Covid-19 Life: Finishing Quilts, TBR, Beautiful Nature

Maybe it's the feel of mortality breathing down my neck, but I am focused on finishing all those 'UFOs' in my sewing room--Unfinished Objects, for the uninitiated.

Finishing The Great Gatsby quilt was major. I started it years ago! I hand quilted it.

The blocks are taken from 1924 advertisements and represent scenes from the book.

I was lucky to snag  fabrics from the Great Gatsby fabrics line.

 My sewing room is a creative mess of works in progress.

I am putting together Row by Row blocks from years ago. Quilt shops designed and sold these rows for quilters to collect. These are all Michigan lake scenes.

I am also working on a pattern I bought when I was first quilting! The Mountain Mist Water Lilies pattern! Lots of repetitious hand applique. I love it. There are eight blocks like those below. Then borders of lily pads and flowers!

Books in the mail include the Book Club Cookbook win The Second Home by Christina Clancy, pictured with a completed Row.

And three fantastic art quilt books from Schiffer Publishing! Look for the reviews in the coming weeks.

New galleys on my shelf include:

• Maniac: The Bath School Murder and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter, which occured in Michigan
• The View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe by Jeanne E. Abrams
• Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig

I have been coloring in my birthday books.

Sunny goes to 'day camp' three days a week. She loves playing with the dogs. Since my son and his partner are both working from home, it's hard for her to understand they have to ignore her demands to play during working hours.

I enjoy the beauty I see around me. The hawk circling on the updraft above the houses. The flowers I see on my walks. The painted clouds of sunset.

 Even the weeds in the grass are beautiful.

My brother went to Tawas Point a few weekends ago and reported record high lake levels. The year my family spent a week there lake levels were at a record low!

Note the lighthouse in the background.

Here are flowers my brother has seen on his walks in the woods.

And, here is my brother. His birthday is coming in a few weeks. 

Stay safe, out there. Find your bliss in this broken world.

Works in Progress: Quilts, Books, and More

I am slowly finishing Row By Row kits and patterns which I obtained two summers ago. This kit featuring goldfish is so pretty, complete with crystal air bubbles. 

 The quilt was made with fusible applique and machine quilting.

I am also getting back to making blocks for my Great Gatsby quilt. Here is Jordan, Daisy's friend the tennis star. The design is based on a fashion illustration circa 1924.

I still have embroidery to do on this block showing Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. The design is based on a fashion illustration circa 1924.

I have started the Peter Pan Story Book Quilt blocks, designed by Marion Cheever Whiteside Newton. I found a copy of the pattern on Etsy.

 Tink needs hair still.

 One mermaid's tail still needs appliqueing.

On my reading list right now:

• Only Child is an e-galley from First to Read and concerns a family in crisis after a school shooting.
• I just completed The Winter Station, based on a real plague in 1910 Manchuria.
• Starlings is a book of short stories.
• Self-Portrait with Boy was given high praise from a Goodreads friend.
• As Bright as Heaven is historical fiction about the 1918 Spanish Influenza, set in Philadelphia.
• I finished The Immortalists, in which children who learn the day of their death must decide how to live their lives.
• Poetry for Kids Robert Frost is part of a series of books I have enjoyed reviewing.
• West is a novel that intrigued me when I saw it on Edelweiss, as did The Which Way Tree which I saw on NetGalley.

Not yet downloaded from NetGalley are First Ladies of the Republic by Jeanne Abrams, Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris, and Lear by Harold Bloom.

I am still reading giveaway wins Debriefing by Susan Sontag and Winter by Karl Ove Knausggard.

W.W. Norton shipped me this slender book. I am saving it for when I have a full afternoon free to read it in one sitting.

 And also still to be read is this LibraryThing book.

We have new siding and gutters! We changed where the gutters were, added rain barrels, and put gutters on the garage.

When my husband saw this Gum Drop tree in a catalog he remembered how his grandmother always had one. So we bought one!

It was so cool to see this Tammis Keefe linen towel ad in a 1958 magazine! I purchased reproductions several years ago and use them in my decorating. You can see one under the Gum Drop tree above.

My hubby has been making cookies! I went on a butter run today. He is enjoying making bread and baking and cooking now the yard and garden work is over. That gives me more time for reading!

The 1958 magazine had some cute illustrations of Christmas shopping. Don't you love how the lady is shopping in heels?

She changed her scarf color and how is wearing boots with the kids. Balloons in winter--that is novel.

I don't have much Christmas shopping to do and the big gifts are taken care of. For our gift to ourselves we bought tickets to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. We will take our son to two concerts at Orchestra Hall, and we bought tickets to the Neighborhood concert series.

What are you working on? How is your shopping and decorating going?

My Quilt Projects

I finished another small quilt. My sister-in-law had given me her heirloom lace to make her a quilt. For this quilt I used reproduction fabrics including the John Hewson bird print in the central part of the quilt. The lace given appears on three sides of the diamond, left and top left and right.

The other quilt I made with her lace was quite different!

I am behind on the 1857 Album--the intertwined rings has been a challenge. I am starting on September patterns.

I have three Gatsby blocks nearly completed.

 Tom and Daisy above, Daisy and Jordan below.

 The one below with Gatsby and Nick needs the embroidered background and a plant in the urn.

I can't wait to get started on my next 'Poet' series quilt: T.S. Eliot featuring his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats! I have been collecting fabrics for the quilt.

My quilt group friend Jan made a Halloween costume based on my Edgar Allan Poe quilt: purple curtains on curtian rods and a hat of net with a Raven!

My doggies are getting up in years. Kamikaze has an enlarged heart and is on medication. Last night she had a rare few minutes of play.

The blanket is for Kaze to lay on or she'll scratch up our rug.

 Then she snapped at our Suki, now 15 years old and just tired.

Suki takes it in stride and yawns in response.

Then, all tired out, Kazi lays against my feet. That's a Shiba snuggle.