Forget Me Knot: A Quilting Mystery

Sometimes I need a 'light' read. I had a quilting mystery on my Kindle and thought, why not?*

Forget Me Knot is the first in Mary Mark's quilting mystery series. 

Mary Rose is the youngest member of a quilting group, along with theme sweater collector Lucy and Birkenstock wearing Birdie. They belong to a quilt guild where competition, and sometimes emotions, run high. Award winning quilter Claire Terry has asked to join their group. But when they get to Claire's home they find her dead. Homicide Detective Beavers arrives at the scene to investigate, causing Mary Rose's heart to race. 

Claire Terry's quilts have just won Best of Show and First Place Appliqué at the guild's show. Someone steals the quilts, which are worth thousands of dollars. Detective Beavers shows up again.

Martha Rose contacts Clarie's mother with the news of the stolen quilts and learns that the quilts contain 'hidden messages'. Martha Rose is asked to see if she can discern the messages in Claire's quilts stored at her home. But someone does not want the messages to be found, and Martha's life is soon in danger. So is her heart as Detective Beavers tries to rein in the headstrong and intrepid Martha.

The book has delightful characters, witty and well drawn. Non-quilters will learn about quilting as everything is explained as needed. Mary Rose is a California girl, Jewish, mid-50s, size 16, divorced a-- gal many will relate to. The way Claire incorporated messages in the quilts was quite an ingenious plot devise. Warning: there are a few pokes at Republican politics that may offend, and the back story behind Clarie's murder is pretty disturbing. Mark sometimes slows the story with descriptions or back stories.

I am not a big mystery reader, but for a night's entertainment Forget Me Knot was relaxing and fun.

*pun intended

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen

Jane Austen from 1919 edition

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775.

In the memoir written by J. E. Austen Leigh fifty-two years after his aunt's death, and from the perspective of the Victorian age, Jane's novels were said to "represent the opinions and manners of the class of society in which the author lived", making "no attempt to raise the standard of human life, but merely represent it as it was. They certainly were not written to support any theory or inculcate any particular moral, except indeed the great moral which is to be equally gathered from the observation of the course of actual life,-- namely, the superiority of high over low principles, and of greatness of littleness of mind."

"...but I think that in her last three works are to be found a greater refinement of taste, a more nice sense of propriety, and a deeper insight into the delicate anatomy of the human heart."

"She did not copy individuals but invested her own creations with individuality of character...She herself, when questioned on the subject by a friend, expressed a dread of what she called such an "invasion of social proprieties." She said that she thought it quite fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but that it was her desire to create, not to reproduce; "besides," she added, "I am too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they were only Mr. A or Colonel B."

"...when speaking of her two great favorites, Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightly: "They are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are."

So much for Darcy, girls, Jane preferred Edmund and Mr. Knightly! But as James Austen Leigh comments in his memoir, her later works show a more mature mind. The memoir makes Jane out to be a sweet and loving aunt. We don't see her sharp wit in his delineation of Jane.

The illustrations are from a 12 volume set of Jane Austen printed in the early 1900s by Little Brown.

"Doge" is Alive and Living In Our Home

I don't often blog about our doggies but today I thought I would share some photos of our Suki and Kamikaze. They both spent the first seven or so years of their lives in a puppy mill as breeders.

Kamikaze is our white Shiba Inu. She is stubborn, vocal, loves attention, and loves sniffing every inch along her walks. Kaze (when she is crazy; Kami when she is sweet) was brought home to be Suki's friend after we lost our Kara, a puppy mill rescue with late stage kidney failure.

Suki is our red Shiba Inu. She is larger than most Shibas, quiet and docile, shy and lazy. Suki was unsocialized when we got her, and she had to learn out-of-cage skills like realizing where the world ends, how to go up and down stairs, and that she did not have to hide in small spaces and corners.

Suki

Kaze can be very alert and playful. Here she is watching to see what we are doing. She will bark just because she is feeling frisky, and will shake a toy and bounce around the house.

Here is Kamikaze looking out the window when the children are being let out of the school across the street.

 Kamikaze likes her soft toys.

And can be very beautiful.

 But Kamikaze thinks everything is "hers," a typical Shiba personality trait. Poor Suki.

 But "Ain't I sweet" she asks.

Suki is a happy dog. She may spend most of her time sleeping in a corner bed, but every night she comes out to snap at her tail, roll on her back, ask to be pet, and beg for a few treats. Her tail is always up now. Her foster family never saw her tail up for most of the year they had her.

Cookies please?

Most of the morning and afternoon the doggies sleep.

We wanted to adopt rescue Shiba Inus as a thank you to the breed. Our first Shiba was Kili, who lived nearly 17 years and was our son's companion as he grew up. She was AKC  registered, home bred, sired by a champion. An alert, playful, happy, and friendly girl. But like most Shibas she would run away when ever she got a chance!

Kili

Puppy mill dogs live a sad life in horrible conditions, with no medical care, often no socialization with humans or dogs. They are treated like "live stock" in a factory farm. It is amazing that with love and care they can overcome their earlier trauma and become such loving and secure companions.

Shibas are now found everywhere, including in the meme Doge. I see them in commercials even.

But Shiba owners warn that as beautiful and cute as Shibas Inus can be, they are not for everyone. They are more cat than dog: as my husband says, "they come when called...when they feel like it."

To read more about Shiba Inus:

http://jezebel.com/for-the-love-of-doge-please-do-not-get-a-shiba-inu-1498277699

http://www.akc.org/breeds/shiba_inu/index.cfm

http://www.shibas.org

http://shibashake.com

From Ensign's Bars to Colonel's Stars: Making Quilts to Honor Those Who Serve

From Ensign's Bars to Colonel's Stars  is the first in a series called Making Quilts to Honor Those Who Serve. The first volume presents original patterns commemorating commissioned officer ranks: Ensign's Bars (O-1); Lieutenant's Platoon (O-2); Captain's Company (O-3); Major's Gold (O-4); Commander's Flags (O-5); and Colonel's Stars (O-6). Quilt designer and retired service person Renelda Peldunas Harter comes from a family with multi-generational military service.

Strip piecing and easy piecing techniques are utilized. The majority of the quilts are geometric-- made up of squares, rectangles, and triangles. Several incorporate appliqué, and some inspiration gallery quilters used appliqué to personalize their quilt interpretation.

Each pattern is shown in several color ways; the author chose colors to represented different branches of the armed services (red, white, blue, khaki, gray, green, gold, brown), while other quilt makers interpreted the patterns in colors such as pinks, gray and black, brights, and green and aquas.

The military rank insignia which inspired the patterns are explained and their history given.

Clear and detailed instructions for cutting, preparing, squaring, and sewing is offered in a general section as well as for individual projects. The author emphasizes squaring as central to quilt making success. I appreciated her illustrated section on squaring.

I have not tried making a pattern. The instructions include lots of illustrations. The process is explained step-by-step.

Although created for honoring active service persons and veterans, the patterns can be adapted for many uses and the gallery of quilts included in each chapter provides inspiration for other applications, like baby or graduation quilts.The author served over 25 years in active duty and the reserve and she tells her story in each chapter's introduction. She has been quilt making her entire adult life. Visit her blog Quilted Cora. She was a McCalls Design Star finalist in 2012. See her free pattern Scribble Me A Quilt at Windham Fabrics. Read her guest blog post for Purrfect Spots here.

I thank Schiffer Publications and NetGalley for access to the e-book for a fair and unbiased review.

From Ensign's Bars to Colonel's Stars: Making Quilts to Honor Those Who Serve
Renelda Peldunas-Harter
Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
ISBN: 9780764347191
$19.99 papberback
Publication Date: November 28, 2014

"Love One Another"; The Life of Fanny Seward

When historical fiction writer Trudy Krisher read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin she became interested in Fanny Seward, the beloved daughter of William Seward who was Lincoln's rival for the Republican presidential candidate. He became his closest friend politically and personally. She also read James Swanson's book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Learning that Fanny Seward had kept a diary and no biography existed, Krisher began her research that culminated in
Fanny Seward: A Life.

I was thrilled to see this book title offered on NetGalley, because like Krisher I also was captivated by the assassination attempt on William Seward and by the role his daughter Fanny played in his life.

I was disappointed to learn that Krisher's original manuscript reached 600 pages but found no publisher. She had to halve her book. Early on I had wished to hear more of Fanny's voice through incorporation of her diary entries and writing. Happily these source materials do appear later in the book, especially as relating to the assassination attempt on her father's life.

The Seward family was privileged yet unpretentious, progressive and free-thinking. Frances Seward was an intellectual who preferred the introverted and quiet rural life. She was involved in the Underground Railroad. She knew Elizabeth Cady Stanton who described Frances as having "independence of character". Always in frail health Frances used her illnesses to avoid society.

"A cargo of 300 slaves, wild from Africa, has been landed in Georgia by the sloop “Wanderer”—and the nation is quite stirred up about it. I hope the “stealers of men” will be justly punished, and the poor Africans be restored to their native land."  Fanny Seward 1858 diary excerpt

William Seward was outgoing, sanguine, and personable...and "addicted" to politics. Goodwin in Team of Rivals tells how he was the most liberal Abolitionist Republican and assumed he would be nominated for their presidential candidate. He was too liberal, and Lincoln was elected. Seward was offered Secretary of State on Lincoln's Cabinet, and he assumed he would "lead" behind the scenes. Instead Lincoln won Seward's respect and loyalty.


Fanny was plain and conventional, a loving child, an adoring sister. Her family role was that of nurturer. Books were her first love, and writing her second. She wrote plays, poems, and a novel during her short life. Her power of observation and descriptive writing indicates that had she been born in another time perhaps she would have been a journalist.

Her father was publicly conservative about marital happiness, and her mother felt a woman could accomplish more of importance in the world when unmarried. Consequently, Fanny seriously considered writing as a career.

Her parents were often separated, Frances staying in Auburn NY while William lived in Washington D.C. with visits home as he could. Fanny spent a good deal of time with her father and was knowledgeable about all aspects of the Civil War. She visited the camps, the battlefields, and the hospitals. Fanny met national figures, becoming close to Dorothea Dix, superintended of women nurses, and to the renowned actress Charlotte Cushman, an emancipated woman who was also a closeted lesbian.

The biography's climax revolves around the events of April 14, 1865. While John Wilkes Booth and President Lincoln played out their roles in the Ford Theater, embittered Confederate Lewis Powell was lurking outside the Seward home, armed with a gun and a knife. William Seward had suffered massive injuries in a carriage accident, his jaw broken and his arm useless. Fanny had been reading to her father, and had just turned down the light. Seward's nurse Sergeant Robinson was in attendance. Powell was determined to fulfill his role and assassinate the Secretary of State, while a third member of the plot was to murder Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Read the book! I won't give away the story! Except to say that Fanny showed great spirit and selflessness in defending her father, and her actions likely saved his life.

'Blood, blood, my thoughts seemed drenched in it—I seemed to breathe its sickening odor. My dress was stained with it—Mother’s was drabbled with it—it was on everything. The bed had been covered with blood, the blankets & sheet chopped with several blows of the knife.'

Fanny was never in fine health, and tuberculosis brought an early death at age 21. She was not alive when her father died in 1872. His final words were "Love one another."

To read more see:
Civil War Women Blog on Fanny, including photographs:
http://civilwarwomenblog.com/fanny-seward/

This promo for the book includes photographs and the horrendous story o the assassination attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA2ctNH6YjA

Read excerpts from Fanny's diary from the University of Rochester:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=638

Fanny Seward: A Life
Trudy Krisher
Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815610410
$29.95 hardbound
Publication Date: January 15, 2015

I thank Syracuse University Press and NetGalley for providing the e-book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Woman, Woman Let Go Of Me; I Didn't Want To Grow Up Either.

Last night we watched the new NBC version of  Peter Pan. It was not the Mary Martin version I grew up with, or even the wonderful Cathy Rigby version we saw at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia many years ago. I couldn't pass up a chance to revisit James Barrie's tale of the boy who would not grow up.

The first broadcast of Peter Pan on television was in 1955 when I was a little tyke. I watched it then, and when it reaired in 1956 and 1960 I was glued to the TV screen once again. I always eagerly anticipated Peter Pan, along with televised showings of The Wizard Of Oz and  Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Amahl and The Night Visitors.

In Sixth Grade at Northwood Elementary School I found all the children's classics, including Peter Pan and Wendy and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. I became a James Barrie fan.

What struck me reading Peter Pan at age 11 were the insights into the human experience. Peter is stranded on Marooner's Rock and the tide is rising and bravely faces death.

Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure."

"To die will be an awfully big adventure." It set my attitude for life, that one line, that death is not something to fear. It is one more adventure, another part of life.

Peter is a child and yet a super-hero, a trickster, naive and boyish and yet a savvy and capable welder of a knife.

So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing."
"Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."
"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."
"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee.

During the epic battle between Pan and Hook fifteen pirates perished.

"Seventeen," Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had feared.

Captain Hook I later learned was based on Charles II, with his swarthy good looks, black curled hair, and high 17th c style. Cyril Richard's Hook is my standard; he is large yet graceful, swarthy yet natty, evil without being terrifying.

It broke my heart was when Peter returns for Wendy to find her all grown up.

Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew back sharply.
"What is it?" he cried again.
She had to tell him.
"I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long ago."
"You promised not to!"
"I couldn't help it.

 I understood Wendy's aching for what she has lost.

It is scary to a child to think of being the adult, the one relied upon instead of being the one protected and cared for.

My Eighth Grade teacher Mrs. Hayden said that adults lost their imagination. That terrified me! My child world was make believe. My Midge doll was a boy from Mars. Nancy Ensminger and I pretended we were Scottish orphans riding ponies across the moors. Janet Leary and I were Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Mike Randall and I talked about outer space and believed in alien life. In Sixth Grade I invented Homer the Ghost, named for Homer Price of Robert McCloskey's books. Homer was my friend as I navigated a new social world after moving.

I wanted to be a writer. Nothing could be worse than losing one's imagination! If that was adulthood, I wanted to be counted out.

Fourteen came, and high school. I let go and grew up. I listened to rock and roll instead of musicals, put on lipstick, and went through the teenage angst.

But I never left Peter Pan behind.

The Morning and the Evening by Joan Williams: Our Best and Worst Natures

Jake Darby was different. Born a mute, he is unable to communicate and is taken for an idiot. He is self-contained, separate, regimented. His brother has already fled their small Southern town leaving Jake and his mother to struggle alone. When Jake's mother passes the town folk feel pity and Jake becomes theirs to care for. They bring him meals and mend his shirts. Forty-three years old Jake is dependent on their good will.

But one day a lonely misfit reaches for Jake in a desperate need to connect and Jake goes running and screaming into the night. A mad dog has been reported in a neighboring town and people's pity turns to fear.

I finished this book just before Thanksgiving and have contemplated what to say over the past week. What you need to know is that the book has haunted me, lingering past the family gathering and the visitors, the cleaning up, the Black Friday and Cyber Monday buying sprees. What better thing can I say?

Jake becomes a litmus test for the town folk, showing their true colors. Except the color is inconclusive. They have a capacity for altruism, and a self-interested reaction to put away those things perceived as a threat. People seek companionship and love--often in the wrong places. They desire things, often small things, and justify actions that bring about an outcome far from what was expected.

Kirkus Reviews stated that the subject matter may turn people away from this book. There is discomfort and sadness. The hardest part is how it mirrors humanity back to itself, so we are confronted with our many failings and sins but also with our capacity for good.

The Morning and The Evening by Joan Williams was first published as a story in 1952 with a sequel Mademoiselle published four years later. In 1961 Atheneum published the two stories combined as a novel. William Styron wrote that it "is a haunting and beautiful tale, richly infused with humor and sharp insights into the human predicament." The book was a finalist for the National Book Award, which that year went to Walker Percy's The Movie Goer and was up against now classic books including Joseph Heller's Catch 22, J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zoey, and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.
http://www.nationalbook.org/nba1962.html#.VH_bBN6wW0w

I thank NetGalley and Open Road Media for access to the e-book for my unbiased review.

The Morning and the Evening
Joan Williams
Open Road Media
Publication December 30, 2014
ISBN 9781497694637