And now she has a quilt. Behold!

First, my fabric:

Midway through piecing the first side (by machine):

Completed first side:

The first side, quilting completed:

The second side, quilting also completed. I forgot to take any assembly pictures for this side, so here’s the finished thing:

Close up of the quilting. The assembly was all done on the machine, and the appliqué used some stitch witchery, but all of the quilting was done by hand.

Waiting for binding:

Binding fabric, pre-cutting:

Assembled binding fabric + frazzled quilter:

Making the binding: I followed instructions from this site. The first half of the binding was done on the machine, and the second half (on the opposite side) was done by hand.

Bound quilt:

And ready to go!

And now that I’ve done a quilt, I’ve realised how fun and easy it is, and I’m kinda itching to do more. Anybody having a baby?

Post from: She Reads Books

I Made a Quilt!

Yup, I graduated.

…. and pretended to be a Dementor.

…. and danced in a doorway.

…. and was happy & very accomplished.

You?

Post from: She Reads Books

She Reads Books, BA (Hons)

where do fishes come from Well, when some male fishes and some female fishes love each other very much…

javascript cookie apostrophe Yankee Oscar uniform Mike India November echo November Oscar sierra echo November sierra echo.

is a love a second hand? Nope. Love is an hour hand, for sure.

dear internet amuse me With pleasure, my dear.

incest theme in dogeaters Don’t tell my prof, but I never actually finished Dogeaters. I got kinda hung up on the weird cover (not that it turned me off, but that it seemed more interesting than the text) and then, well, you know how school is. I moved on to not finish greater and better things. So I can’t answer your query. You can always wait for it to show up on Shmoop, I suppose.

style is more important than substance and everyone thinks that style is more important than substance

naughty bits from tess of d’urbervilles Ha ha, “naughty bits”. There are some, I suppose, although they’re not particularly salacious. I won’t give you page references, but I’ll give you some textual history to make up for it. Won’t that be exciting!

So, Tess is about this peasant girl, Tess, who finds out that she is distantly descended from some local nobility. She’s also young, but hot: lots of the narrative is totally focused on her body. Her life gets turned upside-down — not in a good way — and eventually she’s knocked up by her quasi-cousin. Then a whole bunch of other things happen (the baby dies, and then her husband abandons her because he found out that she isn’t a virgin, and then she kills a dude, and then she is hanged) and then the book ends and it’s all very tragic.  But here’s the thing: was she raped, or was it consensual?

The answer is both, actually, depending on which version of the text you read. It was severely bowdlerized by Hardy himself, partly in response to a morally outraged public. The first version that was published was heavily censored, and later versions became more explicit. As well, in one version Tess is very clearly raped — but in another it’s pretty ambiguous. I think that most texts now tend to use the 1891 version, which is thought to be closest to what Hardy actually wanted to be. In short, the naughty bits you seek may not even exist if you’ve picked up at earlier version. Choose wisely!

please if person want be came of magic You’re welcome if person had un done from magic. Or something.

“neurology of angels” I had hoped that this was a scientific query of some sort. But it turns out that Neurology of Angels is a book. Oh well.

“books have a soul” I disagree. But books are created by writers and read by readers, all of whom have souls and who impart characteristics of themselves onto/into the text. Books don’t have souls, but they reflect ours.

“it reads vs it says” If this is a grammatical puzzle, I’d go with “it reads” in the case of text, and “it says” in the case of speaking robots. But if this search isn’t grammar-related, I’m putting a fiver on It Reads.

i’m searching for delight Aren’t we all?

www.book on homonymy.com Things like this puzzle me ever so much. I get this all the time, people searching on the exact address of my blog. Are they trolling for links? Or do they just not understand locations bars?

hey am not working an i love to read Congratulations? It’s nice to run into people who love to read. Unfortunately, that’s not particularly marketable — trust me. I just finished an English degree, which largely boiled down to novels for four years and getting course credit for it. Now I am a glorious intern. Dare ye follow in my footsteps?

Post from: She Reads Books

April Search Terms Bring May Snark

The interesting announcement: A few days ago I read a review on E. L. Fay’s blog, of the book Who is Mark Twain?, which is a collection of a number of unpublished papers and essays and things of his. It looks very good and I’d like to read it. In point of fact, I’m going to read it, and you can too, for free! DailyLit is running a special on this book — you can read the whole thing by installment (email or RSS) by clicking here and following the instructions. No registration or dollars required.

The end.

Post from: She Reads Books

Two announcements

Floor space! The boyfriend came over on Saturday and helped me do a major part of the whole reorg — namely, getting dozens and dozens of books off my floor and back on shelves, all organized. We ended up doing three complete shelves’ worth, and I couldn’t have done it without him. The bookcase on which efforts were concentrated ended up looking like this:

The top row there is mostly classics, along with literary criticism/writing aids, some small books, and A. S. Byatt. The second shelf is Canadiana, poetry, and drama. The third shelf is holding drama (continued), biography/memoir, and theology/general Christianity (including fiction).

The very bottom-most shelf was also tackled, while the one above it remains a giant mess:

Yup… giant mess. But everything below it is sorted, labelled, organized, and even shelved categorically: yearbooks, personal records, correspondence, essays and tests, class notes, and the like. Everything is in its place at last. And I’m also getting rid of a whole bunch of excess paper. You might not think so to look at it, but my recycle bin now weighs ten pounds:

Three different methods were used above to make the double-decker shelves (a new system for me that I highly recommend; it’s a super-efficient way to hold books, and if your props are high enough you’ll be able to see the titles of the books behind just fine). Method one is old cereal boxes reinforced with sturdy cardboard on the inside:

Number two is a plastic yellow bin that was part of an ancient kids’ chalkboard we have still lying around. It was meant to store chalk but it also makes an excellent book prop:

And the last was simply using other books — in this case a perfectly-sized set of New Testament commentaries. They get used, but not that often, and so I appropriated them:

There’s an awful lot still to be done. I need to shelve mystery, fantasy, children’s books,science fiction, and general non-fiction — and all the rest, which I think I will just shove into a “general literature” category. One full bookcase is still to go, plus various bits and bobs here and there:

But in the end, between purging and just organizing better, I think I might actually be able to pare down from four bookcases to three. It’s crazy!

Anyone else doing spring cleaning?

Post from: She Reads Books

Book Reorganization: The Saga Continues

Seriously, what on earth?

I could stare at this thing for hours. I’m not sure how well you can see all the details — I, of course, have the advantage of the actual book in front of me — so let me list some of the things I see:

• We’ve got the pseudo-cruxifiction pose, except it’s a woman, except her head has been cut off and a statue’s head (David?) has been sewn on in its place.
• She’s holding a giant sword and a severed head, which I don’t think is her own (based on skin tone) — so where is her head?
• There’s a gaping torso wound on her that either contains a fetus, which is in the wrong place, or her glowing angelic stomach that also seems to have arms.
• Seriously, whose head is that? There’s some biblical imagery that also could apply here: we might have an image of Judith, or of Herodias.
• Her hands/forearms appear to have been detached and then sewn back on to her body.
• Her feet: they are webbed. Is she amphibious?
• There are angels in the clouds above her head, and they are either crowning her with a bishop’s mitre, or taking it off of her. Either way, the one on the right seems okay with this, but the one on the left seems pretty upset. Or perhaps they are playing a genteel sort of tug-of-war?
• She’s superimposed (floating, I think) over some sort of fantastic landscape with waterfalls and the sun rising/setting behind her back, and all sorts of severed stumps — perhaps alluding to her severed head and arms?
• ORANGE!!
• Clever little thing: the title of the novel appears to have been forcibly ripped out of the canvas that the image is painted on.

So, my friends, what exactly is going on here? In truth, I have no idea. The novel is by Jessica Hagedorn, the cover was designed by Gail Belenson and executed by Papo De Asis: this I know. But I’m more than halfway finished the novel and, so help me, I can’t find any connection between the front cover and the contents except for the title and author’s name. Those match up.

As to everything else, it remains a mystery. A fascinating one, to be sure. Wouldn’t this cover make you want to read the book, just to find out what on earth was going on?

Post from: She Reads Books

Judge This Cover: Dogeaters

Miss Snark loves paper. Kate’s Paperie is one of her favorite places on earth. Crane and Company at Rock Center too, but in a pinch any office supply store can provide a fix.

I, too, have a great love for stationery, pens, notebooks, and the like. I collect journals, although I don’t fill them particularly completely. And I’m always on the look-out for stationery, so I naturally clicked through to the link above. And oh, boy, it is a good thing that I don’t live in NYC, because I would be in that store every day and soon I would have many kinds of beautiful writing and office supplies, and no money at all. But at any rate, I found my way to the sale page, and found some gorgeous, elegant stationery (for, like $3!) and proceeded to order some.

… Which is where the trouble started. [But please don't stop reading at this paragraph -- the troubles got better! And if this blog post was a novel, this would be the huge duhn duhn duhn foreshadowing!! section.] To make a long story short, the ordering process was fraught with errors, funky forms not working & 404s and such, and I was not able to successfully place my order. Woe! Disaster! But not to be long daunted, I fired off a note to their customer service department, detailing the nature of the errors that I had received. Then I went to bed.

Yesterday morning, I received an email from Kate’s, and shortly thereafter, a (long distance) phone call from a very sweet lady — I didn’t catch her name — who apologised for the errors, offered me free shipping, and took my order over the phone. And the email thanked me for my list of things and promised that their IT department would look into it.

And then, today, I got home from work and lo and behold, there was a package on my desk. And inside that package was the most beautiful paper and envelopes in the world. The world, my friends!

So, to conclude, Kate’s Paperie not only has beautiful products and unimaginable sale prices, but some of the best customer service I’ve ever received in my life. They were courteous, prompt, and genuinely helpful, and deserve huge kudos. So if you’re in the mood for some really excellent paper products, do consider choosing Kate’s.

Post from: She Reads Books

Off-Topic: Kate’s Paperie Rocks!

What tomes are waiting patiently on your shelves?

Oh, sheesh, there are tonnes of them. I’ve got a lot of classics sitting around — some which were given to me, and some which I bought for myself, sometimes accidentally. (Note to undergrads: don’t ever buy books until your prof has given you a final syllabus. Because it will change. And then you will be sitting around with copies of Rousseau’s Confessions that you’ll never read.) For the most part I intend to read them… someday!

Then there are the books that were bought for classes, but that I never actually really so much read, if you know what I mean. Paradise Lost is one of those. Maybe someday, Milton.

Actually, probably not.

Blog Action Day

On an entirely different note, today is Blog Action Day, they tell me, where bloggers across the interweb are encouraged to blog about a specific topic for the day. This year, the topic is poverty.

I don’t actually have a lot to say about this — because I don’t think that talking about poverty is going to be particularly worthwhile if we aren’t going to be acting as well. And in that spirit, may I point you all to this post, in which I explain my goal to raise money for schools and schoolchildren in the developing world — and also to this page, on which you may donate toward that goal.

As of the time of writing this post $65 has already been raised — which is 23% of the goal. That’s enough to outfit an entire classroom with school supplies, and to send 1/4 of a girl to school. The next 3/4 of her need your help. Please consider donating.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Patience (and Blog Action Day)

Unless you’re me! Because what I’m thankful for makes me want more. Not for me, you understand — I am greedy for those who haven’t a chance to be thankful for that for which I can give thanks.

Here are some things I am thankful for:

• I can read
• I grew up with access to public education
• I have always been able to afford books and textbooks
• I can go to libraries whenever I want to do so
• I have been allowed and encouraged to pursue higher education
• I am going to graduate from university with minimal debt

But there’s a problem with this. See, for every one of me, there are maybe millions of people who can’t even be thankful for the first thing on that list. How many children can’t access schooling? How many teachers can’t afford books or classroom supplies? How many girls will be denied education simply because they are female? Are these things not entirely absurd?

I want a school for Thanksgiving. More specifically, to outfit a school: textbooks, school supplies, those good things. And I want to send a girl to school, a girl who would normally not be able to receive an education. And, more greedy I, I want to do this for as many schools and girls as possible. And I need your help.

What’s Happening

We’re fostering education and literacy and all sorts of good things for those who can’t usually access it! Because we’re thankful! Hurrah!

The Dates

From Canadian Thanksgiving (Oct 13) to American Thanksgiving (Nov 27), inclusive. A month and a bit.

The Plan

Here’s how it’ll work. I’ve set up a Group Event Page at World Vision, from which donations can be made via credit card. Here are the gifts I’ve set up (click links for gift descriptions):

• Textbooks ($30) x2
• Supply a Classroom ($50) x 2
• Educate a Girl in Need ($60) x 2

Those are the gifts there available to purchase, for a total of $280. And every time one of those gifts is fully purchased, I will add another — and this will continue throughout the month. At the end American Thanksgiving (Nov 27), when the dust settles, I will pay the balance on any gifts remaining unpurchased. These two things mean that together we can outfit as many schools as we can, or send as many girls to school as we can, with no limits! I am very excited to see how far this can go.

How You Can Help

There are two main ways:

1) Donate. You can donate any amount you like, as many times as you like. WorldVision will issue a receipt for your taxes for every donation of $15 or more. (And those are Canadian dollars, my American friends). Remember, because this is a group effort, every little bit really does help. Please click HERE to donate.

2) Spread the word. Link to this post or directly to the group donation page. Tell your blog readers. Email your friends. Stumble this page. If you click the “Share This” button at the bottom of this post, you’ll see lots of ways to help.

Are you game?

Post from: She Reads Books

It’s Thanksgiving! Let’s Buy a School!

My review, if you are interested, is in the latter half of this post.

The rules are simple:

1) Leave me a comment on this post for one entry.

2) Blog about this giveaway for two more entries.

Some other things of import:

1) I will ship worldwide.

2) The contest is open as of this post, and will close when I receive the copy of In the Land of Invisible Women. It is currently in the mail, and when I get it, the contest shall close and I will duly pick a winner and send it back into the postal system.

3) The winner will be picked by an RNG.

Good luck!

Post from: She Reads Books

BBAW Giveaway: In the Land of Invisible Women, by Qanta Ahmed