Emily's blog

I have not disappeared.

I have been extremely lax in posting. I have, however, been doing things. Here's a brief overview of the last month or so, from left to right:

• Nathan and I went to Florida for spring break to visit my dad. We visited the Ringling museum and mansion as we often do.
• We went to a local B&B that my mom gave us a gift certificate to for Christmas. There was a swing in the woods.
• I started a ripple blanket like lots of other people. More on that in its own post.
  

I have also been reading. Isn't that what you're supposed to do on vacations? Although, I have to admit, most of this reading was done in the last couple days. I've been spending too much time rippling to do much reading. As least I've almost caught up on my podcasts.

I read three new Kim Stanley Robinson books, not just the one that I have below. I didn't want to add them all since by book list is looking a little one-sided. I started the Science in the Capital series as well as reading Antarctica. Then last weekend I went on a bit of a Barbara Kingsolver jag. I suddenly had the urge to reread Prodigal Summer, which I first read about a year ago, so I read it pretty much in one sitting on Saturday. Then, when I was done, I needed more so I figured it was the time to finally start The Poisonwood Bible. I read the first 500 pages of that on Sunday and finished it up Monday and Tuesday.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging. Well, hopefully the schedule will become a little more regular.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

Haruki Murakami

I was recently introduced to Haruki Murakami through his short-story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I immediately loved the ambiance of the worlds he creates, and the mystery and ambiguity in his stories. Before I even finished all the stories in Blind Willow, I picked up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I was excited to have a nice, long book by a new author I was really enjoying. The book started out just like one of his short stories: the seemingly every-man character, the mysterious unexplained event, the coincidences piled on coincidences. And it just kept going like that. It was like one of his short stories turned in on itself; like a snake eating its own tail. That might not sound like a compliment but it is. Somehow, the almost fractal nature of the book made for very compelling reading. I read all 600+ pages in about 4 or 5 sittings, in one of which I devoured almost half the book.

After that marathon reading day, I started getting a little frustrated with the book. At that point, it had been curling and curling, but hadn't quite found its tail yet. I was starting to get worried that Murakami had gotten carried away and started adding weird things for the sake of being weird. Even though I was starting to get a little skeptical of the applicability of Murakami's literary devices to a novel, I still couldn't put it down. It was a page-turner. I think part of what was so appealing what that, even though the story taken as a whole is rather abstract and intellectual, the writing itself is very straight-forward and accessible. I never doubted my understanding of what was going on from moment to moment or the meaning of some passage, but the import of what was going on was another matter entirely. The particular combination of the abstract and the mundane that Murakami uses is interesting and unusual and, to me, very appealing.

As I kept reading, the snake did eventually find its tail. The branches of the story started to come together. The connections were rarely made explicitly, but they became more apparent. What never was explained was the long series of coincidences that created those branches  in the first place. But I like it better that way, and it seems to be Murakami's trademark.

Quilts, quilts, quilts!

Quilt notes

I've officially started my first quilting project. I've had an idea of the type of design I wanted for quite a while but I've had trouble getting it quite right. I was trying to base it off the layout from the "Split rail fence" quilt square but couldn't get what I wanted. Then suddenly, on Saturday, the idea just sprung fully-formed into my head. I knew the pattern I wanted. The scan from my sketchbook shows a few evolutions of the idea, from the rouge original sketch to a more tightly laid out design. After that, I recreated the design in Omnigraffle and played around with different

Quilt Colors

color combinations. I scanned in my fabrics and dropped them into the design to get an idea of the scale and whether the colors would work together.

Quilt fabric preview

The hardest part was figuring out how to translate my design into easy-to-assemble squares. I did that in OmniGraffle too. I looked at the design and started isolating blocks that could be easily sewn and then adding on. The only change I had to make for assembly was to build the large squares out of four small squares and it turned into small and extremely easy to assemble blocks well suited for quick piecing. You can see a diagram of how they're assembled on the sketch page. After that, I made a few squares. They turned out great!

Quilt square scan

I went out today to get some more fabric and a rotary cutter so I can start making more pieces. I only found two of the fabrics this time. Hopefully I'll find the other one at another JoAnns. Luckily, the ones I got were the green and blue, so I can work on assembling the center parts of the squares and add the orange or another fabric once I get that.