Catch and Release

I don't waste my time on American film productions anymore, but To Catch a Killer caught my eye, and was a fairly quick watch. It's a crime thriller involving a manhunt for a very effective sniper who is committing mass murders in Baltimore, with a troubled female patrol cop and an unusual FBI Special Agent who connect with each other and team up to find the killer.

The story was pretty well thought-out and only suffered from the fact that there wasn't enough time to do more with the characters. The politics and misogyny are annoying but probably realistic. There are plenty of bodies if you like seeing bunches of people killed. I thought the FBI agent was the most interesting character, and Ben Mendelsohn artfully managed an atypical portrayal that I enjoyed a lot. I was also surprised to find out he's Australian; the guy nailed the American accent perfectly.

Problems: Well, a few. I doubt someone as troubled as the lead female would really be hired as a police officer, especially considering her personal issues and past history. The killer's motives seemed implausible to me; they relied too heavily on the Charles Whitman stereotype. The female cop's past trauma is never really spelled out, so everything she had suffered remained gray and vague for me. Some characters like the killer's mother deserved a bigger role in the story, but again, time constraints probably factored in.

I'd recommend this film despite its flaws, so if you want to watch To Catch a Killer check it out on Netflix.

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...

Valerean

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