Midweek: eclipse, National Library Week + hollyhocks

 It was cloudless and 65 degrees on Monday -- perfect for viewing the eclipse.  We were in the 94% totality region.  I had to explain to Stevens why we were out in the back yard. He went back inside after a while. I stayed out for all of it.   I had only my iPhone and no special filter so my snapshots don't show much.

It did not get dark here but the quality of the sunlight changed, the temperature dropped slightly, and a breeze kicked up.     

Photo: holding iPhone up to the lens of the eclipse glasses.  

 

This chipmunk was motionless for a couple of minutes. 

This photo was at about halfway.  There's a thumbnail sliver to the right of the sun -- a planet?   apparently just a reflection from the camera lens.

  

Crescent-shaped shadows on the patio.   I wish I'd remembered to bring out the colander.

My sister and I remembered an eclipse when we were kids. I looked it up: July 20, 1963. Our dad made a viewer out of a cardboard box (no eclipse glasses then). He projected the crescent onto the inside wall of the garage —it was about 3” — and traced around it. That image was there forevermore. (Like a prehistoric cave drawing.)

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It's National Library Week! How are YOU celebrating the libraries and librarians in your life?

On Monday evening I went to the Millburn School District board meeting. The board is reconsidering participation in the statewide Rebecca Caudill Award , a program in which 4th-8th graders vote on books to be recognized. Last month ONE board member said that ONE book on LAST YEAR'S list was "too political" and wanted to discontinue it all.   He got three other board members to vote with him. [Apparently they did not read the book, nor did they discuss it.] Decision is pending.

The audience at the meeting were all opposed to that action and all in favor of continuing participation. Photo: with my friend and colleague Deb, librarian at ZBTHS and president of the school librarians assn. in Illinois. And of course I took photos of the paper quilts hung in the hallway!

Left: the book.

On Tuesday morning Zion Woman's Club brought donuts to the staff at Zion-Benton Public Library for Library Workers' Day. ZWC led the effort to establish the Zion Memorial Public Library in 1937.

Tuesday afternoon I moderated the monthly Reading Sisters (P.E.O.) Zoom book club. We talked about Early Morning Riser which I reviewed in this post.

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In the studio: the hollyhocks wall hanging is finished! I can check that off the to-do list and contemplate starting something new. Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss Midweek Makers

Weekly update: out and about, eclipse day, goal progress + reading

Today is eclipse day.  Though I'm writing this post beforehand I hope to get some photos to add this afternoon.   

We two Rotarians had Kiwanis pancakes at the Moose lodge -- that's cultural diversity.   I bought $30 in raffle tickets and won three baskets.  (I've already donated one to another community group for their upcoming spaghetti dinner fundraiser.) 

 We enjoyed a concert Sunday afternoon.  Great covers of Sinatra and other classic vocals.  

My program had one of the winning stickers for a door prize, a dessert from a local bakery.  

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In the studio:  a quick start-and-finish:  a placemat for the guild charity project. 

My April OMG is a hollyhock wall hanging.  I chose a realistic design rather than a country folk art design. The pattern arrived mid-week.  

 I had all the fabric in my stash, including a never-used package of stabilizer (estate sale, probably).  

The tedious part was tracing all the shapes on fusible web. The instructions were very clear as to which shapes went on which of the 9 different fabrics, and then which shapes composed each flower and leaf.

 

And here's the flimsy. After fusing the appliques in place I free-motioned to sew them all down.   The finished size is 9 x 22.      

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In 1965 teen-aged Frances Adams has her fortune told at a country fair. That prediction dominates the rest of her life, affecting her friendships with Rose and Emily and the boys they're hanging out with.  Emily goes missing. The case goes cold.   Frances marries the wealthiest man in the village and spends the next decades trying to solve, or evade, or confront that long-ago fortune.                                                                                                                             Sixty-five years later Annie, Frances' great niece and an aspiring writer, receives notice that she will be an heir to Frances' estate. She travels from London to the village to meet with Frances and her attorney. When she arrives Frances is dead -- murdered.  According to the fortune?  Perhaps.  By whom?                                                                                                           By the terms of Frances' revised will Annie may inherit the estate -- if she solves the murder before anyone else.   Annie's up for the challenge. 

What a delightfully complicated mystery!

I have been fascinated by Martha Ballard's story since Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published her scholarly biography/explication A Midwife's Tale in 1990.  Ballard was a midwife in Hallowell, Maine, in the 1700's.   At the time I was a librarian in Maine and on the Maine Library Commission so I was familiar with its (re)discovery.                                                                                                                                                                At first I approached Lawhon's novel thinking it was biographical fiction--that is, a reworking of Ulrich's study with added narrative.   I soon switched my thinking and treated the novel as historical fiction-- that is, using Martha Ballard, her profession, her family, and her milieu as the basis for a story about the ways that men used their power (social, political, physical) to abuse women. The brutal rape of the pastor's wife showcases that abuse.  Details about everyday life add dimension:  Martha's medical expertise goes beyond midwifery to a sort of holistic care (treating a woman's migraines, for example).  There is dramatic tension in her own family with a threat to her husband's livelihood (a fraudulent attempt by those same men-in-power) and her young adult children's lives and loves.    

I would have given The Frozen River a higher rating but there were a number of errors/anachronisms. Once I found the first one I kept looking for others, and found them.  

The most egregious to me as a quilt maker was on p. 193:  “Every year I make an extra quilt, sewn in bits and pieces at night before the fire…every year I choose this same pattern. It is called Wedding Rings, soft loops intertwined and set against a pale background with a solid border.”   As you know, Double Wedding Ring is a 20th century pattern.  Moreover, 18th century quilts are well-documented. The author could easily have looked up images of period-correct quilts and described them.

 62 & 144 – Ephraim “does the math”   Grammarist.com says:  “'Do the math' is a relatively recent addition to the English language, with its usage traceable to the mid-20th century.”

 68 wedding ring (worn by a man)  https://academic.oup.com/jsh/article-abstract/36/4/837/920111?

“The American double wedding ring ceremony can be traced to the 1940’s and 1950’s when the jewelry industry invented the tradition of the groom’s wedding band and the marrying public adopted it with a vengeance.”

71 & elsewhere “trained medical professional” – would this term be used in 1789? 

115 bolt of soft blue cotton / 117 bolt of pale green silk

http://americancenturies.mass.edu/activities/dressup/notflash/1700_woman.html

“their clothing would usually be made of wool or linen”

Other references to New England apparel at that time indicate that silk was very expensive and was difficult to clean.  A silk dress would be for a very special occasion. How likely was that for Martha in that place and time? 

165 “read the Book of Common Prayer”  The Ballards were Congregational.  Why would they read the Anglican prayer book (especially in post-Revolutionary Maine) rather than the Bible?  

 297 "okay" https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12503686  "On 23 March 1839, OK was introduced to the world on the second page of the Boston Morning Post, in the midst of a long paragraph, as "o.k. (all correct)".

337 “Cotton to comb” – did they import raw cotton from the southern states to central Maine? 

412/415 “ Live oak tree.”    Live oaks do not grow in Maine.  That’s easy to look up.

P.S. Speaking of editing and proofreading!   (This is the background fabric for the placemat.) 

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

Weekly update: vintage finds and I Spy finished

I went to a couple of estate sales on Friday. One was right here, in the town where I've lived since 2003, but I had no idea the house was there (nor did I know the family). The other was in Kenosha off a busy highway that I've traveled many times.  I spent a total of $49.

Six unused linen tea towels, a Land's End canvas tote (price tag still attached and silica dessicant packet inside), six new-in-box Sheffield stainless steak knives that we will put to use, an Aynsley bone china vase, and . . .







A cross-stitch quilt kit in the original package.


















Three two-yard pieces of vintage cotton, one of which has the original purchase price. (You can see the third piece in the first picture.)






The trims came with a useful plastic box, $5 for all.  I sorted out the still-in-package from the wrapped-around-cardboard.  I wasn't familiar with all of these brands.  Note the rayon rick rack. Nowadays Wrights, etc., rick rack is polyester. Cotton rick rack is still available but it's more of a specialty item, not on the pre-packaged racks.

(I wrote about vintage trims here.)

The I Spy quilt is my August One Monthly Goal.  I finished it Saturday evening.  The blocks are 8" finished.  (The center squares are 4.5" unf. and the border squares are 2.5" unf.  No duplicates!)

Link ups:
Monday Making
Oh Scrap!
Main Crush Monday
Design Wall Monday

One Monthly Goal Finish

P.S.  The eclipse glasses arrived Sunday afternoon -- just in time for the big event Monday!