needle & thREAD

Katie has a new sundress. Almost;-). It's pinned where the buttons should be. She said she wants snaps instead of buttons and I don't yet know how to do snaps. So, today, I'll look to YouTube for snap tutorials.

Katie's dress is made of California Girl by Joanna Figuera. I love this line. I originally bought the fabric for myself, but I'm quilting with it, too, and I didn't want to have a blouse that looked like my quilt. On the other hand, Katie did a darling job choosing her fabric combination. And, well, I might just do a blouse yet.

I have taken a page from Charlotte Mason's book these days, or from Karen Andreola's wisdom on Charlotte, "I always keep three books going that are just for me - a stiff book, a moderately easy book, and a novel or one of poetry. I always take up the one I feel fit for. That is the secret: always have something 'going' to grow by." 

I'm still reading The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After and highlighting carefully so I can better share it with my teenaged daughter. I think I may have inadvertantly mislead some of you last week. It's not a guide to Jane Austen books. Rather, it's a guide to finding love, in the style of the best Jane Austen heroines. It's an exceptionally good commentary on current culture. It probably deserves a post all its own.

I've just begun to read What Happened to Sophie Wilder? This one was written by Alice Teti's brother. I'm taking a chance here, because I go into it with the full knowledge that there is cancer in the story. And I don't do cancer. However, this review really drew me in and I think I can do this. Maybe. As Alice reminded me, "Sometimes I am not up for an emotional journey with a book in the midst of the emotional journey that is actual life, but often I am better for it." Here's hoping.

Finally, I'm listening to Reasons to Believe when I sew. I like to have an audio book  in the sewing room; it helps me not to grow restless.

 

What about you? Sewing? Reading? A little of both? What's on your summer reading list? Do you have a summer sewing list?  Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and theREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and theREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

needle & thREAD

Hello, sewing friends!

I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and theREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and theREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. Do visit the Flickr page. There's some amazing needlework there.

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

I've read two Grace Livingston Hill books in the last week (much reading between soccer games--bliss out in the sunshine, on a blanket, under an umbrella). The first, The Mystery of Mary, was like a novella you'd expect to find in a women's magazine. There was very little plot or character development and it was fairly implausible. It didn't take long to read it, though, so I'm none the worse for the wear. The second, A Voice in the Wilderness, was far better. The storyline was more believable than The Enchanted Barn, the first GLH I read. Set in the Arizona desert, the cast of characters was well developed and the plot was strong. There were lots of little nuggets I enjoyed.

Grace Livingston Hill has a definite "formula." Young women of strong Christian character and independent spirit bring dashing young men to the Lord and the young men, in turn, protect and defend them in the moment and forever. It's wholesome entertainment, I suppose, but this week, I'm going to take a little GLH break and look at some of your other suggestions from previous weeks.

After I finish putting my house in order.  :-)

Incidentally, I think that GLH does inspire attention to homemaking and that's a very fine thing. There's also a wonderful inspiration to feminine loveliness. 

I'm also powering through Hail, Holy Queen because I promised myself that I'd read it this May. And I only have a few hours left. 

I haven't gotten much sewing done--actually no sewing at all. I have managed to wash fabric and trace patterns and cut out one of the six jumpers I have planned. I promised the little girls two sundresses each by mid-June. So, beginning tomorrow, sewing binge:-) 

Hold me to it, friends. Next week's post should have much sewing and perhaps a wee bit less reading.

Joy in the Ordinary

Yesterday, I mentioned that until very recently, I hadn't read a fiction-for-Mama book in over twenty years. I used to inhale fiction until, inexplicably, when I had cancer, I no longer had any inclination to crack a volume that wasn't a non-fiction book, unless I was previewing for or reading with a child.

Someone suggested yesterday that fiction requires an emotional investment. Indeed. And I'm just so emotionally invested so many places that investing in fictional books (or even movies, for that matter, much to my husband's chagrin) doesn't come easily for me. 

I sort of got hoodwinked into this one.

Theresa Fisher approached me and asked if she could run an ad for her new book. All of the sponsors on my blog offer something I think will benefit my readers. I don't offer sponsorship unless I think I'm passing along information you can use. In order to have Theresa as a sponsor, I had to read her book. The whole thing. No way around it. I was going to have to immerse myself in the lives of these characters until the very end. 

I read the introduction standing in my kitchen, stirring dinner. Without reading further, I emailed Theresa and told her I'd love to have her! Then, I got up early one morning and read the rest. Children awakened. I waved them in the direction of the kitchen. I may or may not have finally caved and let them watch Doc McStuffins. I finished before our 10:00 rosary walk. 

It was a sweet, gentle story of Joyce Barrett, who spends a year as a postulant, thinking that God was calling her to become a nun. When she discerns that she's not called to the convent, she leaves and goes back to the ordinary world. She is plunked down in rural Indiana in a big, Irish Catholic homeschooling family. I felt myself pulled into the comfortable familiarity of a wholesome Catholic story as her life was woven together with threads of parish life, family life, and life at the family-run pub. 

The book is lovely and easily one I can hand to my teenaged daughter. It's a simple story, but the themes resonated long after I finished it and the characters were ones I found myself caring to know. Honestly, I fought the urge to call Theresa and beg her to just tell me the story she's planning for a sequel. 

I know this book isn't destined to be the next great classic. I also know that it had all the elements of a lovely, Christian novel that I noted in the Grace Livingston Hill book I read next. For me, the fact that its characters are earnestly, wholeheartedly Catholic made it all the better. Furthermore, Joy in the Ordinary is a story that's entirely plausible. It didn't require the same stretch of willful suspension of disbelief that the GLH book required. And the children in Joy in the Ordinary were entirely believable. I felt like these were folks who could easily live next door.  I wish they did:-).

The paperback is available at Amazon. The Kindle version is a well-worth-it bargain. It's only 99 cents! For 99 cents, you can have a three -cups -of-tea-morning, where you let the children watch a cartoon or two, and click your Kindle closed with a happy sigh. Go ahead, do it!

~ ~ ~Giveaway Details~ ~ ~

Theresa Fisher  is a happily married wife and homeschooling mother.  With six children at home, she and her husband enjoy an extraordinary ordinary life of lovable chaos.   Mrs. Fisher enjoys writing and knitting, keeping up with the family blog, and drinking coffee.  She dreams of owning a self-sustaining hobby farm someday.  Meanwhile, she's trying to keep a tomato plant alive.  Joy in the Ordinary is her first novel.

Go visit her blook blog or her family blog. Leave her a comment and let her know you were there. Come back here and let me know you "met" her. You'll be eligible to win an autographed copy of Joy in the Ordinary.

needle & thREAD

Hello, sewing friends!

I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and theREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and theREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr.

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

~ ~

I finished up the machine sewing on last week's tunic. All that remains now is the handsewing of the facing all the way around the front and back yoke. Um. As soon as I learn what a whipstitch is. Alrighty then.

When we read (and read and read and reread) Crafty Chloe, I promised my girls that we would make doll dresses just like Chloe did. I planned to do all three on one day, letting each of them help with their own, but  I only finished Karoline's. It's amazing how much more slowly this project goes with help;-) Katie does have one from the fall. Sarah Annie doesn't have an 18 inch doll. She's got some lovely baby dolls, though. I need to find a pattern for a baby doll outfit. Anyone have one of those?

It turns out that Karoline's doll will match two of her outfits: both her twirly skirt and her Easter dress were made from Ruby by Bonnie and Camille. Since Karoline chooses that fabric every time she has a choice, I think it's safe to say she's a big fan. And she's got excellent taste. I probably would have chosen a different color thread for the ric-rac, but hey, can't argue with "that's my favorite color ever" and "it matches my eyes." I did, however, deny her request for a matching sundress, even though the pattern for girls is free, too.

I loved working with this free pattern so much. May I just pause here and tell you how much I appreciate Oliver + S and Liesl Gibson's patterns? I've made the Lazy Days Skirts, the capes in Oliver + S: Little Things to Sew, those wonderful Easter dresses, and two of these doll Popover Sundresses. In the context of working with the patterns, I've learned so much. There is just such attention to detail. It seems that every project I've tried has taught me a skill I've carried into projects that aren't Liesl Gibson patterns. I've got to think that's the mark of a good designer, a good teacher, and a good writer. I'm so grateful.

In the reading department, I'm trying to read quickly through a substantial stack of gardening, small plot farming books:

The BackYard Berry Book

The Backyard Orchardist  

The Family Kitchen Garden

The Edible Front Yard

The Essential Urban Farmer

Ooh, and I see The Paper Garden snuck into the picture, too. I saw that at Beth's during a needle & thREAD visit. Tucking away to little read a little of that gem, here and there;-)

So, what about you? What have you been up to this week? Reading, sewing, embroidering? Do share.

Higgins Bend Song and Dance (and a recipe)

A new fishing pier just opened in our neighborhood. We haven't caught anything (yet), but it's definitely a favorite desitination. It was fun to go down there recently and read a favorite fish tale, Higgins Bend Song and Dance.

Higgins Bend Song and Dance is the silly story of outlandish efforts to catch an elusive catfish. The illustrations are big and boisterous and so is the story. It's the kind of book that would have bothered me when I was little because it is so not-true. But it delights my children because, well, I don't know why. What makes a child better equipped to enjoy flights of fancy?

Our fishing pier is on a lake, so we didn't go all out and do river things. But we did talk about the critters who live near our lake. I printed this picture of a great blue heron (our are pretty fabulous) and then read at this site. I clicked on anatomy and showed them the picture and asked them to label their coloring sheets. 

We talked about catfish, cheat sheet here. And then we tried our hands at drawing them. Drawings were watercolored. My intention was to do the actual watercoloring on the pier and use lake water, but it was too windy.

Finally, we made up our own tall tales. Again, the children are much better at that then I am. I think I struggle with willful suspension of disbelief.

That's about it for this book, here. Higgins Bend Song and Dance is a Five in a Row selection, so I'm sure there are all kinds of ideas out there if you want to make a whole week of it. We just did our little afternoon and then responded affirmatively to incessant requests for it at bedtime recently.

And I see a lot of fishing in my summertime future. 

Since I didn't get to a recipe earlier this week, how about fish now?

Baked Fish with Lemon and Capers

• 8 tilapia fillets
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted (we've discovered Kerrygold butter, oh my!)
• 3 or 4 cloves garlic , finely chopped
• 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh  parsley flakes
• 2 Tablespoons capers
• a generous dash of white wine, if you like
• pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease the pan with olive oil.
2. Rinse tilapia filets under cool water, and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Place fillets in baking dish. Pour lemon juice over fillets, then drizzle butter on top. Sprinkle with garlic, parsley, capers, wine, and pepper.
4. Bake until the fish is white and flakes when pulled apart with a fork, about 30 minutes.

I'm serving with roasted asparagus and a big salad.

 For more about our Storybook Year, read here.