Day: December 8, 2015

Books, Documentaries, Reviews: THE SNOW CHILD, Eowyn Ivey

Books, Documentaries, Reviews:  December 8, 2015

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

I really, really enjoyed this novel.

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I got it at West Bank Books a few months back, after reading the enclosed book mark from a staff member and after getting high praise from the book while in the store.

This novel is Ivey’s first, but she is a seasoned writer.  The prose is lush and evocative of the Alaska she loves.

The story is set in the 1920s among Alaskan homesteaders and uses a Russian fairy tale of a snow child to weave an engrossing read.

Turkey Tracks: December 2015 Quilty Update

Turkey Tracks:  December 8, 2015

December 2015 Quilty Update

The hexie project I took with me to Charleston, SC, for Thanksgiving is coming along.

Truth to tell, I’m addicted to it.

The center is nearly ready to sew together:

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I’m should have let the teal stripe NOT line up, as the little doll head looks disembodied in the middle of a sea of strips.

Will I go back and take out tiny, tiny seams and restitch.  As much as I am a perfectionist, no.

This project is scrappy and is using my 2 1/2-inch squares and strips.

The missing unit is greens and is now ready for the neutrals.  And the project gets quite a few neutrals around this center.  You can see pictures in an earlier post.  The design is from Edyta Sitar.

Once again, the Sewline fabric glue pen is to English Paper Piecing (EPP) as a rotary cutter is to quilting.  Holy Cow what a find!

One of the bright scrappy quilts is on Lucy the Longarm:

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Love the bright coral backing:

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I’m using a dusty rose thread.  And this is a Bonnie Hunter block, as you can see from earlier posts.

I’m caught up with Bonnie Hunter’s second clue, released last Friday, for the 2015 mystery quilt, Allietare.

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I wonder if we will get the gold fabrics next Friday?

Love the neutrals in this quilt.  Many are from Cotton + Steel fabrics.   I have some lovely posts on that group of fabric-designing women here on the blog.  Such an interesting story.  Use the search button on the right sidebar to find that story.

I am also working on the other bright scrappy quilt–it’s on the design wall and getting some more borders.  More on that later.  It’s cute!

Turkey Tracks: Winter Apples on Trees in Camden, Maine

Turkey Tracks:  December 8, 2015

Winter Apples on Trees in Camden, Maine

During our first winter in Maine, I was enchanted with how apples clung to their trees after the leaves were long gone.

I stopped many times to try to take pictures, and, later to paint them.

This year has been a banner apple year.

Just before Thanksgiving, I stopped to take this picture.  The sun is very low in the sky now; yet it caught these apples with a light that made them glow.

The picture does not do the experience justice, except for the gorgeous sky.

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Here’s a close-up:

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I refrained from trespassing into the yard to pick one of the apples.  They look delicious, don’t they?

Later in the winter when the snow is deep, we will see turkeys perched in these apple trees, devouring the fruit.  I wonder if the apples will be fermented at that point, so that the juice has alcohol in it?