The Light Between Oceans

Happy Friday everyone!   I haven't been pinning that much over the past couple weeks...not sure why, but oh well!  Because of that I thought I'd skip this week's Friday Funday, including pins.  And since today happens to be book club Friday I thought I'd share with you one of the books I'll be discussing with my club tonight!  Enjoy and I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

This book is one of my book club rotation books that I was super excited to pick up.  I borrowed The Light Between Oceans a couple months back and when it finally made it's way to to the top of my borrowed pile, it ended up affecting me more than I would have expected. 

The main premise of this book involves a young couple (Tom and Isabel) meeting and falling in love and living together on a tiiiiiiny island 100 miles off the southwest point of Australia.  This tiny island bears a lighthouse that Tom operates for the safety of shipping vessels.  Within the first year or so of their marriage Isabel becomes pregnant and loses the baby...then it happens again...and again.  She is, literally, on the brink of going crazy and Tom realizes it, but doesn't know what to do. 

Then, suddenly a small dingy boat washes ashore and aboard are a deceased young man and a crying baby girl.  The infant is no more than a month or two old.  Isabel, against his will, convinces Tom to not report this incident and simply keep the little girl.  Isabel had just miscarried late in her last pregnancy and they hadn't wired to shore about it yet either; so, it would be easy to simply claim that her baby came a little early.

The rest of this novel surrounds the raising of this little girl by Isabel and Tom on the island.  Then, also their realization of where this baby came from once they make a quick trip to the mainland not too much later.  Once they realize the origin of their baby, should they return her to her rightful place...or continue to keep her and pretend ignorance?

The moral questions that this book brings up are heart-breaking and real.  M. L. Stedman really does make you feel what these characters are going through and I'll admit that I cried more than once during this book.  I had to wait a day or so after I finished it to decide what rating to give it, simply because of the myriad emotions I felt upon closing the book for the last time.  I decided to give it a strong 4 out of 5 stars.  And I would definitely recommend this book, but have some tissues nearby just in case you need them (I sure did!).

Crystal's Crafty

 Today I thought I'd give you a little update on all that I'm working on up in the craft room.  Here's a peek at what my table looked like earlier this week.  I spent a lot of time this past weekend cutting fabric into the patterns I wanted to sew in the foreseeable future.  I also decided to start cutting some nine patches out of my scraps, hence the little stack of squares.  If you follow me on Instagram you might recognize the fabric on the top right pile...those two table runners turned out beautifully.

Remember last week when I showed you this pattern?  Well, I sewed all the blocks together...and Molly's not impressed.  At all.  But, it looks pretty good.  These aren't my favorite colors, but they look a lot better in person than they do in the picture.  There's something about this oriental fabric that just doesn't shine through in these pictures.

This quilt top turned out pretty small, but I think it might make a nice table topper or perhaps wall hanging.  We'll see...for now it gets to go in my to-be-quilted pile!

Next up, I decided to try out this pattern, which this style of quilt block is commonly referred to as "log cabin."  I have to say, I love these fabrics and how these blocks are coming together.  I can't wait to see them all together!

Here's just a small peek at my stash of pre-cuts.  I got a lot more the other day, but these beauties will be made into something pretty soon!  And Molly was dyyyyying to lay on them, in case you can't tell.  Naughty girl.

Don't worry, I haven't given up crochet...in fact, I might have went a little overboard the other day.  This top picture is all the clearance yarn I bought...I mean, cheap!  So, it only made sense that I snatch it all up, right?  The second pic is some baby yarn that I intend to experiment with very soon.  Maybe a new style of baby blanket is in store...

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little crafty update...hopefully, I'll have something super exciting to show you again in the near future.  Have a fantastic Friday Eve!

An Invisible Thread

An Invisible Thread was recommended to me by one of my aunts.  This particular aunt has only ever really recommended to me two books: A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Needless to say, these two are favorites of mine...in fact, the second is my all-time favorite non-fiction.  So, I wholeheartedly took her advice to pick this book up.

This book is exactly what the subtitle says it is...the true story of an 11-year-old panhandler, a busy sales executive, and an unlikely meeting with destiny.  This book is written by Laura Schroff, the busy sales executive, and the book starts off with her walking on the streets of New York City one day and seeing a young boy asking for money.  She keeps walking on past him, but a few paces later, inexplicably, she decides to turn around and offers to take him for a meal.  After this first meeting the two develop a relationship over time and are still close today.

This is one of those books that makes you feel good, while wishing that you did more in your everyday life to help the less fortunate.  I really liked this book, but I wouldn't say it's a new favorite.  If you're looking for a quick, feel-good read, then I would recommend it.  But, don't expect anything earth shattering; it's just a good, solid mini-autobiography.

Weekend Wrap Up and 1984

I hope everyone had a fantastic (rest of last week and) weekend.  This past week I took a mini road trip down to the southeastern part of Oklahoma.  It was one of my bestie's birthday and because David was out of town for work, I thought I'd give her the best present I possibly could...ME!

Here are a few pics from my few days visiting.  She had a cute hot pink and zebra print themed home party.  She also took me to this awwwwesome pizza place in Broken Bow (a little bit of a drive from her house), Grateful Head Pizza.  If you're ever down there...seriously, try it.  And don't forget to take a pic next to the bear carving.  I drove my car around while I was visiting so that we could enjoy the weather with the convertible top down.  Overall, I'd say it was a good visit.  Can't wait to see her again soon!

Now that I'm back to "regular programming" I thought I'd share a book review with you on this Monday afternoon.  Since Monday's never seem to make anyone feel that fantastic...I'll share a book that I would describe as a classic Monday book...1984.

OK, so I never had to read 1984 in school.  I remember hearing about it and I knew the general premise.  So, I decided that now would be a good time to try this one out...I needed a classic for this past month, so why not?

This book was the first dystopian book ever written.  So, if it weren't for 1984 we might not ever have had The Giver series, the Hunger Games trilogy, the Divergent trilogy, the Matched trilogy, the Maze Runner series...well, you get the idea.

This book follows the main character of Winston Smith, a very average man all around.  You follow Winston throughout his middle-aged years in a society where "Big Brother" is constantly watching you.  There are cameras everywhere and absolutely everything is monitored.  Towards the end Winston gets brought in for an "inquiry" type meeting and is detained.  There is definite mind control exercises and pain is used as a negative reinforcement.  It's rather disappointing that Winston succumbs to the torture in the end. 

This is a rather not-feel-good book and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I can appreciate why it was written and understand that it's books like this that mold our future in ways that people think "let's not do that."  I gave this book three out of five stars, simply for the classic and appreciation value.  However, I'm not sure I would recommend it or ever read it again.

Death on the Nile

I'm starting to get why everyone was so enraptured with Agatha Christie.  She really does know how to write a good book!  I really enjoy that her books are short, quick reads that also have a decent complexity in both character development and plot progression.

Death on the Nile is one of Christie's more popular books, it's even been converted into play and movie form.  The main premise surrounds the death of the young Mrs. Linnet Doyle, who is on an Egyptian honeymoon with her new husband.  Linnet's husband is the former fiancé of one of her best friends...who happens to be "stalking" them throughout their honeymoon.  The infamous Hercule Poirot happens to be onboard the same Egyptian cruise and sets to investigating this intriguing case.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this one.  Even more than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  I never knew who the murderer was up until the very end and, honestly, I was a bit surprised by the end result.  Needless to say, I would highly recommend this Agatha Christie mystery.  Though, I will admit that I feel a little bit like an old lady while reading these Agatha Christie books, haha!

Getting a Little Crafty...and Quilty

I don't believe I've ever talked about it on here, but I thought I'd share an interesting tidbit about me and my mother.  We own an online quilt shop and sell all (well, almost all) of the makings you would need to sew a quilt.  We're talking fabric, patterns, notions (rulers, scissors, etc.) and much more.  If you'd like to take a gander at our site, then you can simply click here.

The idea for this quilt shop was actually mine, believe it or not.  You see, a few years ago on Super Bowl Sunday, I went with my mom and mother-in-law to a quilt shop for a sale.  Did you know that most quilt shops have big sales on that day?  What a great way to give the ladies something to do on a day when the men are glued to the TV!  Anyway, I remember holding the place in line for fabric to be cut while my mom and mother-in-law browsed (it was a loooong line).  And I thought to myself as I looked around, "This looks like fun...we could do this."  So, I brought it up to my mom and she was all for it, though she wanted to just do an online shop, not a brick and mortar. 

Well, the quilt shop was launched a little over a year ago and we're pretty happy with the way things are rolling.  We've got a fair amount of repeat customers and have learned some of the ins and outs of this business, though we're always learning!  We both really enjoy it and it's almost like not having a job.  You always hear that you should find what you enjoy and make that your job.  I think we might have found that niche for us both.

As you might recall, I just recently got a fantastic table set up for my sewing machine again.  It's been years since I've really had a place to sit down and sew and create.  Well, since I've been able to explore that creative outlet in myself again, I've kinda gone wild between the aprons I'm making and attempting to sell on Etsy and whatnot.  At any point in my house I'm either reading, crocheting or sewing.  Or reading AND crocheting or sewing if it's an audiobook. 

Here within the past week I've decided to go a little bit further...  My mother brought me a bunch of pre-cut projects out of her stash and below is one that I made in one afternoon.

I love how this table runner turned out and I'll probably reuse the pattern with some different fabric here pretty soon.  Before I made this I only had one table runner for our formal dining room table.  I'd love to have a handful of different ones to rotate throughout the year. 

Well, after I whipped up that bad boy I decided I'd try something that I've never done before.  Now, I want to premise this by sharing that my mom has purchased a long-arm machine for the shop.  If you're unfamiliar with what a long-arm machine is, it's basically a huge sewing machine that does the actual quilting part of a quilt.  A lot of people love to put together a quilt top, that's the creative and fun part.  But, a lot of people don't like to do the quilting part, which is laying the quilt top, batting and the backing together, then sewing a pretty pattern throughout (AKA quilting).  At some point in our shop we want to offer those services, but first we have to experiment a little.  So, my mom gave me some quilt blocks to assemble and eventually I'll get to use them as my guinea pigs on the long arm machine. 

So!  With that being said, I started my first ever quilt.  Here's a pic of the twelve blocks I sewed together and the pattern sheet.  On the far left of the tri-fold sheet is how the quilt will look assembled.  I'll be putting these blocks together really soon, then the quilt top will go in my "guinea pig" pile.  Exciting times, huh?!  And I'm so blessed to have both my mother and mother-in-law as back-ups for all of this.  Both love to sew and quilt, so if I run across a problem then I have both available for advice on how best to proceed.

If you're interested in what long-arming looks like by a true professional (and not what my novice/amateur stuff will be looking like) then I highly suggest checking out the Green Fairy Quilt Blog.  Her work is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  I, literally, look on in awe at what she can create with her long-arm; her feathers and swirls are gorgeous.  If I can get just half as good at it as she is, then I'll be happy!  You can visit her blog by clicking here.

Revolution

OK, so yesterday my mom and I went to a book store. And you know what my mom said while the cashier was ringing me up?  She muttered, "Bookaholic.  You're a bookaholic."  Granted, I was buying 5 books, but two of them were clearance books that were only $1!  So, that's how I rationalize it.  Plus, I the way I feel about it can be summed up in one statement (which was my retort to my mother), "There are a lot worse things I could be addicted to."  So, with that being said...why don't we start out this Monday with a book review? 

My friend, Becky, was listening to this audiobook, Revolution, on the library app and when she was about a third of the way through it she told me I needed to start it.  So I did.

The premise of this YA novel surrounds the lives of two young women who live two centuries apart.  Andi lives in present day New York and her family is struggling with the death of her younger brother, Truman.  When Andi starts to fail her studies, her father decides to whisk her off to Paris in order to keep a better eye on her.  While in Paris, Andi comes across the diary of a similarly-aged young girl, Alexandrine, during the French Revolution.  As Andi reads about Alexandrine's past you begin to see a strong parallel in the two women's lives. 

There's a not all-together unsurprising twist in the end that rounds out the two stories quite nicely.  I enjoyed this book and give it a strong 3 out of 5 stars.  If I'd been better able to relate to one or both of the main characters I might have given it a higher rating, but there were times when I struggled with empathy simply because Andi can be a little bit of a Debbie Downer.  I'm so glad that this book turns out the way it does though, I felt fully satisfied with the ending and am glad that Andi is in a better mental and physical state in the end. 

Also, the accents with this audiobook are phenomenal.  If you're going to pick up this one, I'd highly recommend reading this book in audio format.  It definitely adds a little somethin'-somethin' to the story.