Covid-19 Life: Books, Quilts, & News

 

I finished the Rebel Girl quilt top! It was a lot of fun to make, especially going into my stash of vintage novelty fabrics. You can find the free pattern by Lisa Flower at PB fabrics

Winter has finally hit for real. We even had to shovel snow this week. We had two days close to forty degrees, which meant long walks, then it has turned bitter cold. Luckily, we have lots of lap quilts in the house.

Sunny is really happier snuggling in bed than on the field. Especially in this cold weather! After Ellie's overnight vet stay last week she had to wear a cone. She kept walking into things, so the kids bought her a toddler shirt to wear!

I feel bad for the robins that returned too early. This one has enjoyed the heated water bowl. 

Last August was to be the 50th class reunion for my high school class. This week we learned that our class president had passed. We were in Seventh Grade together. In art class, I told him about my imaginary friend Homer the Ghost. I said he followed me to school and was sitting in the room. Shaken, he asked the art teacher and she said I was "pulling the wool over his eyes," a saying I had not encountered before. Until the day we graduated, every time he saw me in the school hallways he would greet me with "How's Homer?" In retirement he created digital photographic art.

New books in the mail include Brooklyn On My Mind: Black Visual Artists from the WPA to the Present by Myrah Brown Green from Schiffer Publications. 

And from Amazon Vine I got The Arsonist's City by Hala Alyan.

I am currently reading Silence is a sense by Layla Alammar from Algonquin Books.

Last week our library book club Zoomed with Karen Dionne to talk about her latest thriller set in Michigan's Upper Penninsula, The Wicked Sister. We can't wait for her new book set near Grand Marias on Lake Superior!

The quilters had a Zoom tea party with fourteen in attendance. Only two ladies have received the Covid vaccine, and one is in Florida. We are waiting for notification that our hospital or the county or the local drug store has vaccine and appointment openings.

Its good weather for hibernating, like Sunny and Ellie! Stay safe. Stay warm. Find your bliss.

Covid-19 Life; Quilts, Books, and Grandpuppies

I have finished Hospital Sketches, the Block of the Month by Barbara Brackman inspired by Louis May Alcott's time as a nurse during the Civil War. There are many amazing versions of these patterns. Everyone finished them off differently. I made a floral vine based on the applique templates, in the style of 19th c. quilts. The quilt is hand appliqued and hand quilted.

I have started the Rebel Girl quilt. But...I decided to applique the records and not piece them. 

I did thread work on the Michigan lighthouses. I need to size the blocks still. And I am looking for the right sky fabric for the central block of the Mackinac Bridge.

New to my NetGalley shelf are:

• Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider by Charles Person and Richard Rooker from St. Martin's Press
• Silence Is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar, a Kuwaiti-American writer, from Algonquin Books

New books 'in the mail' include:

• Brooklyn On My Mind: Black Visual Artists from the WPA to the Present by Myrah Brown Green from Schiffer Publications

• A Shot in the Moonlight by Ben Montgomery from Little, Brown and Company

My father's sister, my Aunt Alice, celebrated her 85th birthday party...in isolation. We sent flowers and many friends sent cards. I wrote a blog post about her birthday a few years ago, found here.

Our grandpuppies go to doggie day care a few days a week. Both their parents work from home. Sunny is still very energetic at a year old and needs lots of play. They have their photos taken there.

Ellie is learning to socialize with the other dogs. Sadly, this week she became ill with gastroenteritis and spent an overnight at the vet's. With medicine and fluids, she is back home and doing well. 

Ellie was thrilled when her mom came to pick her up and take her home.

And Sunny eagerly awaited her fur-sister's return.

We do not know what Gus the cat thought about the incident. He keeps his thoughts to himself.

It finally snowed here! We even had to get out the snow blower. 

This photo is from before the snow. For several winters we have put a heated water bowl on the patio for the animals. Usually squirrels come to drink, but this year we have seen many Blue Jay and Cardinals come.

We are still waiting to be contacted about our Covid vaccination. We are signed up through our hospital and our county health department. 

We are a week away from a milestone: it was one year ago on February 2 and 3 that we had family gatherings to celebrate my husband's birthday. Four households met for a dinner one day, and the next day we dined with Gary's brother and wife and our son. 

We know that even with the vaccine we will not be back to old normal again very soon. Especially with new virus strains emerging. I wonder what  the new 'normal' will be like when it comes? One friend suggested she would continue to wear a mask all the time as she has not even had a cold this year.

So many social media friends are writing about burning out, the isolation and loneliness wearing on them. Even for introverts with rich inner lives, a year in isolation is too much. We want to hug our family and friends. We want to share a meal and laugh loudly into the open air so that our joy rings and echos through crowded rooms. 

It is hard. Life is hard. Everything is worth doing is hard. It takes courage to be in this world, and patience, and faith.

Stay safe.

Find your bliss.

Covid-19 Life: Books, Quilts, Gratitude

I finally have the Gingiber Thicket animal quilt finished! I bound it off today and it is in the washer. I machine quilted it, the largest quilt I have tackled so far.

I finished the fusible applique for all fourteen Michigan lighthouse blocks. Instead of finishing the edges with a satin stitch I am outlining everything in black thread. Because I hate machine work and am lazy and thought I would try something different. It gives a different effect.

Rebel Girl is going to be my new project! It’s so much fun!

And I am finishing hand quilting Hospital Sketches.

We are approaching February 2, which will mark one year since my family last gathered together as a whole. We celebrated my husband's birthday at a local Japanese restaurant. Restrictions have once again leveled off Covid cases in Michigan. I know a few people who have been vaccinated, but like many thousands, the schedule is full into February and we wait for opening to be vaccinated.

So, it is more of the same life we have lived since March 11, 2020. Zoom and Facebook and instant messaging and the rare meetings, mostly outdoors, with a family member.

Gus the cat has been enjoying the days when Sunny and Ellie are at doggie day care. Gus has her people all to himself. Of course, they are working from home and I understand there is much walking across keyboards going on.

Our heated water dish is visited by Blue Jay and Cardinals and scads of squirrels of all colors. We have had little snow here, but it stays cold.

A number of books have arrived in the mail!

The Genome Odyssey by Euan Angus Ashley is from Bookish First.

Publisher's Weekly had a Grab-a-Galley giveaway, and the publisher sent me Blind Spots: Why Students Fail and the Science that Can Save Them by Kimberly Nix Berens.

The Book Club Cook Book sent me Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten.

St. Martin's Press sent me The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town by Brian Alexander through NetGalley.  It is about a Bryan, OH town, where I used to take my sewing machine to be serviced when we lived near the Michigan-Ohio border.

I obtained Empowered Embroider through NetGalley.

I am still working on the same quilt projects. I had to stop hand quilting after I smashed my quilting finger. I have fourteen lighthouse blocks fused down and am adding machine work.

I feel great relief and gratitude for so many things.

First, for the peaceful transfer of power to a new president.

Second, knowing that in the next few months the Covid vaccine will become more available and we will be vaccinated.

Third, that our loved ones have remained safe over this long year.

Fourth, for the work I have in book reviewing which gives me meaning in isolation.

Fifth, for connections through social media and Zoom that keep me in communication with the world.

Sixth, for the creative outlet I have in quilting.

And last of all, for all those who read my blog and reviews and comment and share.

Stay safe. Find your bliss. 

Covid-19 Life: Books, Quilts, Insurrection, Health

Nine days into the new year. There is nothing 'normal' about this January.

Insurrection and violence. Highest number of Covid deaths in one day. Bitter cold but no snow here. 

We were watching Congress on television and had got to Arizona and were about to turn it off when the camera switched to the scene outside the Capitol. We watched for hours. We did not eat dinner that night, our appetite gone. The only reason I got to sleep was because I spent an hour in the quilt room and had a happy book to read before bedtime.

We were thrilled to receive a letter from our health provider about signing up to be called for a Covid vaccination. It will take some weeks, but still! By spring perhaps we will return to a store and feel more comfortable visiting family, with masks, but actually visiting.

We have had our car for two years now, and have reached 6,000 miles! We took it out for a spin yesterday, going nowhere, hoping the battery won't die this winter. As did our son's truck battery. (He works from home.) It's been so cold, I have not gone for a walk. Perhaps today, as the sun is shining and that will trick me into thinking it is warmer than the 30 degrees the thermometer reads.

The quilters Zoom and try to show off our work, holding it up to the computer camera. I am hand quilting still, but have finished my machine quilted project which is ready for binding. And I started--finally--the Michigan Lighthouse quilt. I bought the first Aunt Mary's pattern almost twenty years ago!!!

I have twelve blocks fused. Next, I need to ink in details and then machine applique the raw edges.

Books in the mail include At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman from Algonquin Books. 

And The Great Indoors by Emily Anthes, a Goodreads win.

New to my NetGalley shelf is 

• The 12 Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White.

Along with my books for review, I am reading Barack Obama's book A Promised Land, a Christmas present. And just before bed, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. I had heard people talking about as a favorite book and picked up a 1948 edition at a library book sale. 

Reading a fun, happy, book before sleep really helps! I have been reading Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature by Angus Fletcher which talks about the impact of literature on the chemical stimulus in the brain. And in The Great Indoors, I just read the chapter about the importance of hospital patients seeing nature as part of their healing.

Literature, creativity, nature. It's all so important during these stressful times.

My brother lives on a canal to a lake and the deer have been bedding in his yard outside his family room window. The also eat his plants and the bird feed scattered by the birds, squirrels, raccoons and other critters who feed there.

Recently, my brother was at the Elk Park in Gaylord, MI. 

And, walking at Kensington Metro Park, he and his girlfriend encountered Sandhill Crane and a hungry Titmouse.

My brother built a covered bridge over his cabin's tiny stream. A very scenic sight in winter! Here, the grass is just beginning to lose it's green and we have not had enough snow to actually shovel. Yet.

Stay safe.