Booking through Thursday 11/09/06

Booking Through Thursday
Mary wants to know...

1. Do you keep a list of books to read? Yes.


2. Where do you keep your list (computer, PDA, paper, etc.)? I made a small book to hold my lists of books to read and videos to see (you can see it here). I keep it in my purse.
   


3. How often do you refer to your list? Every time you go for a new book to read? When book shopping? Or? I refer to it whenever I'm at the library (which is about once a week).
   

Calendar journal -- October

Acrylic paint around the squares, a touch of colored pencil on the background and Sharpie markers for the writing.

My new sewing table!

Well, I haven't posted any progress on my updated sewing room since August. The next step was to start on the sewing table, but it took a little while for my husband to decide just how he was going to make it. He's used to working with iron, not wood, so he really wanted to do some research and to think it through before starting. And I'm so glad he took his time ... it turned out fabulous! He found a piece of wood that has the most amazing grain ... it looks like a topographical map ... love it! First, he cut it to size and then worked on the hole for the machine (that took some time to plan right ... darn machine has sloped sides and he wanted it to fit as close as possible ... thank goodness for scrap wood LOL!) Then it was time for the fun part ... color! We tried a water-based stain (in my favorite color, green, of course!) that did not work very well the way the instructions said to do it. After a couple layers of the stain and then a layer of the polyacrylic, my husband did not like it and actually took it back outside and sanded it down again to start over. Yikes! Talk about a happy camper ... NOT! The second time around, we did it our own way and it turned out much better.

Then came the crucial part ... making an acrylic piece to fit. It was a bit tricky since the machine has areas that slant in a bit. But he did such a wonderful job there, too ... after much walking up and down the stairs for fittings and trimmings, it's done! We're both so pleased with how it turned out ... we keep catching the other taking another peek at it LOL!

Now to find time to actually sew!!!

Booking through Thursday 10/26/06

Booking Through Thursday
Christine wants to know...

1. Do you make notes in books as you read them? Very rarely.


2. Why or why not? Most often, the books I read are library books, so they're not mine to write in. Also, most of them are fiction which I read for pleasure and not for note-taking. If I ever want do find myself wanting to take notes, I usually jot them down in a spiral notebook instead.


3. If you do, do you make notes only in certain kinds of books or all of them? The few times that I have taken notes in a book, it was making notations on recipes in cookbooks ... if I change ingredients and like the results, I'll jot it down so I won't forget. The only other time in recent history that I've written in a book was when I was going through one of my homeschool books and the author mentioned various resources to use in planning unit studies ... I went through the library catalog and jotted down the call numbers for those books so that I can find them easily without having to look them up every time.

Booking through Thursday 10/19/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you read in bed? For how long? Do you fall asleep reading? Will a good book keep you up all night? Occasionally, but not too often because usually my husband is in bed first since he gets up very early for work. As for how long, it's hard to say, but it's usually longer than I tell myself I will LOL! I rarely fall asleep reading ... usually only when I'm not feeling well. And, yes, a good book has kept me up until the wee hours of the morning.
   


2. Where do you keep your nighttime reading? Do you have a special table next to the bed? Are there many books there? Do you keep books there that you aren't reading (finished or unread)? My nighttime reading is usually the same book I'm reading off and on during the day, in which case I grab it from it's last location and bring it in to read. Then I just leave it on my nightstand until sometime the next day when I've got time to read some more (usually while the kids are playing outside after our schoolwork is done). As for other books on my nightstand, I don't keep any unread or finished books there ... they go back on the shelf when done.
   

Booking through Thursday 10/12/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you read short stories? Yes.


2. Why or why not? Like I said in an earlier BTT post, I read just about anything so if I come across some short stories, I'll read them, too!
   


3. What do you like and dislike about short stories? I like being able to read through the whole thing quickly to find out how it ends, but if I enjoy the characters very much, I sometimes don't like that it ended so soon. Hmmm ... does that make sense?

Calendar journal -- September

Oops, almost forgot to upload my September calendar:For this spread, after putting down the post-it notes, I pounced a brown ink pad all over, then used a spiral rubber stamp randomly in a dark green. I used a metallic gold pen for the lettering and also added little dots around the page for a little added something.

Booking through Thursday 10/5/06

Oh, dear, I'm late LOL!

Booking Through Thursday

1. Tell us about a book that you had to read, but didn't want to, but that you ended up liking. Something for school, perhaps? A book from your Mom for Christmas that she insisted on you reading? Something from a bookclub? But ultimately, a book that--against all expectation--you ended up liking, respecting, loving.... And, of course, why? What made this book resonate with you? Hmmm ... that's a tough one ... I can't think of any books that I didn't want to read but ended up enjoying ... I'm sure that must have happened to me at least once, but I just can't think of one. But ... I sure can think of several I was dying to read and ended up hating LOL!

Quilt show results

Well, my guild's quilt show was this weekend and the quilts were fabulous! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera!!! Ooh, I was so mad at myself for that ... especially because I got 2 ribbons and couldn't take pictures of the quilts hanging with their ribbons ... aaargh! But I took a pic of one of the ribbons as soon as I got home. I got two of these 2nd place ribbons for the first two quilts pictured in this previous post. It was wonderful to find the ribbons attached to the quilts ... of all the quilts I entered, these two are the most special to me personally. Actually, my 8yo daughter found them first and came running, saying, "Mom, Mom, you got ribbons!!" Made it even more exciting LOL!!

As soon as I got home, I pulled out all the comments I got from the judges ... this was the first time I'd had my quilts judged in any way, so I was very curious as to what kinds of comments my quilts would receive. Overall, the comments were very positive. The only "areas of improvement" were that I need to work on my machine quilting stitch length and on thread tension. Stuff I already knew LOL! But it was nice to see that those were the only problems. I got nice comments on color, quilting designs and overall workmanship. Yay!!

I saw so many wonderful things at the show and now I'm inspired to go make something. I can't wait for my husband to finish my sewing table so that I can get my sewing machine out again. I miss it!!

Bobbin Magic

Oh, my! Other than some Booking through Thursday posts, I haven't posted about any creative ventures in 3 weeks ... need to change that right now! Earlier this week I was able to take a workshop with Pat Nelson called Bobbin Magic. She taught us how to fiddle with the bobbin cases on our sewing machines so that we could make really neat stitches with wonderful threads. This is the sample I made in the class. The trunk is a whipstitch and the flowers and leaves are done with 2 variations of a feather stitch. I really enjoyed the class and look forward to playing more with these techniques. As for the tree, not sure what I'm going to do with it ... I'm thinking of adding a few more flowers around the base of the tree and then maybe using it for a pocket on a tote or something. Or maybe I'll just trim it and tack it to the design wall for a little inspiration ....

Booking through Thursday 9/28/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you own any bookends? If so, how many sets? If not, do you need or want any? I don't have any actual bookends on my shelves ... instead I use other things as bookends, like interesting, large knick-knacks or sturdy vases. And sometimes I arrange a stack of books as a bookend.


2. Which are your favorites? How long have you had them? My favorite is this large iron jack. It used to be on my mom's bookshelf and now it's been on one of my shelves for over 15 years.

Booking through Thursday 9/21/06

Booking Through Thursday

But, enough about books. . . what else do you read?? Magazines? Newspapers? Professional journals? Cereal boxes? Phone books? Purchase invoices? Homework? (Please be specific. There may be a test later.) I read just about anything ... if it has words on it, I read it. And sometimes I read things 2-3 times! Seriously, though, I read magazines (quilt mags that I subscribe to and other mags that my mil gives me from time to time), our curriculum stuff (and I'm also currently rereading my personal library of homeschool help books), lots of internet sites (mostly about homeschooling, lapbooking and notebooking at this time, with a little art thrown in), and just about any stray papers that I come across. On top of all that, I read lots of kids' books to my girls ... at least 2 (and often 3-4) each night before bed. Whew!

Booking through Thursday 9/14/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you tend to read more books written by one gender over the other?


2. If so, which one? Men? Or women? Is this a deliberate choice? Or just something that kind of happened?


3. And (without wanting to get too personal), is this your gender?

I don't prefer one gender over the other when it comes to authors ... if they write well, I'll read their books, that's the bottom line. However, these questions made me notice that most of the darker, more mysterious stuff I read is written by men, and most of the lighter, funnier stuff is written by women. Not sure if that's because of them or because of me!

Reading journal

Another reading journal entry, for the book Sequence by Lori Andrews.

Booking through Thursday 9/7/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. We asked last week about what draws you to your favorite kind/genre of book. This week, we want to know--how often do you depart from that comfort zone? If you love mysteries, do you ever read fantasy? If you primarily read cookbooks, do you ever read a good romance? I love murder mysteries, most, I guess, but I do often read other things, too ... most genres and also some nonfiction (mostly about quilting, altered art and homeschooling at this time) catch my eye often. I'll basically read just about anything if it gets a good review from a friend or other reliable source/book list. The only fiction I don't like is sappy romance novels LOL!


2. How MUCH variety is there in your reading? Do you mostly stick to one type, with just the occasional toe-dip into a different style? Or do you generally read a variety of things, just, maybe more of your favorite style than anything else? I read quite a variety of things, really. I'd have to say that murder mysteries is more than 1/2, but probably less than 3/4 of what I read. The rest is a mixture of everything else I like.

First reading journal entry

Remember the reading journal I created? Well, I finally made my first entry in it last night. I couldn't decide what book to do first, but then I finished a book (Echo Burning by Lee Child) over the weekend and decided to start there.

Art journal page

Over the weekend I did another page in my art journal. The egg, birds and quote on the right page are packing tape transfers ... very cool technique!

Art journal pages

I did two more gluebook-style pages ... one yesterday and one today. The first one is in response to the challenge to portray the group's mascot, the glue monkey ... too fun! The second one is one that I put together after I found the question that I glued to the right page ... "what makes you comfortable?"

Calendar journal -- August 2006

Here's my August 2006 page. The background was done with chalks.

Art journal page

The most recent assignment in the class is to try a gluebook-style page. Gluebooks are where you glue down various bits of papers, magazine clippings, etc. Some use it to glue down bits of receipts and other papers that they come across during the day (basically a visual record of their day), others take random bits of paper and turn them into an art piece, and many do a mixture of both. After browsing the links the instructor provided, I ended up joining a Yahoo group that focuses on gluebooks ... looks really interesting! They provide challenges and daily prompts for members to use if they want. I used one of their challenges to make this first gluebook page in my art journal.
The challenge is to take a magazine and, while keeping your eyes closed, fan through and rip out 3 random pages ... no peeking! Then make a page using only elements from those 3 pages ... you can open your eyes for that part LOL! I got the pages out of a copy of Oprah's magazine that my mil had given me awhile back. It's interesting how this spread ended up accurately representing my feelings about our homeschool curriculum decisions for this year. I glued the elements on a previously painted black background that I first doodled on with a white pencil to make it look like a school chalkboard.