Book Round-Up

Camino Island by John Grisham: the best part of this novel was the beginning, specifically the description of the theft of priceless manuscripts from Princeton University and the federal investigation that immediately followed. Unfortunately the narrative fizzled out after that.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin: a fun mystery, wherein the murder victim tasks her putative heirs with solving her murder if they want to inherit.

Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher: I continue working my way through Kingfisher's novels. The subject matter in this one -- patriarchy, misogyny, domestic abuse -- is bleak, but Kingfisher wisely balances it with fairy tale elements like impossible tasks and goblin markets, along with a healthy dose of absurdity (such as a demonic chicken).

PopCo by Scarlett Thomas: I don't know why it took me so long to read this given how much I liked Our Tragic Universe, not to mention the math, puzzles, and cultural commentary in this book. And, for the most part, it was really good! The only flaw was the reveal late in the novel of a plan that seemed to me (but not the characters, apparently) hopelessly idealistic and not at all well thought out. In that sense, it reminded me of The Absolute Book. 

Jewelry Round-Up: I-Keep-Forgetting-to-Post Edition

I participated in a bead swap way back in March (I swear I'll do that post some day), and the very first thing I made was a cute pair of earrings with lilac-colored flowers:

Cheap but colorful beads from Michael's + silver charms that had been languishing = an easy, fun necklace:

I'm such a dork I bought not one but two Middle Earth-themed candles. The second, by North Ave Candles, was their Shire Sweetgrass candle with a cute little mushroom charm. I made a bracelet with it:

(The first candle had The One Ring in it. My 10-year-old is mad I didn't give it to him, but it fits my fingers, not his!)

I love, love, love the fringe charm earrings I made from Susan LeGuyader's pattern in the spring issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry:

The "popcorn padre" beads at Beadshop.com have been calling to me. I finally succumbed and bought them, then made the shop's Tahoe wrap bracelet: 

I originally paired these silver charms with burnt umber beads; pretty, but I never wore them. Turquoise chips and ruby beads are much more my style:

Shell necklaces are in. I happened to have a shell with a hole right where it should be (a lucky beachcombing find), so I cleaned it to remove calcification, rubbed some mineral oil in it to bring back some color, and edged it with gold paint. Brass beads from who-knows-where completed the look:

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

 I've been a fan of Kelly Link's weird, speculative short stories for a very long time, so I was thrilled to hear she published her first novel. The Book of Love is about three teenagers (and something else) who come back after being dead for a year, only everyone now thinks they were studying abroad. They are told by two mysterious men to complete certain tasks if they want to stay alive, while dealing with false memories, magical rivalries, a dangerous goddess, rock bands, horniness, and what to do with the rest of their lives.

There was a lot to like about the story, but it never quite gelled for me. Much of the plot dealt with preventing the goddess from finding the key that would allow her to restore her faded power, and several of the magical people serving her were looking for escape, but the stakes as presented swung from preventing great evil (she feeds on dead souls and treats living people as marionettes) to simply obtaining one's freedom regardless of the consequences to everyone else. Teenagers can be notoriously self-centered, and Link particularly excels at capturing their wild swings in maturity and thoughtfulness, but the narrative itself did not seem too concerned with the broader consequences of the characters' actions for large chunks of the book. In fact, until the climax (which was tightly written and compelling), I feared that Link would, like Grossman, come to an amoral conclusion. Which isn't to say that the book ends on a simplistic note; it's quite messy in some ways, but it is clear that at least some of the characters are thinking about the right things.

The best parts of the novel were smaller elements: Mo's grief and loneliness, Susannah's struggles with other people's expectations, Carousel, the critiques of the romance industry, not to mention the weird imagery and absurd fragments (more akin to magical realism than straight fantasy) that Link is known for. I continue to be her fangirl, and I look forward to more of her writing.

The Needle Case that Jack Built

I got a hankering to do some English paper piecing, specifically The Maker's Stash's star ornaments. EPP lends itself to small, portable kits, so I placed the cut-out papers, fabric, scissors, glue stick, and thread in my favorite pouch. I needed a place to store the needles, though, and a square of felt seemed too boring. Why not make a needle case just for EPP? 

So I flipped through all my sewing books until I found a cute pattern in All Sewn Up by Chloe Owens. But I didn't really need multiple felt pages for just a few needles; maybe I could just sew a felt patch on one side and sew a kind of loop on the other to hold scissors. 

And then I started looking through patterns I've torn out of magazines, and found a needle book by Cindy Blackberg which has a cord cleverly sewn down the center to hold a spool of thread.  So why not add that?

The Owens needle book had a fabric collage on the cover; Blackberg's had wool flowers. Why not make a little hexagon flower, since this is a needle book for English paper piecing?

The result:

I'm contemplating adding an elastic loop to the right edge to hold the glue stick. I still haven't started the stars.

There's a Certain Satisfaction

 That comes from finishing a project you started 25 years ago.

The pattern is Liz Turner Diehl's Cider House Garden. I started it all the way back in law school, but exams, the theater group, and, uh, socializing kept me from finishing it. I found it again a couple of years ago and, determined to finish it, I began working on it every fall. This spring I did a final push to finish the borders and it's done!

I used the called-for threads, and now I have a bunch of Madeira threads I probably won't use again; I'm a DMC gal. I did switch some colors around (the red and green quits were too Christmasy) and used more specialty stitches than the pattern indicated. Finally, because I was ready to be done, I simplified the border. 

Let's hope it doesn't take me another 25 years to frame it.

Book Round-Up

 The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood: This is part of the Canongate Myth Series, and is a novella retelling the Odyssey from Penelope's viewpoint. Penelope proves herself to be aware of the inequities of ancient Greek life, but all too willing to make use of those inequities when it suits her, leaving me feeling ultimately indifferent to her fate. Far more effective was the Greek chorus: the twelve maids killed by Odysseus, who intersperse Penelope's narrative with poems, songs, trial testimony, etc. Their voices were haunting.

Happy Place by Emily Henry: I didn't enjoy this one as much as Henry's other novels; a good deal of the angst and misery would  have been avoided if the characters had had honest conversations with each other a lot sooner. Beach Read is still my favorite.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: This is the delightful start to a cozy mystery series with a group of septuagenarians who solve murders. It was, by turns, poignant and funny, and I can't read to read the rest.

 The Man who Died Twice by Richard Osman: So I immediately got the second from the library! Osman does a good job balancing the silly (elderly Joyce's new instagram handle is @greatjoy69) and the melancholy (a random assault drastically affects Ibrahim). I will be requesting the next volume soon.

Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth: What a pleasant surprise to find this in my local Little Free Library! It's a comic book series centered on Dex, a troubled private detective in Portland, Oregon. My husband and I adored the show not just for its acting and stories, but also the presence of Anselm, Dex's brother with Down Syndrome. I'm still mad they canceled it after one season.

 

New Threads

 DMC recently came out with a line of wool threads dyed with natural substances, and I found them irresistible. I bought a set of 30 colors (needs more purple), and promptly sat down with all my crewel embroidery books to look for patterns; I settled on Catherine Shaughnessy's The New Crewel and The New Crewel: the Motif Collection. From the former I selected three floral designs and put them together on linen:

Those colors are lovely (not sure about that coral, though), but there was a gorgeous red I wanted to stitch with so I picked a sunflower design from The Motif Collection. It reminds me of the spirograph toy I had as a child; fun!

For this I used a feedsack dish cloth (new, not vintage).

I've yet to fully finish them (I think I will stretch the wildflower trio onto a canvas), but my woolly stitch itch has been satisfied. For now.