Weekly update: rain, shine + goals met + reading

Wildflowers at Pine Dunes (Saturday) and Ethel's Woods (Sunday).  Top: monarda (bee balm), purple coneflower, pickerel weed. Center: compass plant, Queen Anne's lace, false sunflower.  Bottom: butterfly weed, Culver's root, swamp milkweed.

 Just as forecast, thunderstorms rolled in Friday afternoon, rolled out, and more rain overnight. Saturday dawned sunny and I had a great 2-mile walk at Pine Dunes in the morning.  Later in the day the rain returned and the temperatures dropped.  I didn't want to bundle up and sit on wet grass (even in a chair on wet grass) to watch the Zion festivities (concert and fireworks).  Instead I watched 1776, the musical, which was filmed in 1972. It was the first time I'd seen it.  Fun! ** see below

As I watched I sewed, of course.   Here's what I finished.

A July goal:   Double Delight, this month's Top-along pattern.  No shirts in this one -- all cut from yardage.   4 yards used. 

Another July goal:   coin blocks in aqua, the July RSC color.  You can see the pattern in the photo.  It's from Quiltmaker.

Sunday evening's sewing included making four mug rugs for the ongoing P.E.O. project.  I had the basket blocks, the fused daisies, and the green backgrounds on hand. 

I've finished four of the books I brought back from the ALA conference.  All the authors are new for me.  

Things in Nature Merely Grow -- awarded the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction.  Li writes about her sons' suicides not to ask for pity, or sympathy, or any external acknowledgement (especially from people she doesn't know) but to express her pain, grief, and love.  Achingly beautiful, profoundly vulnerable.

A Plea for Freedom -- I chatted with the author who wrote the story of his ggg-grandfather, a Revolutionary War soldier.  It was engaging.

The Spirits -- one of the Library Reads selections. (Publication date: October.) A riff on Dickens' Christmas Carol, set in rural Michigan.  The Whitby family uneasily deals with their individual reactions to the accidental (or was it?) death of their abusive father/husband nine years before.  Many twists and turns.

West of Loveland -- publication date November 3.   The story begins when Rocky and his aunt/guardian Helen discover a revolver by the side of the road.   Whose is it?  How did it get there?   The answer is spun out over 356 pages with an interesting cast of characters, each of whom has a backstory.  The writing rambles aimiably and, just as in real life, it gets to the conclusion eventually.    WOW!!   This is the fourth in his (fictional) Grouse County series.  I wish I had discovered Tom Drury years ago -- I've got a lot to catch up on and I know I'll enjoy every page.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday Sew and Tell Monday Musings So Scrappy Oh Scrap!

**  Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson was a significant character in the musical.  He abstained from signing the Declaration of Independence.  I wasn't familiar with him (other than guessing correctly that Dickinson College was named for him).  The Sunday Chicago Tribune republished a NYT story about the recent discovery of a cache of documents by Dickinson. They'd been among family papers handed down to his gggg-nephew in London. "The new material might help counter the prevailing impression [from the musical] that Dickinson was a "piddling genius" [John Adams said]."