked up in a destash sale they held; I added a strand of purple beads. I had a collection of black glass beads with different colored lampwork flowers, so I used the orange, green, and purple ones. I also had tiny metal purple roses. A large painted skull bead, a smaller skull bead leftover from earrings I made a while back, and some ceramic bone-shaped beads I picked up who-knows-where completed the theme. While rooting around my stash, I found a Guatemalan worry doll all by his lonesome; his clothes matched the colors I was using, so I added him, too.

The necklace isn't quite done. I feel quite strongly that I need a yellow orange flower bead at either end of the charms, to more obviously represent marigolds. The marigold beads are round, though, and trying to weave them into a flower shape will look too clunky. I have glass flower beads that would be perfect, but they are just a bit too yellow. So I will wait for the perfect beads, and wear the necklace as is in the meantime.

Trick or Treat Blog Hop

Welcome to Jo's annual Halloween blog hop!  You are all here for a letter, and it is:

Now onto the stitchy goodness! I've already posted about Millicent, and since then I finished another #stitch9challenge project -- Prairie Schooler's witch from the 2013 Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue:

(I think I'll add a border to match similar ornaments, however.)

An Autumn cat for my mom, from Just Cross Stitch's September/October issue:

Satsuma Street's Cat-o-Lantern for me:

And another cat for me, not yet finished, by Durene Jones (from last year's Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue):

The stitches are supposed to be black, but when I opened one of my thread boxes and spied this thread (Valdani's Quiet Fall), I had to use it right away.

Hop on over to the next blog, A Patchwork of Crafts, for the next letter. Happy Halloween!