Weekly update: wildflower time and some progress

The water is still cold!

  My sister came to visit on Friday.  We walked in the ravine (at the end of our block) and in the state park.  Though the drought continues the wildflowers are beautiful and the migratory birds are trilling away. 

Phlox, false Solomon's seal, Golden Alexander,  Star of Bethlehem (a garden escapee), fringed puccoon aka narrowleaf stoneseed, sweet Cicely, mayapple, wild columbine (aquilegia).

Puccoon, blue-eyed grass, lupine, chokecherry, daisy fleabane, and what the i.d. app calls Umbellate Bastard Toadflax which to me sounds like a Shakespearean insult.

Every year I look for this patch of of hybrid iris alongside the road to the beach (Camp Logan unit). It's flourishing! I imagine someone tossed leftover rhizomes out the window one year. 

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In the studio:

  I set the Magpies' blocks for the comfort quilt. I had to buy (!!) sashing fabric -- not too white, not too creamy, with just a touch of red.  I was sure the border would use a particular red-on-dark blue from my stash but I found out it is a  Indian cotton (think of a soft-hand Madras) and the texture/weave was just too lightweight.  I think I've found a substitute, but if it doesn't do the trick I'm sure a quilt shop can sell me something just right. 

Photo shows the substitute print.

I'm making a mug rug for a friend's Bat Mitzvah. I know it will have pomegranates but I haven't decided to go arty-abstract or lively-graphic. So I have rough drafts of both. 

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I've written of my disappointment with inaccuracies and anachronisms in some of the books I've read recently. That was not the case with the two historical novels I read this week -- if there were errors, the books were so well-written that I didn't notice or didn't mind.  

The Cold Millions.    Spokane, 1909: the town's mining/lumber barons wield power and influence (and corruption) over the city. The IWW has come to town to organize labor protests, led by fiery agitator Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Gig Dolan is an idealistic drifter who gets caught up in Flynn's orbit. His younger brother Rye treds a safer path to the middle class. It's an absorbing story about a not-so-long-ago chapter in American life.

Margreete's Harbor.    When her mother Margreete's dementia becomes apparent Liddie Furber, her husband Harry, and their children Bernie and Eva move back to the rambling house on the Maine coast to take care of her. Margreete does indeed provide a harbor for her family during the tumultuous 1960's when far-away events (the march on Washington and the Viet Nam war) affect their everyday lives. Eleanor Morse's style is reminiscent of Anne Tyler: people aren't perfect and sometimes their quirks are annoying -- but that is real life.

 

I was pulled right in to this fast-paced cozy mystery starring small-town reference librarian Greer Hogan.  Author M.E. Hilliard is a librarian and she absolutely nails the library details.   Here's the first page.  Enough said!  (Need I add that I'm a Trixie Belden fan?) 

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