Weekly update: a flimsy, scrappy backgrounds, an unexpected finish, and reading

 

Red Baskets is a flimsy!  

I thought I'd counted out 800 HSTs for the sashes but I had to make more, and more again.  

I purchased a "retro" print for the border (Lori Holt) but it didn't work. I searched my stash and, voila -- a contemporary print that has just the right amount of white and red to be compatible with the 30's prints.  

6-1/2 yards by weight.  82 x 82.

I liked the effect of the crumb background for the Modern Mini (see last week) so much that I pieced two similar panels.  They'll be ready when the Applique Fairy comes to visit.  

Left:  gray 1-1/2" strips left over from last summer's wedding quilt  

I put both on dark fabric so you can see them.

Right:  a lot of neutrals. 

Both of these efforts helped me consolidate scraps. 

Last spring our guild hosted a Zoom workshop with Eleanor Levie.  She taught us how to weave a quilt .  I finished the weaving and put the sample aside.  Now it's a tote bag.   I will add books to the bag and donate it to an upcoming fundraiser.  

The back of the bag is similar-but-different since it's the other half of the woven panel.

My tote bags always turn out higher and narrower than I'd like. I must figure that out....

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(Nancy Pearl, reader's advisor extraordinaire, recommended this. I'm SO glad I took her up on it.)

Laird Hunt's crystalline prose is perfect -- not too much, not too little, precisely enough. I wanted to read fast to find out what would happen but I wanted to pull back to savor every single word. I was reminded of Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Strout, and Marilynne Robinson.

Zorrie Underwood was an extraordinarily ordinary woman and that is the heart of this story.

She was born in 1909 in a small town in Indiana, orphaned young, and raised by a strict and unyielding older aunt. When her aunt died and left nothing she found a job at the Radium Dial Co. in Ottawa, Illinois, where she made friends and unwittingly exposed herself to carcinogens. "Back home in Indiana" was a stronger pull and she returned. She married a local man and kept up their farm after his death in WWII. She befriended her neighbors and their emotionally damaged son. Months turned into years and years turned into decades. "You have to come to terms with things, but not by carrying them out to the field and burying them under the beans" (53). That practical attitude did not preclude imagination or emotion; rather, it centered Zorrie and allowed her to carry on with some regrets, small delights, and love on many levels.

How many of us have our own versions of Zorrie's story?

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This is the February selection for the P.E.O. online book club. They've arranged for the author to visit. 

1950's, northern India. Lakshmi escapes from an abusive marriage to seek an independent life in the metropolis of Jaipur. Over ten years she grows her business painting henna designs and providing herbal remedies, especially to enhance fertility. Her hidden business is providing herbal abortifacients. Lakshmi's success for all of these endeavors depends on word of mouth endorsements by her affluent women clients. Her hard-won success takes a sharp turn when her teenaged sister Radha arrives. The two have a difficult adjustment. Bad judgment and gossip compromise Lakshmi's business and her very independence. There are more sharp turns but Lakshmi is resilient. The proverbial closed door leads to wide-open windows with new possibilities.

The sequel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, was published last summer.  I'll pick it up at the library today.

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Linking up with Design Wall Monday  Monday Making