Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maquire

 This is a moving, thoughtful novel with a terrible title. Yes, it's a retelling of Cinderella (purporting to be the real story), but instead of arguing that Cinderella is secretly a bitch and the stepsisters were the true heroines, it is a meditation on beauty, trauma, and survival.

In this sense it reminds me of Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis's retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth. They both deal with women who have an unearthly beauty and sisters who are labeled ugly, and they both refuse to portray any of the main female characters as villains. The stepmother in Maguire's book, the closest the story has to an antagonist, does monstrous things but is no monster; she is a mother hardened by adversity and struggling to provide security for herself and her daughters. 

It's the youngest daughter, Iris, who narrates the story, and she's caught between childhood, and the fanciful stories she tells herself, and adulthood, when she must come to terms with the strictures placed on women. She is convinced she's ugly and expects nothing of her future until her mother begins working for a master painter. He and his assistant show her other ways to look at the world, and spark in her an appreciation of the power of art.

Which is no small thing in this world (Haarlem of the 1600s). The Master laments the Protestant, business-like Dutch and their failure to appreciate the profundity of religious art. He hides his paintings of the freaks and oddities of humanity, lest they cause too much outrage amongst the conventional. And his masterwork, a painting of the Cinderella character (Clara), is able to inspire love, lust, business deals, jealousy, and artistic despair. 

Clara, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with her beauty, having been traumatized as a young child and then stifled by overprotective parents. She's not the obedient (and personality-less) girl of the original story, but simply another young woman who has been controlled and told what to do her whole life, and rebels in the only way she can. 

There's an unnecessary "twist" at the end that causes us to reconsider what we have been told about a character, but it ultimately doesn't add anything to the narrative. Overall, though, I enjoyed this melancholy tale.

Weaving Around

 Years ago I started this project, and set it aside for who knows what reason. I found it again while rooting around for something, and I was determined to finish it -- both to cross something off my list, and because I had the perfect spot for it on the wall.

It's a simple project: wrap an old cd or dvd with warp threads through the center (an uneven number), then weave over and under them on the non-label side of the disc, changing yarns as you see fit. It's a great project for leftover yarn and threads, and has a lovely texture:

The instructions (this was a project by Kristin Cleveland from an old magazine) called for attaching the cds to each other by connecting warp threads with pearl cotton, but that was too floppy to hang on a wall, so I glued popsicle sticks to the backs (you can see a bit of one in the bottom picture; I guess I wasn't careful enough butting the edges together).

I enjoyed the weaving quite a bit, especially mixing different textures and thicknesses together, but I really really really can't add another craft to my repertoire, so that's it for weaving. For now.

Sometimes You Just Want to Play with Thread

 

 This was inspired by Shikira Alleyne's work. I used some wool roving (a little goes a long way) and leftover snippets of yarns, threads, and trim, along with some beads and sequins. It was a fun exercise in texture and balance, and a nice change of pace from the intensive patterns I've been stitching.

Book Round-Up:

 Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife: The flip side of infinity is zero, and this is a good but brief overview of the concept, written with a layperson in mind. I do wish Seife had gone into more detail in the latter half of the book, in particular the connection between zero and infinity and the implications for quantum mechanics and general relativity.

West End Girls by Jennie Colgan: I loved the two other books I've read by Colgan, but this was a disappointment -- more stereotypical and coarse in its portrayal of characters, and even a little mean-spirited. It's one of her early works, so that could explain it.

Origin by Jennifer Raff: An engaging presentation of the latest genetic and archeological evidence about the peopling of the Americas, with a good emphasis on the way racism and other forms of bias have affected and continue to affect our understanding of the science. This makes a great follow-up to Charles C. Mann's 1491 (which I strongly recommend, even if some of the information is now outdated).

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler: A book about circuses, mermaids, tarot cards, curses, librarians, and rare books is right up my alley, and I certainly enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. I'm not sure why; most of the characters were endearing one way or another, and the story itself was interesting, but it didn't grab me. Maybe because the all-consuming love at the heart of the story is the kind of thing I get impatient with.

Gallant by V.E. Schwab: Schwab's gothic take on the alternate universe trope reminded me both of Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (yes, really). I like how Schwab's novels never go quite where you expect them.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry: This was a fun inversion of the typical "city girl finds love in a small town" story, with lots of meta commentary about Hallmark movies, romance novels, and the book industry. The family melodrama was a bit heavy-handed at times, but I really enjoyed this, much more than People We Meet on Vacation (but not as much as Beach Read, which is still my favorite of Henry's).

Chain Maille Funne

 I spent some time earlier this year sorting through old magazine patterns, and decided I had to make this chain maille ring by Daleann Stark:

That's an emerald crystal in there; I just could not get a good image of it.

 

 

Steel rings made this ring affordable, and it was fun, albeit super fiddly, to put together.

That wasn't enough chain maille, though! 

These earrings, made with anodized aluminum rings, were a heck of a lot easier to make. 

I'd forgotten how tactile and slinky chain maille can be. I'd also forgotten that it takes a certain amount of practice and skill to close all the rings properly. Clearly, I need to make more!

Daisy Chain

 In college, as a newish beader, I picked up a pamphlet with instructions to make different styles of daisy chain bracelets. I made a bunch, using size 11 beads and nymo thread, and wore them a lot, and eventually I stopped wearing them because the thread got loose and they felt fragile.

Last week I decided to remake them, with size 8 beads and fireline, for a sturdier and chunkier look.

Here are the old ones:

I have a mixed-media surface onto which I've been sewing beaded scraps, failed experiments, and false starts. I'll add these to that project.

Blackwork Hexagons

 The Facebook group Snarky & Modern Embroidery and Cross Stitch is hosting a blackwork stitch-along in conjunction with blackwork experts The Steady Thread. I've always wanted to do a sampler, so this was perfect.

Behold, the first seven hexagons:

The SAL is 49 weeks long, but I won't be doing all 49 hexies -- I'm already behind by several weeks, and my fabric isn't big enough. Instead I'll see how many I can do before I run out of space.

That fabric, by the way, is a basic cotton evenweave, and I hate it -- stiff, unravelly, and too easy to stain. But this will use up the last of it! You can't tell from the picture (I've yet to take one with perfect lighting), but the thread is a variegated Waterlilies from the Caron Collection, in very deep purples and teals. 

Behold, a big old error in hexie no. 8!

 I think I'll keep it. It's kind of fun,  testing others to see if they can see it. Can you? 😛