Miscellany and Book Reviews

Wednesday night was the meeting of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild that we were supposed to have our Dresden Plate quilt finished. Thank goodness I was not the only one who was struggling to meet the deadline and it was extended to Sunday at 5PM, but that is it. So I have to get cracking on finishing my quilt!

I decided on Tuesday that I should take off on Wednesday to get my blocks finished and my top assembled. Tuesday night, I stayed up late sewing and then Wednesday I sewed all day! I got the quilt top all assembled except for the outermost border just in time to leave for the meeting and show off my progress.

When I got home from the meeting, I was so pumped about seeing everyone else's quilts that I was determined to get the outer border on my quilt and make my backing so that I could get it loaded on the frame. I turned on my computer and that was the end of my Wednesday night. I did get the border strips cut and one side sewn on.

Last night - Thursday night - I had plans to finish the border and practice quilting a little, but then I started reading and decided just before 9 that I was petered out and I went to bed and read and fell asleep.

I didn't even post book reviews. See below.

Right now, it is almost 8 and I am trying to avoid news reports and the tv. I feel awful for the families that were affected by today's tragedy in Connecticut, but if I tune into anything... Well, let's just say that if there is one thing that I learned this week, it is that I am easily distracted by the TV.

As soon as I get this posted, I am going to work on the borders and the backing and then the tension on my quilt machine. I hope I can make time for all of it. And as soon as I get the borders on the quilt, I can take a picture and share it. :)

Hell Gate is the 12th book in the Alexandra Cooper series by Linda Fairstein. Alex is the sex crimes ADA in NYC and partners with homicide detective Mike Chapman and sex crimes detective Mercer Wallace to solve heinous crimes in the city. There is a shipwreck of a shore in the city and dozens of people are injured with several bodies already being washed ashore. One body has a tattoo that indicates she is property in a prostitution ring.

Mercer show up late to the shipwreck due to a seemingly unrelated domestic incident involving a congressman and his mistress. Then, the mistress disappears and winds up at the bottom of a well.

There was a lot of political talk in this book that didn't seem to make a lot of sense until the end of the story. I ended up tuning a lot of stuff out since it didn't seem to be going anywhere. In the end, things fell together, but there were a lot of characters in the novel and it was difficult for me to keep things straight which isn't normal for this series. I also think that Mike's normally friendly digs at Alex are starting to get mean spirited and I wonder if it has something to do with his lack of a love life in the last couple of books. I hope that Fairstein gets him straightened out soon!

The Giving Quilt is the latest in the Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini. For me, my only gripe about these novels has been that the books are not in any sort of order for a series and that the main characters in the first few books are not really the common characters anymore. Now that I have started thinking of the series in terms of the estate being the one constant, it is a little easier to not worry that the last book jumped ahead in time by 20 years and killed off many of the original characters. (Sorry for the spoiler for anyone who hasn't read that one yet!)

In this book, the estate is around 20 years younger than the last book in the series and there is a quilt camp for Quiltsgiving. The story follows several of the attendees for the week as they open themselves up to friendship and giving while attending a free week at quilt camp.

I think that the idea of this book is that everyone has personal issues and struggles that they are facing, but there is always room to give. There were some hot topics included in the personal struggles - the economy and local politics and city budgeting - but when you are in a book, everything comes up roses. I do enjoy reading the books in this series as it is a nice break from the normal murders and mysteries that I enjoy, but this one wasn't one of my favorites about the estate.

Now, I am off to sew!