Weekly update: goal progress, estate sale, and book reviews

 

It's been a while since I was at the lakefront to get a sunrise photo.  This was 7:23 on Saturday -- with the time change it would now be 6:23.  

My OMG for November is to quilt three flimsies.   Here's the first, quilted and bound.  The second is basted and under the needle.   

The back used up some long-in-the-stash fabrics.

There was an estate sale in town this weekend.  The website photos showed sewing machines, notions, patterns, and a lot of fabric. I went on Friday (opening day) to get an idea.  Apparently the woman made clothing (lots of knits and Stretch & Sew patterns) and did home-dec crafting.  Lots of seam binding, carded buttons, Coats and Clark thread. Machines were two Singers (a 400 and a 500, I think) and two Montgomery Ward.   All the fabric was $8.00 per piece--too pricey for me.  

I went back on Saturday when prices were 50% off.   65 yards for $76 -- that's $1.16/yard.   

If I can't NOT buy fabric then at least I can get bargains!

 

I also got this pin.  That's my high school and there's a clue to its age.  In 1963 a second campus opened so Glenbrook High became Glenbrook North (the new school was Glenbrook South).   (GBN is about 25 miles from where I live now.)  I will give the pin to my hometown historical society  

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I took six books on our trip, finished two of them as we traveled, and finished another right after we got home.  Since then I've read another -- so, four reviews to catch up on.  They were all good!

“What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
No one understands the finances of Pierson, Illinois, better than Becky Farwell. She went to work in the business office right after high school and quickly made herself indispensable to the city manager and all the departments. No one knew about the double life she was carefully crafting—as Reba Farwell, art collector. Becky financed her collection by manipulating accounts, paying off bills from one with income to another. She first tested the art market in Chicago—then New York, Milan, and even Tokyo. She kept it up for more than 25 years, bailing out the Pierson community time and again with its own money, then using her “credit” to buy, sell, and then buy even more art. She kept meticulous records. Once pierced, the intricately woven web quickly unraveled.

Loyalty, deception, friendships superficial and friendships sincere—it’s a suspenseful tale, all the more intriguing because it was inspired by the real-life story of Rita Crundwell in Dixon, IL, who embezzled town funds for years to finance her show-horse business.

How strong are family ties? For the Millers the ties are elastic but fraying when grandmother Helen dies. Her legacy is a surprise--an extraordinary gemstone last known as the property of the Hapsburgs a century ago. How did Helen come to have it and how did she get it from Austria to the U.S.? Uncovering that story exposes the Millers' own hidden stories -- Beck, the paralegal whose youthful exploits guarantee that she will never be a lawyer; Ashley the former corporate exec whose 'perfect' suburban lifestyle is about to collapse; Jake the screenwriter and soon-to-be father who cannot turn the camera on his family; Deborah the free-spirited mom who yet again trusts the wrong people and yet again can't understand why things don't turn out well.

Each of the Millers tells part of the story, clearly showing how a situation can be seen so differently by each participant. And in the end? Be careful what you wish for!

Every family has stories.   How much does it matter if they are embellished a little? Or embellished a lot?

"It had been Grammy's job to sing the fables so the world would continue to cohere, and she sang those fables to me," says Isadora (p. 358) as she and her sisters take stock after their grandmother dies.
Thelma. Tommy. Katherine. Grammy. All names for Isadora's elegant grandmother, the keeper and transmitter of family lore.   Green-eyed Thelma and petite blonde Katherine,  left by their suffragist mother Glenna in a Montana mining town, confident that they could and would do fine on their own. Artifacts: a Cantonese bowl, a Shakespeare textbook, a leather trunk. A string of tales about their strong-willed female forebears.
"It feels good to pretend," Tommy told Katherine. Tommy took Katherine's name and her high school diploma, went to New York, became a nurse, and married well. Once-Katherine became Patricia, went to California, married and lived less prosperously.   The family legends were polished the years. "My grandmother stepping sideways into her fictions through the doors of collapsible and colliding time." (382)

I so enjoyed The Imperfects that I checked out Meyerson's first novel.  

When Miranda's beloved but long-estranged Uncle Billy dies he bequeaths her Prospero Books, a bookstore in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. He also leaves her a literary scavenger hunt that will tell her about his past as well as hers. Though I guessed the mystery early on, I was intrigued to keep reading to get all the clues and the full story

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Linking up with Oh Scrap   Monday Making   Design Wall Monday

P.S.  At Illinois Beach State Park -- crabapples as yet undiscovered by the birds.