A Christmas Quilt

 It's been a tough month, and I haven't made nearly as much as I wanted to. But I finished by scrappy Christmas quilt!

The intent was to use up the scraps and fat quarters of Christmas-themed fabrics I had accumulated. Unfortunately, I did have to buy a little yardage for the backing -- not enough larger bits to piece together -- but I was able to use even the smallest scraps for the binding.

Instead of quilting it, I listened to my mom and tied it with pearl cotton size 5.

I love it. So does my cat.

Advent Calendar Blog Hop

Welcome! It's that time of year for Jo's blog hop, and today is my turn. I don't have any cross stitch to show off yet, although I've picked out a few designs; a challenging fall meant I'm way behind all things stitchy. 

But I do have a tree! Which is Jo's theme this year! 

This wooden tree was originally part of a hand-carved Christmas card holder my late uncle made for me years and years ago. At some point someone (I never found out who) knocked it over, breaking it; the only salvageable part was one of the trees. I painted it green with a little silver mixed in, giving it a nice sheen, and wrapped it with a bit of wire and some clear crystals. You can't tell from this photo, but it has a nice sparkle, and I'm quite pleased with it. 

Jo asked us to talk about Christmas trees. I grew up on what used to be a farm in western Massachusetts, and for many years we just trekked to the far part of our property to chop our own pine down. It was lots of fun, but because it wasn't a tree farm we ended up with some wonky trees. One tree was gorgeous on one side, but almost bare on the other, so that was the side we put against the wall. Another tree had a distinctive curve in its trunk. A third had two tops, so that year we put on two stars. 

Now I live in New York, so we get our tree from one of the temporary vendors who set up shop all over the city (real trees might be more work, but the smell is divine). I can't show you our tree, because we haven't bought it yet -- we generally wait until the middle of the month to get one. Once it's set up and the branches settle, we decorate it with lights and ornaments: old and new, handmade and purchased. Then we sit back and admire our work.

Whether you have a real or fake tree, or no tree at all, I hope you all have a lovely and peaceful Christmas!

Book Round-Up

 Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner: Weiner's mystery is set in a very wealthy suburb of New York. One glamorous mother is killed, and another, not-so-glamorous mother tries to figure out who did it. The mystery itself and its resolution was interesting, but the narrator drove me nuts -- a very wealthy, white, educated woman who felt sorry for herself because she didn't fit in with the others, but she never really tried, she judged them just as much as they judged her, and she wasn't actually that different from them.

The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser: A delightful romance with grown-ups who (mostly) behaved like grown-ups, set in a bookshop, against the backdrop of Scotland's wild terrain. What's not to like?

Ombria in Shadows by Patricia McKillip: Another of her lyrical, somewhat unconventional novels. The various characters, and the city of Ombria as a whole, face a great upheaval with the death of the Prince, and lurking behind and underneath everything is a shadow city that may take over without anyone being the wiser. This last element reminded me of both Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and China Miéville's The City and the City. But these three stories could not be more different in their interpretation of a hidden city.

Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison: my lone nonfiction read for Nonfiction November (not that I read a lot of nonfiction). In college I took a course in paleo-anthropology and read Donald Johanson's Lucy: the Beginnings of Humankind. This book served nicely to update me on all the advances, discoveries, and revisions since Lucy.

Book Round-Up: Darktober Edition

The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson: a locked-room mystery set in a creepy, gothicky house -- perfect for October! It was an enjoyable read, although the dialog was a bit much. Did people really talk like that in the 30s, or was it a literary convention?

Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert: A corporate spy with a talent for remote viewing becomes entangled with two sisters who are witches. They weren't very witchy, though, as the novel focused on psychic powers, which was mildly disappointing. Nonetheless, it was entertaining enough, although the fetishization of the wealth of all the main characters got tedious. 

When Autumn Leaves by Amy S. Foster: This novel started strong, with each section devoted to a particular woman or two in a paganish, Stars Hollow-like town, but a couple of the later stories left a bad taste in my mouth. Apparently this was meant to be the start of a series, and I definitely would have read more -- I did enjoy most of the characters, and many of the story lines are unfinished in one way or another -- but the author (or the publisher?) changed her mind. As as stand-alone, then, the story might have been served better by integrating all the characters into a single narrative, rather than isolated chapters. 

Hide me Among the Graves by Tim Powers: I can't get enough of his blend of historical and supernatural fiction. This one is a kind of sequel to The Stress of Her Regard (which I have not read), and is about two vampires (a.k.a. the Biblical Nephilim) hunting the citizens of London, from mudlarks, former prostitutes, and veterinarians to the artists Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An excellent read, with a novel take on vampires.

The King in Yellow and Other Stories by Robert Chambers: The first few stories, quite spooky, have as a linking element a fictional play called The King in Yellow, which purports to induce madness in those who read it. However, the stories gradually transition away from any supernatural element into a more romantic style about artists and bohemians living in New York City and Paris; they were kind of a let-down, to be honest.

Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly: Another vampire novel set in London, this time 1907, and it's the first in a series described as "for those who hate the Twilight books." James Asher is a former spy and current Oxford professor hired by a very dangerous vampire to find out who's been killing vampires. It's not as intricate as Powers's book, but very enjoyable.

Halloween Trick or Treat Blog Hop

 Boo! It's time for Jo's annual Halloween blog hop, and I'm here to give you the letter 

 

I didn't actually get a whole lot of cross stitching done this October (you can see what I finished in previous posts), because I decided to do the talented A.J. Pritchett's Stitchtober challenge on Instagram. I did mine as all one piece, with a fairy tale theme:

Some close-ups: 

"Summoning"

"Cursed"

"Astray"

"Overgrown" and "Concealed" (a twofer!)

"Lore"

"Influence"

"Creeping"

"Sorcery"

"Foresight"

"Brewing"

"Crowned"

"A Dark Power"

This was a fun exercise in creativity, and it was nice to do a little embroidery for a change.

On to the next stop! Which is An Arizona Stitcher. Happy Halloween!

13 Days of Halloween

 Is finally done!

That tiny one-over-one lettering took forever. I'm not crazy about those clay buttons popular for some projects, so I stitched all the motifs (with a few beads for good measure. One can never have enough beads). I also had to omit the surrounding lettering because a needle minder from a company that shall go nameless left a giant rust spot on the fabric. I tried all sorts of removers and home remedies, to no avail. Oh well, less stitching to do.

The design is by Praiseworthy Stitches, as you may recognize from the idiosyncratic lettering; I actually ended up modifying the As, Ns, and Rs to make them a bit more legible. 

Love it.

A Cross-Stitch Witch

 Third in the Prairie Schooler Halloween series:

 

I say "series," but really it's my own little series that I've created from the designs in the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issues; the first one (the owl) had a checkered border around it, so I added that to the subsequent designs and made some thread changes to match.

 Only, now that I see the three together, apparently I used the wrong orange for the witch. Aaaargh!

Primitive Pumpkin!

 

This little guy is from a design by the Primitive Hare, in the Just Cross Stitch 2016 Halloween special issue.  The entire design wasn't my style, but this face kept catching my eye, so finally I stitched him. And he fits perfectly in a 3-inch hoop!

Pumpkin Bracelet!

 It's fall, and the weather is fallish! Time to gussy up.

I had fun collecting all the different charms; I even made a beaded pumpkin, following this video. (The other beaded pumpkin is handmade but not by me, from a pair of earrings I got ages ago and rarely wore.)

The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox

 

 

The Absolute Book is unlike any other fantasy I've read, incorporating murder, revenge, libraries, portals to other worlds, mysterious objects, demons, fae folk, Norse gods, actors, and ancient curses. When author and library expert Taryn makes a rash decision regarding the death of her beloved sister, she opens herself up both to great evil and the existence of worlds and peoples she never knew existed.

Knox's narrative is rich and engaging, filled with details that humanize the characters and make the world and its inhabitants seem grounded in reality, even the fae folk -- who, in the tradition of the oldest folk tales, are completely alien in their behavior and outlook. Which leads to another through line in the story: the moral evil of the Tithe, where the fairies sacrifice the souls of thousands of humans to prolong their own lives. I greatly appreciated that Knox never shied away from how abhorrent this literal deal with the devil is, and how it casts an ugly pallor on the otherwise paradisiacal world of the fairies. 

Which is why the ending fell so flat for me. The resolution of the Tithe problem was abrupt and uncertain, and because of a hard left turn at the end to address a completely different issue (not raised in the novel beforehand), the fate of all past (and potentially future) human souls became an afterthought. 

It's not the only misstep, from my point of view at least. A portion of the story takes place in Purgatory, portrayed here (as in almost every mainstream depiction) as a place of unending waiting; perhaps not as bad as Hell but not a good place (ha) to end up in. Which is in complete contrast to the actual theological concept, almost exclusively Catholic, where Purgatory is simply a way station of sorts where souls are purified before they enter Heaven. 

Given this and the offhand way the Judeo-Christian God is mentioned in the narrative (albeit with the evocative phrase "The Great God of the Desert"), I suspect Knox comes from a fairly secular background, and did not focus much on the theological, as opposed to folkloric, underpinnings of her novel.  

But these are minor complaints, and on the whole I greatly enjoyed the novel. It was refreshing to read a fantasy concerned as much with morality as with world-building.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I've been fascinated by Arthurian Legends since I was a girl, so much so that I took a class in the literature in college, covering everything from Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history to modern versions by T.H. White and Marion Zimmer Bradley. I especially loved the stories surrounding the Holy Grail, and I wrote my final paper about the Grail elements in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (my professor's initial response: "You're very brave to tackle Eliot.").  But somehow, I never read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The release of the movie The Green Knight forced me to correct that; as always, I prefer to read the book first. So I picked up Tolkien's translation of the poem, in an edition that includes Tolkien's lecture on it and his translations of two other poems likely by the same poet.

It's an excellent translation. The original was written in a dialect of Middle English different enough from both Chaucer's English (the poet probably knew him) and modern that a translation is necessary, but Tolkien kept to the poetic style the author used: alliterative verse, where each line is divided in two but linked by the initial sounds of stressed words. As I read the story, I often found myself reading some of it aloud.

The story itself is about the contest the mysterious Green Knight challenges Gawain to: Gawain is to wield the strongest blow he can with the Knight's axe, but in return he much allow the Knight to do the same a year later. Gawain chops his head off, but the Knight just picks it up and goes on his way, reminding Gawain of his agreement. After spending most of the year ignoring it, he finally sets out to meet his obligation before eventually stopping at the castle of a lord near the meeting place. Paradoxically, this part is the most dangerous, as both the lord and his lady play games with Gawain to test him.

It also forms the heart of the story, as Tolkien explains in his lecture. Gawain is being tested on three levels -- the game (with its rules) he plays with the lord, the obligations of courtly love the lady demands, and Christian morality. Watching Gawain navigate the three until he finally must choose one to honor above the others is fascinating.

From what I've read, the movie is not a typical action/adventure-type fantasy; I'm hopeful, then, that it will reflect the moral and philosophical struggles of the text.

Sari Bead Necklace

 The spring 2021 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine had a project by Susan Brubaker Knapp for beads made from strips of sari silk wrapped into balls and secured with thread. How could I resist?

I strung the beads on beading cord (not easy to do; I bent one needle and almost wrecked another) with pony beads between each, and finished it with size 6 beads for the part that would hang around my neck. 

This was a fun project, and it could be easily adapted to scraps of leftover fabric, yarn, or novelty thread. I kept my beads "plain," but you could also sew on seed beads or small sequins for a little sparkle.

Stitching in the Garden

 This set was designed by Hands on Design, and I'm thrilled with how it came out!

I stitched the tray, first, and as I stitched those button flowers I knew I must use real buttons. But I was worried they might catch on anything I put in the tray, so I opted just to use them for the pincushion. Which matches with the appliqued felt and decorative pins in it. 

The sewing theme means I'm linking it to Jo's People's Choice SAL post for September. My first link-up!

This design has sparked two obsessions: sewing-themed cross stitch and tomato pincushions, so I'm plotting more projects that I totally have time for.

The Third Quilt

 I promised son no. 3 I'd make his quilt last year ... and we all know what happened. But maybe I can make it this year! Especially now that my machine has been serviced and cleaned and is humming along nicely.

The goal is 20 12-inch blocks to make a twin-sized quilt, with blocks about Legos, trains, superheroes, Minecraft, and whatever else he likes. I almost immediately faced a complication, though -- Barbara Cherniwchan's "Next Stop North Pole" quilt pattern, with train cars I knew J would love but which varied quite a bit in size. After much math, I figured out that one engine + one train car + one caboose would be the same width as four 12-inch blocks with sashing, so now I have the bottom row all set:

On a roll, I next made four Lego blocks. Shockingly, it was hard to find Lego-themed patterns anywhere (perhaps the Lego company is overly aggressive protecting its trademarks?), such that I ended up drafting them myself. 

I think that's a good start, and I think I will focus on finishing up little projects here and there before starting my fall stitching. 

Veritas: a Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife by Ariel Sabar

Sabar's excellent investigative work has it all -- faith, sex, fraud, ancient mysteries, and modern controversies, all wrapped up in compulsively readable prose. I found it hard to put down his tale of a very smart woman who falls for (in more ways than one) a scrap of papyrus purporting to mention Jesus' wife.

What's astounding is all the red flags that were there from the beginning: the unusual shape and appearance of the fragment itself; the bad grammar; the mix of dialects; the fact that "my wife" was incomplete and didn't necessarily refer to an actual woman, let alone the Mary mentioned elsewhere, let alone Mary Magdalene; the lack of transparency over the origins of the fragment; and Prof. King's own reluctance to let others look at photographs, let alone the original. But it was catnip to Harvard Divinity School, looking for relevancy, and the feminists, scholars, and theologians unhappy with the Church's understanding of Jesus, and the press who always want something guaranteed to generate views.

King may have ultimately been fooled, a victim of confirmation bias and her own desperate desire for evidence of her pet theories. But Sabar also suggests something even worse -- that King knew almost from the beginning it was fraudulent, and she was willing to ignore inconvenient facts in favor of what she felt was the truth. As her mentor explained, the value of a (hi)story lies "not in whether it is true but in whether it feels true." King herself, by training a historian not a theologian, would argue that historical time was a "Western construction" and "not serious, real, or true"; therefore what does it matter if the papyrus is dated to the 8th century and the ink to the 21st? The fragment is true because it is good, not because it is accurate.

The irony is that even if one buys her relativistic approach to history, the very words of the fragment itself don't come close to saying what she wanted them to say.  But it didn't matter to her; only her idiosyncratic beliefs about early Christianity did. That such an educated, gifted scholar would think this way is all the more disturbing given recent societal trends. She is far from the only American of recent years to reject demonstrable facts in favor of ideological "truth."

Book Round-Up

The History of the Book in 100 Books by Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad: This covers over 15,000 years of human expression and lots of fascinating works, but with only two pages devoted to each of the 100 books it left me wanting more.

Dig if You Will the Picture by Ben Greenman: not so much a biography as an impressionistic analysis of Prince's music, influences, and beliefs. The prose can get a little purple, but that's only to be expected when discussing the Purple One.

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis: A retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth that has profound insights on love, jealousy, and faith. I'm so glad I finally re-read it.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty: this was a fun book that skewered modern obsessions with wellness and social media, while being quite gentle with the all-too-human characters.

The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender: Bender's latest novel is a lovely, melancholy mediation on memory, mothers and daughters, and mental illness, with a dash of magical realism. That's a lot of Ms!

A Little Leather

 While sorting through my many, many bracelets I realized I had barely any made of leather. That had to be remedied!

Coincidentally, Martha Stewart had suggestions for simple bracelets, using glued-on magnetic clasps (the print version wrote about different styles). I found some leather scraps and a charm connector, and a few minutes later I had a pair of bracelets:

But that wasn't enough. I had a string of luscious agate beads just waiting for an idea, and that idea was another ladder wrap bracelet. There were just enough beads for three wraps:

Not content to stop there, I used this technique to create another bracelet with a few colorful beads I had been hanging onto:

That should be good for now.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

There's a reason why Wilson's 2019 book was named one of the best books of the year by a whole bunch of outlets. His novel about a troubled young woman tasked with caring for twins who spontaneously combust whenever they're upset is a stunner, by turns heartbreaking and hilarious. What the children really need is stability and support for their needs; what they get is a father obsessed with his political ambitions, a step-mother determined to keep everything scandal-free and under control, and an aide who doesn't know what to do about children of any kind, let alone those on fire. But they also get a screwed-up "governess" who never lived up to her potential, who knows just how to help anxious children neglected and used by the adults around them.

In an essay at the end of the book Wilson said he was inspired in part by his life-long struggle with anxiety, a trait several of the characters share. But this story resonated with me in its depiction of children who have, essentially, special needs, and who need routine, support, and most of all love so they can thrive. The bond that develops between them and their guardian is achingly moving. It's a weird, beautiful story, and I can't recommend it enough.

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.

Jewelry Round-Up

 These lovely beads came from Candie Cooper, and I could not resist. I stitched them up into basic earrings using brick stitch and fringe (I made so many earrings like this in the 90s).

 

The Beadshop really does have the best bead mixes. I used January's garnet mix along with bigger beads from my stash to make a bracelet inspired by Candie Cooper's recent projects.

A milagro necklace with two beaded strands, to go with a Sacred Heart resin necklace I got for Christmas from Door No. 9:

 

I also got some gorgeous agate beads from Candie Cooper, added some silver beads, and now I have a great necklace for summer:

 

More to come, if I can find the time to finish something, anything.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 Matt Haig's latest novel opens with a lonely, despairing woman who tries to commit suicide, only to be suspended between life and death in the titular library. Each book (except for one) is a different version of her life, what would have happened if she continued to swim competitively or stayed in the band or had gone through with the wedding, and she's given the choice of picking any one of those lives to live; if none appeal, she can choose to die.

Despite the high-concept plot, there are no big twists or shocking revelations. It's just an ordinary woman figuring out that there is no one path through life, and no way to avoid suffering. Nora must find meaning and value in whatever life she has, not the ones that could have been. At first she's focused on reversing the decisions she made in the past, but of course she learns that there are downsides to every life; loneliness, dissatisfaction, and grief cannot be permanently avoided. So she begins to just experience whatever her lives have to offer, and that's where her true growth comes from. The plot is predictable, but the character portraits are touching, the storytelling is gentle, and the ending is utterly satisfying.

A Riot of Azaleas

 I moved to this neighborhood in springtime a few years ago, and immediately noticed all the gorgeous azaleas my neighbors had -- pale pink, scarlet, fuchsia, mauve, ivory, magenta. I don't have the time or skill to grow my own, but I can make beaded versions:

For the flowers I modified the tiny tulip pattern from The Beaded Garden; the leaves are from the same book. I had initially planned to cover the entire background with leaves, but that was overly ambitious (plus I ran out of beads) so I added a little glamour and sparkle with sequins. 

It's not quite the same as real azaleas, but it'll last much longer.

Some Witchy Advice

 

 Just Cross Stitch's 2020 Halloween issue had a lovely design by Natalia Luneva inspired by Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic:

The original design called for black fabric, but I used a natural linen to better go with a couple other homey items I made (also, cross stitching on black is a major pain). For the writing I switched to DMC 844.

The trio:

Book Round-Up

 Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich: Reich goes over the history of the human race and its migrations, based on the latest techniques for harvesting and analyzing DNA. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, and I was especially interested to see that modern studies are confirming what 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus argued: that the Clovis culture people were not the first to settle the American continents.  The takeaway from this book is that different human populations (and almost-humans) have been mixing and remixing for hundreds of thousands of years, far more often than we thought. 

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan: Sullivan's debut novel is about a bookstore employee who witnesses a favorite customer's suicide; when she learns he left clues in a number of books for her, she starts a quest that forces her to confront her traumatic past. It's an engaging read with interesting characters, but be warned: the book is much darker than its title sounds.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: This is the enemies-to-lovers trope on steroids, and it was lots of fun to read. Lucy in particular was an endearing character, and I greatly enjoyed watching her and Josh get to know each other.

Here by Richard McGuire: this is an expansion of McGuire's original 6-page comic, showing the history of a corner of a room over millions of years. It's an amazing feat of imagination, and an unusual demonstration of life and humanity over the ages. I adored it.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart and Carson Ellis: A cute middle-grade adventure involving puzzles, bullies, and a dastardly plan to take over the world. Beadboy2 wasn't interested, but maybe Beadboy3 will be in a couple of years.

The Karen Pelletier Series

Joanne Dobson, a professor of English, wrote a six-volume series centered around her fictional stand-in. Karen Pelletier is a professor of 19th-century American literature at a college suspiciously like Amherst College, where she seems to regularly stumble onto murders involving lost manuscripts, mysterious authors, and academic politics.

It's a fun series -- Karen can be a bit melodramatic (fitting given her academic specialty), but she is smart, capable, and caring. She also comes from a working class background, and was a young single mother before she even entered college, so her perspective cuts through the privilege and Ivory Tower cluelessness that can sometimes permeate a liberal arts campus. There are lots of fun literary tidbits, too, and to top it off in each book Dobson includes a pastiche of a particular writing style -- a "lost" poem by Emily Dickenson, a scandalous Peyton Place-type novel, noir crime fiction -- skillfully done. 

The fifth book of the series (I haven't been able to get the sixth from my library) wasn't quite as good, and there was a decrease in the quality of the editing, but over all I recommend the series for those who want a smarter cozy mystery.

I is an Icy White

 Remember my synesthete alphabet? I decided long ago I wanted to bead the letter I out of white beads, maybe crystals, but I wasn't sure what technique would be best. Enter Marcia DeCoster's "love letters," a perfect match for what I wanted. It uses cubic right angle weave which I had never done before, but it was easy to pick up (especially for such a small project); also easy was turning Marcia's L into an I:

As you can see, I made two Is; the first was with size 11 seed beads, but it was too small to fit the 2 x 3 inch size of my ATCs, so I made a second with size 8 beads. The background is peyote stitch using silver-lined beads from a long-ago Martha Stewart kit. I'm not sure how this will look after the beads tarnish with exposure to the air, but if it ends up looking terrible I can always reattach the I to a new backing.

What letter should I do next?

S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

 Dorst's (the writer) and Abrams' (the idea man) novel is intended to be both a story and a physical object, and fittingly, it would fail utterly as an e-book. It consists of a fake novel titled The Ship of Theseus, allegedly published in 1949 and written by the mysterious (fictional) writer V.M. Straka, about whom little is known.  Footnotes by the translator provide textural information, secret codes, and hints at the relationship between author and translator. In the margins of the volume are the "manuscript" annotations of two readers, a college senior and a grad student, who communicate through these notes about the novel and their theories of the author's identity; over the course of three passes through the book they develop a personal relationship. Finally, the pages also contain various ephemeral items -- postcards, newspaper articles, even a napkin -- that shed light on the authorship question and the two readers.

It's exactly the kind of experimental book I live for, and for the most part I enjoyed it greatly. The fictional novel itself can be read as a stand-alone novel, and it's a weird one at that -- a man with no memory of his past becomes involved in a wide-ranging plot to undermine a criminal, fascistic captain of industry. It's an affecting story and Dorst nailed the style of the time, but it's also the kind of story whose themes give me low-grade anxiety, amplified by the fact that it reminded me so much of something else I've read but can't remember. 

The annotations provide a second story, as the two readers endearingly analyze the text, argue about the authorship question, discuss literature in general, and slowly fall in love. Their notes also hint at the nefarious actions of sinister, uh, literature professors who have a stake in the authorship question, and that aspect of the plot fell flat towards the end, as it did not amount to much. But even as I grew (mildly) frustrated with the would-be conspiracy, I could not help but admire how Dorst achieved it: two handwritings and six ink colors to illustrate three stages of their relationship overlapping each other throughout the book, but nonetheless progressing the story linearly.

As I wrote above, it's an ode to paper books, but it is also a paean to writing and reading, and the way both give meaning to one's life. It requires a bit more work than the typical novel, but it is absolutely worth it.

Donuts Good Enough to Eat

 Mary Josephine Gigax, a member of Cellini Peyote Freaks on Facebook, showed off a beaded donut she designed, and when we all freaked out about it she graciously made the instructions available.  My results:

Mary's original design was with two or four colors spiraling in, but I had exactly two colors in all four necessary sizes -- 15, 11, 8, and 6 -- so for the other two I played around with rings of color. The pastel one came out a little wonky, unfortunately; the size 11s were a little smaller than they should have been, and the size 8s were a little inconsistent in their sizing. 

They now live in a box with all the other beaded doohickeys that I don't yet know what to do with.

Experimenting with Freeform Peyote

 Back in October I picked up the Beadshop's Samson mix of seed beads; I'm a sucker for seed bead mixes, ever since college when I worked part time at a bead store that would create lots of fun, themed mixes. Most of the Beadshop's projects for the mixes are wrap bracelets, but I wanted to try something new so I went with their Mountain Mosaic bracelet, a freeform peyote bracelet stitched lengthwise. The results:

My version isn't as irregular as the designer's, because the Samson mix was all size 8 beads; a mix of different sizes would create a "wilder" look. But I'm pleased with it regardless; it's different from the bracelets I usually make.

I've been on a serious beading kick lately (that seems to happen every spring) (probably a reaction to all the cross stitching I do during the holidays). Next up is some cellini-ish donuts, and I'm almost finished with the letter I done in beads, part of my synesthete alphabet series.

Late for Christmas 2020, or Early for Christmas 2021?

 I've finally finished The Primitive Needle's "Penny Angel" from the 2009 Just Cross Stitch ornaments issue:

It's been on my to-do list since, well, 2009, so I'm quite pleased (even if I didn't actually stitch the last stitches until February). I had actually intended to omit the year to save on stitching, but once I found a frame for it I realized I should complete the design for a better fit. 

The colors aren't super Christmasy, so I'm tempted to keep it up all year. On the other hand, most of my decor consists of bright colors, so that wouldn't work, either. Maybe I'll put it in the front hallway, where I'm accumulating beige-y stitching projects.

A Belated Valentine

 Two consecutive quarantines knocked my schedule (and my health) for a loop, but I did manage a little stitching. Lolli and Grace's Floral Heart:

I'm loving her signature mix of bright colors, embroidery, and tiny felt details, and I plan on stitching more.

Fun with cutter quilts!

 I added buttons, bits of lace, and embroidery to the cut-outs, sewed them to backings, and stuffed them. I think I will give away the hearts to family members, but the lips are my favorite and I'm keeping them.