Valerean

After brooding for a week about the May tote for my calendar project, I got started by disassembling the black canvas bag I'm using as the foundation. I then spread it out on my cutting mat and arranged the vintage embroidered crazy quilt fragments and the heron block on it until I got the look I wanted. This will be the front side. This will be the back (I may rearrange the fragments one more time.) To give you an idea of how I'm going to put this tote together, here's a box top I embellished with a damaged vintage crazy quilt piece. I created the top by sewing the piece to some backing and batting, covered the patchwork damage with some lace, added embroidery to the places where the original needlework had worn away, and then quilted it with beads and added an old dragonfly brooch.

Although I'd never recommend Val McDermid for the faint of heart, the author is one of the best crime fiction writers on the market. It was a no brainer to pick up A Distant Echo , and while it's become a bit dated since its publication twenty-two years ago, it still kept me absorbed right up to the end. The novel is told in two timelines. First 1978, when the body of a young barmaid is discovered by four uni students in a Scottish cemetery. The only suspects in her brutal murder end up being the four boys who found her, and they all suffer greatly because of the incompetence of the police and the viciousness of the barmaid's brothers. All of them are changed forever by the incident. No one is ever charged with the murder. The second timeline is 25 years later, when the murder is reopened as a cold case. The four uni students are now grown men with careers and families; one has a pregnant wife. When two of them are murdered, it seems like the past has finally cau...

I want to say upfront that watching the Chinese historical romance drama Pursuit of Jade can become very addicting, and by the time you reach the final episode you'll wonder if you just spent a couple of years in the past watching all the fascinating characters play out their equally absorbing storylines. This series has become notorious for several reasons, including one of the most justifiably admired, show-stealing antagonists ever (my hat is off to Deng Kai, the actor who played the role, but we'll get to him shortly.) This story sprawls in different directions, but it basically follows the romance between Fan Changyu (Tian Xiwei), a female pig butcher with super human strength, and Xie Zheng,(Zhang Linghe), a wounded warrior she finds in the snow. Yes, I know, that doesn't sound appetizing, but in reality it's brilliant. Changyu believes her guy is simply an ordinary soldier who needs her help to recover and survive; Xie Zheng is in fact the Marquis of Wu...

This is one of my favorite purses, whichj developed a big shreddy hole in the back side from (I assume) rubbing against things as I've used it. It's a Vera Bradley I thrifted in a huge lot last year , so I paid only about $1.47 for it. I also certainly have enough purses to just get another from my Vera stash and use it, which I did. I really like this purse, though, so I decided to repair it, launder it and use it again. Since I didn't have any scraps that match the fabric of the purse, I went with a white dotted dark blue patch that goes fine with the floral print. I pinned down the patch in a rectangle and sewed it over the hole, reinforcing the edges with a blind stitch to give it extra strength. Here's the finished mend. Holes and fraying are common problems with vintage Vera Bradley products, as the fabric and thread used to make them is extremely thin and cheap. This purse was in new condition when I began using it back seven months ago. ...

For the May edition of my calendar tote project I decided to use a vintage embroidered crazy quilt patch I've been saving for a while. I'd like to do a theme of vintage embroidery with a black tote. Ordinary I avoid black, as it tends to be depressing, but this time it feels right. I did test the patch against a cream colored cutter quilt piece and while it does bring out the bird a little better I prefer how it looks with the black. I also got out my basket of vintage crazy quilt pieces to hunt through and see if there are some smaller bits of embroidery work I can incorporate. All of these came to me as cutter pieces, which kind of breaks my heart, but crazy quilts are well known to disintegrate, especially because of the types of dyes and the thin silks used during this era, so I feel lucky to have them anyway. The granny square I crocheted in Gumdrop silk yarn last month doesn't quite work with my idea. Neither do these blocks. These defi...

My guy and I saw this local fisherman when we went on a hike by one of the local lakes last week. If you'd like to see what else we did, check out my album of pics here .

A few famous authors who were my peers back in the day have been announcing their retirement lately; I won't name names because I don't want to attract their fan bases here. Let me just say that I completely understand what it is to cope with increasing mental and physical limits due to age and infirmity, and how hard a hit the ego takes because of that. They have my sincere sympathy. I don't have a retirement date set for myself just yet. It's getting closer, but I have not noticed any diminished capability on my part other than it takes me a little longer to get things done. I asked for and was given more time this year to work on my current big project for the day job. My editor and I have both acknowledged that we're in the winding down stage of the career, not that it matters when you're a writer for hire. No one knows that I'm the one writing these projects, so no one will miss the real me when I hang it up. Kind of nice that way. After writ...

On the thrifting front I'm doing a little at the online auction. I have an urge to paint again (I don't know why; I'm terrible at it), but all the art supplies I had are either dried up or too old to use, so I put in a bid on this lot of supplies. There are actually 20 journals in this lot, which I plan to make covers for, embellish and then give as gifts. This little quilt has the most charming primitive applique work I've seen in a while, and I'd love to add it to my collection. Stay tuned to the blog to see if I win any or all of these.

Last week the first of the corn crop arrived at the local farm where we shop for veggies, so we made a trip to buy a bag. Although we can get corn cheaper at the supermarket, this is one of the times when we don't worry about the expense. The first trip to the farm for corn is kind of the unofficial start to spring for me. We'll be making trips out every few weeks to shop at the farm now until they close for the summer. Why don't we buy our veggies where we can get them cheaper? Supporting our local farmers is more important to us than saving money. I didn't take a photo, but we bought a bag with a half-dozen ears of corn and a big basket of baby cucumbers. It was ten dollars. I shared half of the cucumbers with our neighbor, who has her son and his family visiting them. There isn't much we can do about the economy, or stopping corporations from destroying family businesses like the farm. All we can do is show our support by spending our money whe...

While I was on my break my guy and I went to the Sunday farmer's market in Clermont, and stumbled upon a small car show in a parking lot there. This 1967 Impala was identical to mine back in the day. My first car was an ambulance in the military; this one was my second when I got home. Mom owned it and gave it to me. Imagine parallel parking this boat. There were a lot of people there so I couldn't get many pics, but it was fun. We love to look at cars. This Jag was my dream car when I was a teenager (it's even the same green color as the one I lusted after.) The wood dash nearly made me swoon. I knew I'd never get one (and I was right) but it was okay to dream. I went after and got the biggest dream of my life in 1998, so that made up for all the Jags I didn't get. :)

I didn't get to do too much on my vacation, so I indulged in a shopping trip last week to wrap it up on a positive note, and acquired this beauty from an antique mall for basically a song. It's gorgeous, the palette is unique and it just said "Take me home with you so I can live on your couch before some pinhead buys me and I end up with as a cat quilt and get torn to pieces." The flowers are hand-stitched. Sigh. How could I resist? She'll be much happier with me anyway. At the same antique mall I got a nice bundle of green scrap fabrics very cheap; these are also a contender for the next tote in my calendar project. Finally we stopped by the Russel Stover outlet so I could buy a little sugarfree candy, and I found these new chocolates which are absolutely delicious. Great way to end my vacation. :)

Last night I slept almost seven hours, which hasn't been the case for a while. The nighttime decongestant I took probably helped, but I can't resort to those every night to combat my insomnia. I use the last hours of the day to crochet and get myself in a meditative state, and that's helpful when it's time to go to bed, too. I'm just battling on top of everything else chronic pain, a hamster wheel-running mind, and that ever-present old age reality that if I go to sleep I am not guaranteed to wake up again. Sleep is absolutely important at this stage of the game, so I'm working on changing up my evening routine to calm my thoughts and manage the pain problems. Meditation is my first resort. It's helped me throughout my life, but I've gotten away from it in favor of repetitive mindless tasks like sewing and crochet. I'll be meditating for a few minutes before I go to bed and see if that improves the quality of my sleep. Dressing comfortabl...

While I was wrapping up the spring cleaning I found not one but two blind date with a books that I was unable to gift to the intended recipients. Since those two folks are now out of my life I could have donated them, but where's the fun in that? These became my reward from the Universe for finishing the spring cleaning. :) Here's the first one, which was the Christmas paper wrapped bline date. Bit of trivia: one of the first novels I wrote was set in a carnival, and like haunted house stories I've always liked them. So, definitely looks interesting. And the second -- now I understand the brown paper wrapping. :) I love a good farce, especially if it's spicy romance, so this one should be fun to read. Thank you for my surprises, Universe!

Love Beyond the Grave tells an epic love story between a mortal warrior general Duan Xu (Chen Feiyu) and the ghostly sovereign of the spirit world He Si Mu (Dilraba Dilmurat) against a historical backdrop of war, scheming conspiracies in both worlds and terrible losses. Si Mu has incredible powers and commands respect from all the other immortals in the other world, while Duan Xu kind of has the same role in our world, and with as many if not more problems. This is a long 40-episode xuanhuan (general fantasy) story, and in a way it takes that long to play out the epic plot. Every time I thought these two could have some time for each other, fate decided otherwise. Duan Xu is quite noble, and temporarily gives up his senses so Si Mu can experience life as a mortal (she has never been mortal and has no senses of her own.) Meanwhile, Duan Xu is trying through his efforts to reclaim some territories taken over by the enemy to stabilize a very rocky governnment and help friends at ...

To cheer myself after the social media incident I went to one of my favorite antique malls and invested in four blind date/mystery items. Two are blind date with a book bundles ($8.00 each), one is a bag of mystery bracelets ($10.00) and the fourth is just a big mystery box of something green ($2.50 because the booth was having a half off sale.) The first blind date with a book bundle was labeled cozy mysteries, which I enjoy. I have not read either author so this was a nice surprise. I also got a bookmark, hand cream, tea, and stickers that were tucked in the folds of the wrapper. The second blind date bundle. I have read this author before, who pretty much writes the same story over and over, and I really don't care for that. But that's the gamble with blind dates. To be fair I'll read these anyway. The mystery bag of bracelets was the most expensive item, so I was hoping to be wowed. And I was! I don't have a lot of silver bracelets, so I...

I just emptied my personal e-mail box completely for the first time since 2017. Yes, it was stuffed with nine years of e-mails -- well, not every e-mail I received, of course. Fan mail, of course, and then some notes from a few friends that were nice. I also saved the not so nice ones, the kind with digs, veiled insults, and unkind remarks that hurt me from people who told me repeatedly that they were my friends. It took me a long time back then to end relationships with bullies and toxic people, and I would pour over those nasty e-mails, usually thinking I was reading into it too much because hey, they said they were my friends, right? After Mom died, the blinders finally fell off, and I saw people for who they were, not for who I hoped they were. That's when I began cutting ties so I could start my journey toward peace and calm, although at the time I didn't know that's what I was doing. I was aware that I should have gone through all my saved e-mails and ...

I'm not alone when I say shopping for groceries has become like a test to get into Mensa. We now shop at five markets, sometimes weekly, to hunt and find the best bargains. The other day I went to three of them in one day trying to find affordable groceries. Here are some of my recent discoveries: Although I am hesitant about buying any kind of meat from Wal-Mart, after seeing the price for lean ground beef had swelled to $13.00/lb. at the store where I usually buy it, in desperation I bought a pound of their lean ground beef to try. In my opinion after making a meal with it, this is not 93/7 beef. It's more like 90/10 judging by the amount of fat it shed. It was dry, tasteless and I got terrible indigestion just after I ate a very small portion of it (I actually don't eat red meat very often, so that may be the real culprit.) Final thoughts: no more Wal-Mart ground beef for me and mine. Decent corn on the cob is very tough to find. I wanted to make it wit...