Incoherent Scribblings

Today I did some finishing!
First up was “Tempest.” I bought a silver frame for him a few days after I finished him and today I got around to putting him in it. I had to do it twice because on the first go-round I cut the backing cardboard too small and as a result he was too small for the frame. The second time was a charm though and he is now hanging on my “Stitching Wall of Fame.”

Second up was a piece that I stitched back in June of last year. Most of you are probably familiar with this piece if you have visited the Stitching Blogger’s Question Homepage because it graces it. “Friends are like a Patchwork Quilt” is from the March 1993 issue of Cross Stitch Plus.

Apparently, my mom tried to cross stitch during my freshman year of college (1992-93). I knew that she stitched a “Sisters” piece for my aunt about that time, but until I started stitching in 1999 and she gave me half a dozen Cross Stitch Plus magazines I never knew she gave stitching much of a chance.

Anyway, as I said, I stitched “Friends” last summer and though I originally thought I might frame it, I never got around to buying a frame for it so it just sat in my “to be finished” drawer.

As I mentioned yesterday, I signed up for a couple of exchanges over at the Stitching Bloggers’ Exchange Board; one of which is a needleroll exchange. I have always thought needlerolls were cute, but had never done one, so I decided before I make my needleroll for my exchange partner, I better try my hand at making one first. That way if I was a miserable failure I could drop the exchange before the names were paired up.
Enter “Friends are like a Patchwork Quilt.” I decided that I should try and finish something I had already done into a needleroll and thought that the “Friends” design was a good candidate. And so I spent today learning how to make a needleroll using Jill Robinson’s “Needleroll Finishing Instructions.”

I started by pulling the necessary threads (even though I only counted 12 instead of 24 because the fabric of “Friends” wasn’t as long as would have been ideal) and then I set up my sewing machine and learned how to sew a “French Seam.”

I then finished off the edges with a hem seam. The hem seam was another learning experience for me, as I had never done them before either. (I found some nifty diagrams of a bunch of needlework stitches here.) I have to say that I absolutely loved the hem seam!! However, once again I deviated from Robinson’s instructions because instead of doing my hem seam with two threads, I did them with four. Robinson mentions that this gives a lacy effect… and it does, but the main reason I did them this way was because I figured since it was less stitches it would also be faster.

After I finished up the hem seams I threaded the ribbon through the pulled threads, stuffed my needleroll, and tied everything up. It turned out awesome! (IMHO)
As is the norm for me, after completing this first needleroll I now know what I will do differently next time, but otherwise I am now officially in love with needlerolls and am looking forward to the needleroll exchange!

I have been seeing this “Booking Through Thursday” meme floating around on some of the blogs I read and since I am a librarian after all and I do like to read, I thought maybe I would give it a go now and again. As I usually do when it comes to these meme-thingies, I am posting late, but as I have said before, this is my blog and I will post what I want, when I want!

Anyway, on to “Booking Through Thursday,” brought to you this week on Saturday. The questions this week focus on a subject near and dear to my heart: banned books.

Unfortunately, even in America, books are often challenged and sometimes even banned. In library terms, a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials from the curriculum or library, based upon the objections of a person or group, thereby restricting the access of others. A banning is the successful removal of those materials. Books usually are challenged with the best intentions—to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.

However, librarians believe that “[t]he freedom to read is essential to our democracy” and therefore “[it is necessary to] uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.”

Celebrate freedom! Read a banned book today.

Here are a few examples of books that have at one point or another been banned in the United States: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

And now for the questions!

Have you read any of the books I listed above?
Actually, I have read them all. Not only am I a librarian, I was an English major in college!

Have you ever knowingly read a banned book?
I have never read a book just because it was banned. However, given my background in literature and librarianship, I tend to know if a book has been challenged and/or banned when I read it.

Knowing that the above books have been banned, would you read them now? Why?
As I said, I have already read them all. However, I took a quick look at ALA’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1999-2000 and the top 3 were Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz, Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I have read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, but not the others. I would read them because I would like to know what the fuss is about and because my professional ethics would never allow me to pass judgment on a book one way or another without reading it first.