All posts by Sherry

Alias Grace

Books

Author: Margaret Atwood

I’m not a huge Atwood fan but when I saw this series on Netflix I knew right away that I wanted to read the book. Our library was still intact at that time and I was surprised that we didn’t have a copy of the book on the shelf. On my last trip to Texada I was looking on the bookshelf there and found a copy that I probably purchased at one of the thrift shops or the library sale.

The novel, based on a true story, has details filled in from Atwood’s imagination. In 1843, Grace Marks was convicted for her involvement in the murder of two people. Her partner in the crime was sentenced to death by hanging but Grace’s original sentence was commuted to life in prison. She spends the next 29 years in the penetentiary with a bit of that time spent in the lunatic assylum. The thing I most wanted to know was whether or not Grace was guilty as from the very start there were many people who thought she was innocent. I will have to live with the fact that I’ll never know for sure.

Through the book, Grace is pictured as sewing a variety of quilt blocks. Each section of the book starts with a sketch of a quilt block and I definitely see an Alias Grace quilt in my future. Those quilt blocks bumped my rating from 4-stars to 5.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Now that’s clean

Journal

Friday, September 25, 2020

I spent the afternoon yesterday pulling weeds. No, not in my own yard but in the yard at the Hall’s rental house. It wasn’t difficult because pretty much everything in the beds had to come out. I had a friend who is a gardener heading up the task and I always checked with her before digging out and pulling. As we cleared space she’d pull out seeds from one pocket or another and plant them. Then there were some plants that we cut back that are self-seeding so they got buried into some of the cleared spots. Then we scattered sawdust over everything and she said that’s all we need to do until spring.

Our next door neighbour has just started a new business and he does power washing so he came over today and took care of the deck and some of the siding on the back porch. I like to think he was just looking for business when he told us on a previous visit that he had a power washer if we ever wanted the deck done; otherwise I’d have to admit how bad the deck looked. But it is done now and he even did the outside of the windows on the deck.

I’ve spent most of the day quilting. I am so close to finishing a project that I’ve been working at off and on (mostly off) all month. Just like the jelly roll rug this is an old project that I’ll be glad to have finished.

Jelly Roll Rug

Quilting
45″ x 24″

The Guild held this class in 2019. Most of the participants made an oval rug but I thought a rectangular one would be easier. Most of the participants used lovely fabric already pre-cut into a jelly roll but I cut my own strips from some novelty fabric that wasn’t getting used up very fast.

I worked the entire class and I thought I had made good progress but when I opened the bin this week I sadly had only a few tubes made. Fortunately I had all the fabric strips and batting already cut so I could start sewing right away.

I was very surprised at how quickly it went together. Now that it’s done I’m wondering why it took me so long to get back to it.