Day: August 28, 2016

Turkey Tracks: August Farmer’s Wife Blocks

Turkey Tracks:

August Farmer’s Wife Blocks

There are 99 blocks in this project.  A group of Coastal Quilters of Maine are doing eight a month.  These blocks were designed by Laurie Aaron Bird in her THE FARMER’S WIFE 1930s SAMPLER QUILT project.  We are foundation piecing these intricate blocks and are mostly on track.  I’ve got posts for all that I have done is you want to see them.

No. 57, Margaret:  The cat fabric and the non-polka dot fabric are Cotton + Steel.

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No. 58, Martha:  The bright green fabric is Japanese.

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No 59, Mary:  The green fabric is a new Cotton + Steel fabric from the Portugal collection.  Just bought some of it in the mustard color.

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No 60, Mary Gray:  These fabrics are all Japanese.

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No 61, May:  The blue and cream fabrics are Japanese.  The pink is Cotton + Steel.  This block was challenging.

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No. 62, Milly:  The blue and cream/figured fabrics are Japanese.  This block works better “on point.”  And I think the white is not working so well.  It’s hard to tell sometimes.

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No. 63, Mollie:  All Japanese Fabrics.  This one was…HARD!

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No 64, Monette:  The orange fabric is Japanese, the others Cotton + Steel.  I like the way these fabrics work together.  Dear God, do you see all those TINY squares???

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As Lynn Vermeulen said a while back, “the M’s go on forever”!!!  I just printed out the last 10 of them–my goal for September.

No 75 is “Nan,” and I will have TWENTY TWO blocks to go.

Interesting Information and Book Review: The Big Fat Surprise: Nina Teicholz

Interesting Information and Book Review:  August 28, 2016

THE BIG FAT SURPRISE

Nina Teicholz

The USDA food guide finally scraped the notion that dietary cholesterol made too much cholesterol in the body.

It’s about time as that science has been out there for decades and decades.  Or, the lack thereof…

It was too much to hope that in the same year the USDA would also scrap the false notion that healthy fat is bad for you.  But that will fall next.

Really, the food guide and food advice needs to be removed from the USDA–there is a huge conflict of interest involved.  What is healthy for humans to eat is not necessarily the food crops that the USDA’s main clients raise.  Corn, soybeans, and wheat would be good examples.  (I have essays in the Mainely Tipping Point Essays about the early development of the USDA food guide and the corruption involved.)

Healthy fats are NOT the highly processed and already rancid vegetable fats–with the exception of MINIMALLY processed olive and coconut oils.  Healthy fats come from healthy animals eating what they were meant to eat.  We are talking small farms that grass-feed, pasture chickens, let pigs be pigs and goats be goats and sheep be sheep, and so on.

Teicholz explores the science of fat and explains “Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.”

Here’s Teicholz’s web site:

Source: The Big Fat Surprise: Nina Teicholz

The Wall Street Journal has a good review.

And here’s a response to Teicholz’s predictable critics:

Source: Response to Critics |

Note that there are MANY well-credentialed folks out there saying the same thing Teicholz is saying and showing science and history that proves it.  In the Mainely Tipping Point Essays there are essays on work done by Mary Enig, Gary Taubes, and The Weston A. Price Foundation.  The latter does not have a “dog in this hunt” so to speak as they are not selling anything.

 

Review: ‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton – Chicago Tribune

Review:  August 28, 2016

The Miniaturist

Jessie Burton

I listened to this book via the Maine State Library System’s library.

And I was spellbound much of the time.

This novel, as you can see from the quote below, is in the genre that takes a historical item (a painting, like “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” or an object like the cabinet below) and weaves a fictional tale around it, employing a ton of research in the process.  And, as is true of most works of this kind, the tale tells you much more about issues in OUR time than it does with the effort to capture another world gone long ago.  As always, I will caution, the fictional overlay does violence to the people of another world.  We just bring with us our own culture no matter what; there is no such thing as totally objective “seeing” of another culture.

The review below also lists some of the weaknesses of the novel, with which I agree.  There are some too-neat threads tied off, some fairly unbelievable acts by a very young heroine, and so forth.

However, the language is lush and enjoyable and the time period certainly interesting–the height of the Dutch trading era where merchants travel the world, bringing back exotic treasures.

It’s a good read.

Jessie Burton, a British actor turned fiction writer, takes inspiration for her debut novel from a curiosity cabinet on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Built in the late 17th century, it was commissioned by Petronella Oortman, who wanted an exact replica of the luxury townhouse in which she lived in the center of this magnificent city.

Source: Review: ‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton – Chicago Tribune