Weekly update: It's May! stash report, asterisks, OMG -- and good books

 

Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev'ryone goes
Blissfully astray.  

 I did say, "Rabbit, rabbit!" first thing today but I also remember listening to Julie Andrews sing The Lusty Month of May on our Broadway cast recording of Camelot.   

We are over the Covid sniffles and sneezes and out of the five-day isolation.  I took a follow up test at the walk-in clinic and was given the same advice as online, but so much better to hear it in person:  for the next five days (to Wednesday), wear a close-fitting mask.  Definitely!  (BTW, I think I know where we were exposed. We saw a friend who gave us hugs.) 

Our area has had sufficient rain this season to move us from "exceptional drought" to "abnormally dry."  

Despite the showers I was able to get two good long walks this week.  One of my routes was too wet to traverse! 

 Here are the first wildflower photos of the season. 

Top:  bloodroot (its red-brown sap can be used as a dye, the app said), pussy willow catkin in bloom

Bottom: sweet celandine (now an invasive weed), white fawn lily (a type of trout lily)

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The April stash report:

Fabric IN   1-1/2 yards, $0 (guild giveaway table)

Fabric OUT    36-3/4 yards

YTD Fabric IN: 80-5/8 yards, $228  ($2.82/yard)

YTD Fabric OUT:  203-3/8   (yes!!)

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I made 93 asterisk blocks and assembled 90 of them in the flimsy. 

  

I try to avoid two-of-the-same touching but I didn't discover these until I had them sewn. No one will ever notice.

The blocks are 6" finished. There's no border. 54 x 60.  It's under the needle now!  

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Here is the stack of finished-but-unlabeled quilts I have accumulated.  Labeling them is my May One Monthly Goal.   A secondary goal is to find a home for many of them.  (There are 19 unlabeled quilts in this photo. I have more quilts, with labels, in the back room.)  

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Speaking of asterisks, here is a visual and intellectual feast for anyone who likes typography and typographic history.   Author Michael Arndt shows correct punctuation according to U.S., Britain/Commonwealth, and other countries.  Among the many interesting bits of information:  the head of the question mark faces right in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, but it faces left in Hebrew, though all four are written right to left.   The 'okina is the punctuation mark that indicates a glottal stop in Polynesian languages -- you see it written " Hawai'i " and that's the okina. (My computer type uses a single quote, but typographically it is an individual glyph.)  Ampersand, the "and sign," comes an English/Latin mashup:  "and per se and."  And more!

Who murdered Jay Gatsby? In the original novel the culprit is George Wilson, husband of Myrtle who was killed when Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby ran into her while driving Gatsby's car. As you learned when you read The Great Gatsby in high school, the story is not that simple. Jillian Cantor explores the motives of all the women in the novel -- Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson and her sister Catherine.   The characters are much more fully-portrayed in this version than they were in the original novel. Very intriguing.

Wednesday evening I was in a Zoom book discussion (The Vanishing Half, reviewed last week). One of the participants said her in-person book group had enjoyed talking about Anxious People earlier in April.  I've had the ARC (advance reader copy) on the TBR table for nearly two years -- time to read it!  

"Everyone loves someone, and anyone who loves someone has had those desperate nights where we lie awake trying to figure out how we can afford to carry on being human beings. Sometimes that makes us do things that seem ridiculous in hindsight, but which felt like the only way out at the time." (p.2)
One December 30 in a small Swedish city a would-be bank robber botches the job The bank robber runs and ends up at an apartment open house. Is it a hostage situation? The police (father and son) investigate. They interview everyone: the frantic realtor, the young couple (whose baby is due soon), the older couple (still married, but happily?), the emotionally stunted businesswoman, the sweet-but-deceptive old lady, and the man in the rabbit costume. At times it seems like an extended "who's on first?" routine. At times it seems like a ship of fools remake (random strangers all in one place when something big happens).      In the end, "We're doing the best we can...We're looking for something to cling to, something to fight for, something to look forward do...We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine....[But] we made it through this day as well." (335)

Linking up with Oh Scrap!  One Monthly Goal    Monday Making    Design Wall Monday