I pretty much always have books on my mind, but even more so right now as I have sold several of my handmade blank books recently.
It reminded me of a recent blog post by Sarah Swett (Bookish Thoughts) that made my jaw drop. Please take a look at it and if you like what you see consider subscribing. Sarah’s blog is a new favorite to me, but always beautiful and insightful. I am inspired to try her little woven book covers someday.
In the meantime, I have made the hand patterned blank watercolor books you see here which you can find in my KMS Handmade shop. Some have sold already, so look quick if you are interested. I also have plans to make a fabric covered book soon. I want to do a hand stitched cover with watercolor paper inside and I’m still figuring out how to put it all together.
In addition to books I’ve been making, I am always reading 2 or 3 books at once. I’m listening to A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles right now (it’s my third time reading this one), because it’s my next Undercover Quilters Book Club quilt book. On this listening I’m making notes in my hard copy of the book of all the passages that speak to me. Later on I’ll go through them and decide which one to base my quilt on. I’m also re-reading my very favorite childhood series of magic books by Edward Eager (start with Half Magic). I discovered my library has them available as e-books and the newest edition of Half Magic has an introduction by Alice Hoffman where she puts into writing all my thoughts about these books and how they shaped me at the age of 10 or so.
I tend to read a pretty eclectic mixture of genres. I recently finished several interesting books including The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (utterly charming), Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (somewhat baffling, but it made sense in the end), Educated by Tara Westover (beautifully written, but horrific subject matter), and The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King (learned a lot I didn’t know about Mr. Rogers).
I belong to two book clubs. One is pretty traditional and really discusses the book and the other is my quilting group which may or may not discuss the book for a while, but always has fun. I love them both and get great recommendations for books from both. Sometimes it can be hard juggling all the books I try to get through which is one reason I listen to a lot of audio books. I can get a lot of studio work done while listening. It’s the absolute best thing for machine quilting which tends to get boring if I don’t have a book going in my ears.
So, how about you? Read anything good lately?
