Covid-19 Life: Gardening, New Books, Quilts

Spring has come. Daffodils and hyacinth are in bloom, as is the pear tree. The robins are splashing in the bird bath, the sparrows have a family in the bird house, and the mason bees are finding nooks in the bricks.

About one year ago we went to the local gardening center to buy herbs. It is mostly outdoors, and even indoors, the building is open and has high ceilings. Last year we only had a mask for protection; this year we had our vaccinations, too.

We bought parsley and dill and Nasturtium seeds and some tools and things.

A dozen years ago we pulled the English ivy up from under the apple trees and I put down stones. This spring, we took up the stone and are planting companion plants for fruit trees. Our oregano patch had become huge, so we divided it up and took most to plant under the trees. I sowed Nasturtium in the sunnier parts. In the fall we will transplant our bulbs under the trees. Next spring, we will see the daffodils and hyacinths from the family room patio door!

The stones are now along the house and driveway where we put the Stella d'Oro lilies when the front yard was landscaped three years ago. They have done wonderful there!

It is to rain tomorrow and I can return to machine quilting my Water Lily quilt. It is a lot of work! But it would be even more had I hand quilted it. My other projects are backing up, waiting for me to finish this quilting. But I did the first month block for Barbara Brackman's new quilt along project, Ladies Aid New York Sampler. Being from New York, I 'had' to participate! 

I am not using reproduction fabrics for this quilt. I have loads of that background fabric and need to use it. Truthfully, the fabric was once bedroom curtains in a house we lived in for 17 months! I kept it figuring I would use it some day.

A few more books have been added to my shelf.

• The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five by Tom Roston
• Among the Beautiful Beasts by Lori McMullen, the story of the early life of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, known in her later years as a tireless activist for the Florida Everglades
• Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang, about her undocumented Chinese immigrant family

I won A Good Neighborhood by Theresa Anne Fowler from the Book Club Cookbook.

And I purchased some poetry books for National Poetry Month. First to arrive are two books by Joseph Fasano, whose The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing I reviewed here.

Fasano shares his poetry online, as well as his music, and I have greatly enjoyed both.

We are watching Ken Burn's Hemingway on PBS. I have my grandfather's For Whom the Bell Tolls, printed in 1943, and two 1970 books I bought as a high school senior, and the short stories we bought for our son to read in school.

Here are the grandpuppies at doggy day care, looking very springy.

The quilters are meeting in the park. Most now are fully vaccinated. Years ago, I donated fan blocks I had made to the 'free table' and Bev Olson has been embellishing them with her wonderful embroidery and beading. She has created an amazing quilt from them!

And another friend dove into her fabric scraps to make a double sided quilt; Roman Coins on one side, and on the back is this very cool assemblage.(Sorry, the quilt is sideways!)

We are excited that our son and his girlfriend both received their first covid-19 vaccination this week at Ford Field! The virus is wrecking havoc in Michigan, even in our small town. We have scheduled doctor appointments over the next few weeks, but otherwise are continuing to social isolate.

But, hopefully, in a month we will be able to have a family gathering again.

Stay safe. Find your bliss.

Covid-19 Life: Books On the Shelf and Other News

It seems that as soon as I finish a book, another...or two...come in!

Surprise book mail from Sourcebooks is The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood. I entered a giveaway and won it! When engineer Washington Roebling became too ill to work on the Brooklyn Bridge, his wife Emily took over his work.

New on my NetGalley shelf is quit a mix!

• Miss Kopp Investigates by Amy Stewart, the seventh Miss Kopp book
• Letters to a Young Poet: A New translation and Commentary, Rainer Maria Rilke's classic
• Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh
• Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy whose Migrations I read last year
• After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes
• That Summer by Jennifer Weiner whose Big Summer I read last year
• Eternal,  Lisa Scottoline's first historical fiction novel

I also signed up for a blog tour of A Theater for Dreamers by Polly Sansom; I was a little late and am waiting to hear back from Algonquin about it. It is a novel based on Leonard Cohen's time in Greece.

This week the library book club discussed Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney, who kindly stopped in via Zoom to talk to us. She is a lovely person. My second reading of this book left me more in love with Lillian than ever. One book club member said she didn't want to leave Lillian, and listened to the audiobook again!

I found some lovely tea cups to embroider through the DMC website. Here are two of the six, minus the gold thread embroidery still to come.

Next week we get our second Covid-19 vaccinations! Our later April calendar is filled with missed dentist, eye doctor, and other appointments we put off for a year.

But this last weekend, we got to puppysit our dear Ellie for a day! She is so sweet and gentle. Also, more sociable and less skittish than she was when our son brought her home from the rescue society.

Here is Ellie with Gus at our son's home. Gus loves to rough house with Sunny who is just as rough and playful.

My brother posted this post-winter pic from his cabin pond, which he called 'carnage at the frog pond.' Perhaps this spring we can visit the cabin again. Once the carnage has been cleared up!

Stay safe. Find your bliss.

Covid-19 Life: Books, Quilts & Vaccinations

On Friday, my husband received his first Covid-19 vaccination. And next Thursday I will get my first vaccination. It is a great feeling, nearly euphoric, after a year in retreat, to know this is the beginning of the end of a very scary time.

I understand that I will be wearing masks and still being careful, but we can schedule our missed eye exams and dental checks without feeling so vulnerable.

My spring reading list has gotten grown to massive proportions! 

I have Finding Freedom by Erin French from BookishFirst. It arrived on bread making day.

I have had numerous books offered to me by publishers and my NetGalley shelf is overfull!

New on my NetGalley shelf:

• The Man He Became: Roosevelt's Rise from Polio to the Presidency, James Tobin's The Man He Became written for middle school readers. (Tobin is married to the daughter of a couple we knew some years ago. We were given autographed copies of his previous books, Ernie Pyle's War and To Conquer the Air.)
• The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine by Clan McMahon
• Highway Blue by Alisa McFarlane, a novel about 'being lost and found'
• That Summer by Jennifer Weiner, whose Big Summer I read last year
• Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President by Ronald C. White
• The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Drelinger
• Thief of Souls by Brian Klingborg, a mystery
• The Remnants of Summer by Dawn Newton, a coming of age novel set in Michigan

These books join the others already on my shelves. Which, to remind you, include

• The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King
• Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standford
• The Sound Between the Notes by Barbara Linn Probst
• Eleanor in the Village: Eleanor Roosevelt's Search for Freedom and Identity in New York's Greenwich Village by Jan Jarboe Russell 
• Light Perpetual by Frances Spufford
• The Ride of her Life by Elizabeth Letts
• Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America by Scott Borchert
• The Reason for the Darkness: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science by John Tresch
• Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
• Blind Spots: Why Students Fail and the Science that Can Save Them by Kimberly Nix Berens

This is daunting!

Still, I sew on.

I finished the Nancy apron.

And I machine quilted the mushroom embroidery and vintage fabric quilt.

I have the backing for the Water Lily quilt and the Rebel Girl quilt! I am going to be a machine quilting machine.

We grew basil by seed and they are finally looking like they will survive! They are in a metal box that I painted some years ago.

This week I Zoomed to hear Diane Rehm talk about her new book through the National Writer Series. Next month I will join them again to see Imbolo Mbue, whose Behold the Dreamers and  How Beautiful We Were  I have read.

Our March library book is Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney--who will join us on Zoom!

Gus the cat got very curious when our son racked the snow off the roof.

But Sunny was chill.

I have to also have a pic of Ellie. This is from last winter when she was obsessed with squirrels.

That's all the news from The Literate Quilter.

Stay safe. Find your bliss. Spring will come and so will the end of the pandemic.

Covid-19 Life: New Books On the Shelf, Happy Valentines Day

 

My brother gave me a book store gift card for Christmas and I finally decided to use it. I bought Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell and The Address Book: What Street Addresses Revel About Identity, Race, Wealth and Power by Deidre Mask, both of which I failed to obtain as galleys or ARCs.

Not that I have nothing to read!

New on my NetGalley shelf are:

• The Reason for the Darkness: Edgar Allen Poe and the Forging of American Science by John Tresch
• Republic of Detours : How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America by Scott Borchert
• The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts. I have read and reviewed her last novel Finding Dorothy and her previous book The Eighty-Dollar Champion
• Light Perpetual a novel by Frances Spufford whose previous novel On Golden Hill I reviewed and whose nonfiction book I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination is one of my all-time favorite books.

From Goodreads I won

• Infinite Country, a novel by Patricia Engel, set in Columbia

From Bookish First is coming

• Finding Freedom by Erin French, a memoir

I am currently reading (still) A Promised Land by Barack Obama, The Arsonist's City by Hayla Alyan, and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I also need to do a quick read over of Miracle Creek by Angie Kim for book club on February 17--Angie is going to Zoom with us, too!

I finished a quilt that has been hanging around because I was not thrilled with it, it just wasn't what I had imagined it would be. It started with the fantastic fabric of dandelions which reminded me of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. I embroidered a favorite line from the book and sewed on shiny sequins representing fire flies coming from the mason jar.

Sunny and Ellie send Valentine kisses to all. Stay safe. Find your bliss.

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.