Hand Sewing Wild Oates

Day 211 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and Candace is reading a big stack of Joyce Carol Oates, perhaps the most wildly prolific writer ever! Several in the stack were trade paperback size, a mix of literary fiction, short stories, etc., but one was a mass market paperback of Bellefleur, an example of her historical fiction.

What an interesting writer, willing and able to try so many things.

The same day Candace splurged on fiction, thanks to a coupon, Judy bought that Jonathan Franzen memoir, The Discomfort Zone. Here is the New Times review, which finds it annoying. But I think Judy was interested in reading about his relationship with his mother.

That morning, Sunday, I'd seen the man who was looking for Franzen earlier in the week. He was wearing his bicycle helmet and climbing back on his bike, presumably after breakfast at the coffeehouse, and a little too far ahead on a Sunday morning for me to call out, "Hey! I have a Jonathan Franzen book for you!" but he'll come back, and we'll have another.

And now to the hand sewing. I sewed a torn seam on a beach chair, that low kind that sits on the sand. It sat on the sand in the Gulf of Mexico when all the kids were little, and it sat on the sand in Michigan on the lake this summer, where the pebbles and a wild tide day got the better of it. I repaired it with doubled-up cotton-coated polyester thread and a thick gray thread strong enough to mend a coat or a carpet. It was so lovely to sew!

And this beautiful Spool of Thread painting (already sold!) comes from the website A Small Painting, which artist Jonathan Bernard Koch is reconstructing. So be sure to visit it and keep an eye out for the new site!