Friday check in: estate sale, WIP, convention bound, + reading

 

Tuesday was month #8 of Barb M's estate sale.  Not as much yardage this time -- stacks of books and many, many, many WIPs in ziploc bags.  

Here's what I purchased.   Average $1.62 per yard by weight.

# # # # #

Slab block construction continues. I've pretty much decided to make 90 blocks for a 54 x 60 quilt.   10 to go.

# # # # #

No sewing this evening. I'll be at the AAUW-IL state convention at Elgin Community College.   My sister invited me to spend the night at her house (about 10 miles from the convention).   Our housekeeper V will be here this afternoon until after supper and all day tomorrow.

I'm turning over a box and a bag of files.  The black bag holds the stand for the raffle quilt.

# # # # #

Our Rotary Club and many in our community are devastated by Jake's tragic death on Monday in a freak accident.  He was 34 and is survived by his wife and four children, his beloved grandmother, and a large extended family.  Jake's grandfather, Jack, started our annual Rotary golf outing and Jake stepped up as club president and outing chairman in Jack's honor. 

# # # # #

The Girlfriend Book Club (AARP) had a FB live interview with Ariel Lawhon on Tuesday evening.  She talked about how she discovered Martha Ballard, the subject of The Frozen River, and the research she did. The moderator posed general questions.  My questions about some of the details in the book were not answered.  (Though I did get a FB message from a woman saying she is a quilter and she knows for sure that there are 18th century Double Wedding Ring quilts in a Vermont museum.   I am not going to press the point (pun?) any further.)

However, the undisputed part about The Frozen River is the rape and murder trial that Martha Ballard testified to.   By coincidence I had checked out The Sewing Girl's Tale  by John Wood Sweet  It is about the first documented rape trial in 1793 in New York (four years after The Frozen River).    

Lanah Sawyer was a 17-year-old seamstress who was enticed by Harry Bledsoe, a dissolute young 'gentleman,' and brutally raped.  Rather than hiding her shame, she pressed charges against Bledsoe.   Sweet meticulously documents everything:  the milieu of early Federal period Manhattan, her stepfather's profession as a pilot (guiding large ships into harbor),  the sexual underworld of the time and not the least the judicial system. (Alexander Hamilton was among the lawyers involved.)    The jury found Bledsoe not guilty for rape but guilty of seduction.   Lanah Sawyer married (1800 census) and then disappeared from the historical record.   

Our AAUW Reflections on Reading group will discuss Cultish in May.  Montell writes about the way that language is used by cults to cultivate insiderness.  Cults, she maintains, are not only religions (Scientology, Branch Davidian, etc.) but also many multi-level marketing companies.   I'm sure our discussion will be interesting.

"The June book is a long one," the Reflections chair reminded us, so I checked it out this month.......and I stayed up far too late three nights in row to read it!  

Demon Copperhead is as good as everyone has said.  It's a retelling of David Copperfield, set in Appalachian Virginia.  

Now it's time to read something lighter (and shorter).  I have a TBR (to-be-read) stack waiting for me.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday     Have a good weekend, everyone!