A plane crashes on a deserted island, leaving in its wake children – the only survivors. These children are British school boys, civilized kids with manners and well-versed in respect for authority. There are very small children – the “littluns” who don’t seem to understand the enormity of what has happened. And there are older kids, boys who quickly recognize the need for a leader, a chief of sorts. A new society is forming, and before long survival demands a return to one’s baser instincts.

Lord of the Flies is a classic. Penned in 1954 by Nobel Laureate William Golding, it is a novel which asks deep moral questions and examines what happens when the civilized world is stripped away and individuals are left to create their own society.

Two main characters emerge early on. Ralph is a sandy-haired boy who is quickly chosen to be the “chief” and who focuses on building shelter and maintaining a fire to attract rescue. He holds “assemblies,” where participants are called to participate with a blow from a conch and are designed to maintain order. Jack is a charismatic boy, the leader of a choir of boys, who quickly establishes himself as the hunter, tracking down the wild pigs on the island with a sharpened stick as a spear. Before long, Jack and Ralph are in a competition for leadership with Ralph being the voice of reason, and Jack appealing to the more savage aspects of the boys’ personalities.

Another character, Piggy, emerges as the philosopher and the scapegoat. Piggy is obese, bespectacled, afflicted with asthma, and a bit of a know-it-all. Despite his wisdom (or maybe because of it), he is bullied.

There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. – from Lord of the Flies, page 60 -

There is also a fourth character, Simon, who plays an important role in the novel. Simon is a loner, but he is also reasonable and practical and gifted with an insight which the others lack. When talk of a beast begins, it is Simon who refuses to acknowledge a physical beast and instead recognizes that the beast is the fear within them.

These four characters – Jack, Ralph, Simon and Piggy – take center stage in a novel about the disintegration of morals and the descent into savagery.

I first read this novel in high school…and my memory of it is inexact. Of course, I remembered Piggy for his victimization, but in terms of theme, my memory was lacking. During this re-read, the story returned to me and I found it so much more compelling from my adult point of view. Classic literature is defined as something which stands the test of time…and there is no doubt that The Lord of the Flies meets that definition with its memorable characters, shocking twists of plot and ruminations on what it means to be human. Written in the 1950s, it could easily have been penned today.

Lord of the Flies is a novel which will generate great discussion in book groups and in the classroom. It is not an “enjoyable” read, and yet it is an engaging one. There is a good deal of violence in this slim book and I found myself anxious as the plot unfurls and it becomes obvious that things are going very, very wrong.

This is a classic, dysptopian-type novel about good vs. evil, but it also forces the reader to look within and to examine his or her role as part of a larger society.

Highly recommended.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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Visit Metroreader today to get links to other readers’ mailboxes.

Go to the dedicated blog for the meme to see the complete tour schedule in the left hand sidebar.

A tantalizing array of books arrived at my house this week:

Jenny Lawson’s blog is on my daily must-read list. Better known as The Bloggess, she is painfully funny and outrageous. Her often inappropriate humor just makes me laugh. So when I saw she was publishing her first book, a memoir, I was eager to get my hands on it. I literally begged my contact at Penguin. I think I even offered to kill if it would help me get a copy of the book for review. So imagine my joy when Let’s Pretend This Never Happened arrived at my doorstep! Due for release in April 2012 through Amy Einhorn, the book is being described as “adorably offensive,” and “hilarious, snarky, witty, totally inappropriate.“  Lawson says out loud what most of us just think privately. I am going to try to wait until April to read Lawson’s memoir – but don’t be surprised if I break down and get to it sooner.

Jenny Lawson writes for Good Mom/Bad Mom on the Houston Chronicle. She also writes a satirical sex column and  a parenting column.  Her blog is outrageously entertaining. Lawson lives with her long-suffering husband and daughter. She also has three cats: Posey, Rolly and Ferris Mewler.

Blue Monday by Nicci French arrived through Pamela Dorman Books (due for release in early March). This novel is the first in a new series of psychological thrillers and introduces Freida Klein, a solitary, incisive brilliant psychotherapist, who spends her sleepless nights walking the streets of London. When a five-year old boy is abducted, Frieda is left troubled: “one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.“  Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. “But her race isn’t physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath’s mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday’s whereabouts.” I’ll be offering a giveaway of this book toward the end of February…so keep an eye on my blog if you want a chance to win a copy!

Nicci French is the nom de plume of bestselling writing partners Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Nicci Gerrard graduated with a first class honours degree in English Literature from Oxford University and taught English Literature in Sheffield, London and Los Angeles in the early 80′s. She moved into publishing in 1985 with the launch of Women’s Review, a magazine for women on art, literature and female issues. She eventually became acting literary editor at the New Statesman, before moving to the Observer, where she was deputy literary editor for five years, and then a feature writer and executive editor.

Sean French also studied English Literature at Oxford University at the same time as Nicci, but their paths didn’t cross until 1990. In 1981 he won Vogue magazine’s Writing Talent Contest, and from 1981 to 1986 he was their theatre critic. During that time he also worked at the Sunday Times as deputy literary editor and television critic, and was the film critic for Marie Claire and deputy editor of New Society. Sean and Nicci were married in 1990 and began work on their first joint novel in 1995, adopting the pseudonym of Nicci French. Learn more about the couple and their work by visiting the Nicci French website.

How The Dog Became The Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends by Mark Derr arrived from The Overlook Press (published October 2011). I stumbled upon an article on Brain Pickings about The Silver Fox Experiment and this book. Embedded in the article is a wonderful video excerpt from BBC’s excellent The Secret Life of the Dog. After watching the entire footage, I knew I needed to read Derr’s book as well, which explores the science and history of dogs as well as the dog-human relationship and how it has shaped our development and history.  Check out this terrific piece on NPR about the book.

Mark Derr is the author of Dog’s Best Friend and A Dog’s History of America. He is an expert on the subject of dogs and writes for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Natural History and Smithsonian. Learn more about Derr and his work by following the author’s blog.

Hyperion Voice sent me an Advance Readers Edition of The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan (due for publication April 2012). I read Copaken Kogan’s debut novel Between Here and April which I really enjoyed (read my review), and so I was happy to receive a copy of her most recent book. The Red Book is described as a cross between “The Big Chill” and Mary McCarthy’s “The Group.” It centers around a once-close circle of Harvard alumni who meet up at their 20 year class reunion.

Deborah Copaken Kogan is the author of Shutterbabe, her best selling memoir about her years as a war photographer. She has also published one previous novel. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elle, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Slate. She lives in New York with her husband and three children. Learn more about Copaken Kogan by visiting the author’s website.

The good folks over at Tor Forge sent me a finished copy of Living Proof by Kira Peikoff (being released later this month). Set in the future in 2027, this debut novel explores a current and relevant topic and adds a futuristic twist. This imagined future proposes that destroying an embryo is considered first-degree murder. A brilliant young doctor by the name of Arianna Drake seems to be thriving in the spotlight until she comes under investigation for possible illegal activity. Described as “a celebration of love and life that cuts to the core of a major cultural debate of our time,” this promises to be a thrilling debut.

Kira Peikoff has written for  New York Daily News, The Orange County Register, Newsday, and New York magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from NYU. Living Proof is her first novel. Learn more about Piekoff and her work by visiting the author’s website.

Did any wonderful books arrive at YOUR home this week?

February 5, 2012

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Sunday Salon. Visit the dedicated Facebook page to get links to other readers’ posts.

My January reading was the slowest of any time over the last four years. I only finished five books – half of my goal to read ten books per month. Not a great way to start a new year. I am really hoping that I can turn things around in February!

My final book for January ended up being The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney (read my review) which I enjoyed for its twisty plot and quality of writing. The novel is set in England and centers around the mystery of a missing girl, a family of gypsies and a private investigator. Penney narrates the book from two points of view and dips back and forth in time. Readers who enjoyed The Tenderness of Wolves will most likely not be disappointed in this one – although I preferred Penney’s debut myself.

I started February with Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron (read my review). This is an amazing book, although a heartbreaking one. Benaron won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction in 2010 for this novel and I think it was well deserved. Set in Rwanda in the years leading up to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Running the Rift follows the life of a talented runner named Jean Patrick. Very few books actually make me cry, but this one did just that. Benaron knows how to develop characters and by the end of the book I really cared about Jean Patrick, his girlfriend Bea and their families. If you like world literature, historical fiction and literary fiction…this is the perfect book for you.

My current read is a classic. Lord of the Flies by Nobel-prize winning author William Golding was first published in 1954 and was Golding’s debut novel. The book is not without some controversy having been challenged frequently for its violent portrayals of young boys who sink into savagery after being stranded on an island together. Lord of the Flies has been adapted to film – first in 1963, then in 1990. Have any of you seen the movie? Here is a trailer from the 1990 version:

Lord of the Flies is a relatively short book (200 pages), so I hope to finish it up by tomorrow. I have no idea what I will read next. I have a huge stack of books for February, as well as several that I had hoped to read in January. I am going to let my mood guide me.

In other bookish news, the folks over at World Book Night have extended the deadline to enter to be a giver to February 6th…so you have one more day to enroll! I was really excited to get an email telling me my application was chosen. Apparently, nearly everyone who completes an application will be allowed to participate. So don’t wait!!! I think this is going to be a fabulous event to look forward to in April!

Today is a sparkling, blue-sky day in Northern California. It is nippy out there this morning, but temps are supposed to get into the 60s later today. It feels more like early spring here than the middle of winter! I’m anticipating a hike with Raven and my hubby later, some reading, and a little quilting. How about you? Whatever you are doing and wherever you are, I hope it involves a great book!

There are many horrific events in the historical record. The Rwandan Genocide which occurred in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 people (or close to 20% of the country’s population) is, perhaps, one of the most tragic. The violence took place over a 100 day period, although there were small outbreaks of violence in the years leading up to the tragedy – episodes which pointed to a build up of rage and misunderstanding between two ethnic groups: the Hutu and the Tutsi. The long-standing tension between these two groups escalated in part due to agitation by political and military leaders. The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians occurred while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing.

It is this heartbreaking episode of genocide which informs Naomi Benaron’s affecting novel Running the Rift. Benaron opens her story in 1984, ten years before the tragedy, with a young Tutsi boy named Jean Patrick and his family. Jean Patrick loves to run and he has dreams of going on to college despite the difficulty which the Tutsi people face in attending secondary schools. As the chapters unfurl, the years slip past and Jean Patrick comes of age. He is a dreamer, an extraordinary athlete, and a young man with a generous heart. He loves his tight-knit family and clings to the memory of his father. Eventually he finds himself training to become an Olympic runner. He falls in love with a beautiful Hutu woman named Bea who is smart, fiery, and on the path to becoming an activist on the heels of her journalist father. But behind the hope which Jean Patrick holds in his heart, is an uncertain future. There are ominous signs that all is not right in Rwanda. There is the rumble of civil war. There is the hatred toward the Tutsi people being fanned by an outspoken Hutu militaristic government. And, eventually, the day will come when everything Jean Patrick holds dear, including his life, will become threatened.

Running the Rift is a heartbreaking, character-driven novel about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror and loss. Benaron builds her story slowly, taking time to develop the characters and unveil their simple lives against the backdrop of the stunning Rwandan countryside. Jean Patrick lives and breathes on the page, as does his counterpart, Bea. The reader begins to care deeply about these characters and worry for them seeps in as the novel progresses.

I turned the final hundred pages of Running the Rift with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes because at its heart, this book is about individuals. It is not about an historical event. It is about the people, the families, the individual lives which were destroyed or forever changed during those fateful days in 1994. It is unimaginable. It is horrifying.

I remember when the Rwandan Genocide happened. I was living in California and I remember the news footage of people laying slaughtered in the streets. I remember asking myself how this could happen and why no one stopped it. What Benaron’s novel does so exquisitely is to get beneath the headlines and examine the daily lives of the people living in Rwanda in the years leading up to the tragedy. She uncovers the tensions and the complexities of a country in flux and how misunderstandings between ethnic groups can grow into something so hate-filled that neighbors and friends can turn on each other.

Benaron explores themes of forgiveness and redemption in her novel which I found hopeful. The author has worked with Rwandan genocide survivors and visited Rwanda where she has an adopted son, so her insight into the aftermath of the genocide feels authentic.

Running the Rift won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction and it is well deserving of this literary award which recognizes “fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships.” This is a novel which is sublimely crafted and highly recommended.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher as part of BOOK CLUB. Follow the discussion here.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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I received an email today letting me know that my application to become a book giver for World Book Night on April 23, 2012 was accepted and I was one of those chosen to give books away!!!

Dear World Book Night book giver,

 Yes, you read that right: World Book Night book giver! Has a nice ring to it, yes? And you’re one of them, or will be on April 23! Thank you!!!!!!!

It is not too late for YOU to also apply…the deadline has been extended to Monday, Feb. 6 at midnight and all you need to do is go here to send in your application.

Have you applied but didn’t get an email like I got? Check your spam folder…because it looks like no book lovers will be denied:

…everyone who applied with any care or thoughtfulness will get their box of books come April 23. Everyone take a deep breath. We’ll find a way, and we plan to have extra boxes stationed all over America. No book lover will be denied.

So, I hope you’ll join me this April in giving out free books to people and celebrating this wonderful thing called reading!!

Ray is a private detective who is working through his own personal demons after separating from his wife. He doesn’t like missing person cases so it is with some reluctance that he listens to a Romany man tell him about his missing daughter, a girl gone six years now. Despite his reticence, Ray finds himself pulled into the case and promising to find out what happened to Rose Janko all those years ago after she wed a Gypsy named Ivo.

JJ is Ivo’s nephew, a fourteen year old boy without a father who has grown curious about his family’s secrets. He loves his cousin Christo, Ivo’s son, who is suffering from a mysterious family disease. JJ wants nothing more than to find a cure for Christo and uncover the identity of the father he has never met.

As Ray and JJ get closer to understanding what is hidden beneath the surface of the Janko family, things get more dangerous, and what appears to be the truth ends up being something entirely different from what they expect.

Set in Northern England in the mid-1980s, Stef Penney’s second novel takes the reader on a convoluted journey to uncover a mystery. Rich in detail about the nomadic life of the Romany people, The Invisible Ones is an intriguing and well-written book. There are two narrative threads which intertwine. JJ’s point of view is that of an insider, while Ray (although part-Gypsy himself) is clearly viewed as an outsider. In large part, the novel deals with the idea of identity and how the cultural, familial, and individual roles we play come together to form the complete person.

Strange, isn’t it, how you can think of yourself as one thing for ninety-five percent of your waking life, and then an encounter with something or someone jerks you into remembering you’re something else, that other five percent that’s always been there, but slumbering, keeping its head down. – from The Invisible Ones -

Penney has a way of constructing her novels to provide tension. This novel had me guessing right up until the end when Penney inserts a twist I did not see coming. Despite some moments of implausibility, the plot of this novel held up in the end.

Readers who enjoy suspense mysteries embedded in family sagas will enjoy The Invisible Ones.

Recommended.

• Quality of Writing:
• Characters:
• Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: This book was sent to me by the publisher for review on my blog.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.

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Yesterday marked three years since Caribou left me. Three years. It is hard to imagine because until very recently, her loss felt so acute it could only have been days since she closed her eyes for the last time. Caribou was a dog, but she was more than that to me. She was my search and rescue partner. She was a loyal friend. She rescued me from the depths of depression, and then showed me there was still joy in my future when she brought me to my husband through his dog, Argus.

After Caribou died, I shared my early anguish…and then I fell silent. My grief for her become solitary. My husband and I got a new puppy – Raven – very quickly. I loved her, of course I did, but I didn’t open my heart all the way to this new puppy. I just could not. It seemed around every corner was this memory of another dog, a friend to whom I was not ready to say good-by. Not yet.

After Raven came to live with us, I was asked many times if I would train her to do search and rescue. My answer was always no. My husband and I had talked about it, and in the end decided we were done with that part of our lives. Truthfully, I had lost my heart for it. The thought of slipping into my search gear and stepping out into the woods to train a new dog filled me with something like despair.

A month ago, however, I did just that. It was a beautiful sunny day with a cool breeze. My husband and I called it a hike, but we both knew we were doing something bigger. We clipped a search vest on Raven, fastened a bell to her collar, and headed into the woods to play search games. Raven is a natural. She took to the game as though she had just been waiting for the day we would ask her to “go search.” She ran with abandon, tongue lolling, eyes bright. And I found myself laughing, encouraging her, praising her every effort. We had fun.

Fast forward several weeks now. My husband and I are walking back to our vehicle and Raven is prancing, head up and proud of her training session. The sun is filtering through the pines and the wind has reddened our cheeks. A joy has filled my heart and as I watch my dog, I realize I am not thinking of Caribou. Instead I am enjoying Raven with her easy going personality, her sense that life is a big game…and love swells inside me. I have not noticed grief walking away, but suddenly I recognize its absence in the lightness of my step and the unfurling of joy from my heart.

That is the nature of grief, I think. It is there for a long time, and then it slips away and leaves in its wake a small scar. It makes way for something else eventually. For me, that something is the ability to enjoy a hike with my dog again, to find laughter in playing a search game, to feel a connection with another being who I had first held at a distance.

My husband and I are not returning to canine search and rescue. We have no plans to certify Raven. We are simply enjoying the time together – the three of us.

This month Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. Check out Alyce’s blog on Monday to get links to other readers’ mailboxes.

Go to the dedicated blog for the meme to see the complete tour schedule in the left hand sidebar.

I found some good books in my mailbox this week:

In the last couple of years I have discovered some amazing collections of short stories. So when Langan contacted me from Viking/Penguin, I could not resist accepting Drifting House by Krys Lee (release date February 2012). Lee’s writing is described as being in the tradition of Chang-rae and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her debut collection, which includes stories set in both Korea and the US, “explores love, identity, war, and the homes we make for ourselves.” The stories set in Korea examine characters whose lives are “threatened by civil war, military dictatorships, and the psychological fallout that tore Korea apart for decades.” Lee’s American characters find themselves in “cramped shared apartments and vacant strip malls of Koreatowns.” Reviewers are calling this a “sublime debut collection” whose stories are “breathtaking,” “haunting,” and “affecting.”

Read an interview with the author.

Krys Lee was born n Seoul, South Korea, and raised in California and Washington. She has studied in both the United States and England. A finalist for Best New American Voices in 2006, Lee received a special mention in the 2012 Pushcart Prize XXXVI, and her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Narrative, California Quarterly, Asia Weekly, and the Guardian. She lives in Seoul with intervals in San Francisco. Learn more about Lee and her work by visiting the author’s website.

No Mark Upon Her by Deborah Crombie arrived from William Morrow (due for release in February). his suspense-thriller looks tailor-made for me. When a K-9 search and rescue team discovers a woman’s body, Scotland yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid finds himself heading an investigation filled with complications. When someone tries to kill the search and rescue team members who found the victim’s body, the case becomes even more dangerous.

Deborah Crombie is a native Texan who has lived in both England and Scotland. She is a three-time Macavity Award winner, an Edgar Award nominee, and a New York Times Notable author. She has authored more than a dozen novels. Crombie lives in Texas with her husband, three cats and two German Shepherds. Read more about Crombie and her work by visiting the author’s website.

The good folks from Ballantine Books sent me an unsolicited copy of Four of a Kind by Valerie Frankel (due for release February 2012). This novel is described as “a hilarious and thoughtful story about four very different New York City moms who surprise themselves by becoming the very closest of friends over a weekly game of poker.” Instead of betting with chips or money, the four women play for intimate secrets about their lives.

Valerie Frankel received critical acclaim for her bestselling memoirs: Thin is the New Happy and It’s Hard Not to Hate You. She is the author of fifteen novels. Her writing has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Allure, Self, Good Housekeeping, and The New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn Heights with her two daughters, four cats, and husband. Learn more about Frankel and her work by visiting the author’s website.

I also purchased a book which I have been dying to read (and the cover is gorgeous, too!):

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Hachette Book Group)

Did any wonderful books arrive at YOUR house this week?

January 29, 2012

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Salon – check out links to other readers’ posts by visiting the Facebook Page.

Last week I lamented being in a reading slump – and although I am reading, it has continued to be slow for me. I have pretty much given up on my goal to read 10 books this month. Oh well.

At any rate, I did finally finish Swamplandia! by Karen Russell – a book in which the characters were terrific, but the plot was just so-so (read my review). I had really wanted to love this novel, so I turned the final page with a little bit of disappointment in it.

My current read is The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney. I was first introduced to Penney’s writing in The Tenderness of Wolves – a debut which I loved (read my review). In her latest novel, Penney takes the reader to England where a family of gypsies have some family secrets. A private investigator is hired to locate a missing woman – and his investigation takes him into the heart of the Janko family where a mysterious family illness seems the least of their secrets. I am actually really enjoying this one although it has taken me days to read it. I should finish it this afternoon.

The next book on my stacks is Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron which I got for Jen and Nicole’s BOOK CLUB (discussion of this book will take place on Jen’s blog on Tuesday this week). I am really going to try to finish this one in the next two days so I can fully engage in the discussion. It looks like a great book which is set in Rwanda and won the Bellweather Prize for Fiction.

In other bookish news, Mandy of The Literary Life of a Well-Read Wife has posted a terrific reference for book bloggers – a directory of book bloggers on Pinterest! If you are like me and spend far too much time on Pinterest, you’ll appreciate this quick way to find other book bloggers. Mandy is asking people to drop her an email if they want to be added to the directory. Looks like I will be spending at least part of my day today browsing over at Pinterest!

Since my reading has been flagging these days, I have turned my attention to other things. My husband and I went to see the movie The Grey on Friday – this is a pretty intense movie starring Liam Neeson. Although on the surface it looks like a graphic movie about survival, I think it is actually more about faith (or the lack of it). Even the title, which clearly alludes to the grey wolf (a big part of the movie) could be interpreted as something deeper – faith is not always black and white, but grey. The movie was inspired by the short story “Ghost Walker” by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers which I would love to read but cannot seem to locate anywhere. Animal activists have been protesting The Grey for its poor portrayal of the wolf (in fact, a couple with their wolf-hybrid were outside the theater where we saw the movie). I would agree that the wolf is shown to be far more vicious and more of a myth than fact in the movie – but I think the animal is largely symbolic of death and the fight for survival. Either way, The Grey kept me on the edge of my seat and gripping Kip’s arm through 90% of the film. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

I’ve also been focused on quilting and finishing some of my projects. This week I finally got my Sister’s Collaborative Quilt completed – and I am loving it!

What are you up to today? Whatever it is, I hope it involves at least one great book!

We were inspired to make a collaborative quilt (actually TWO quilts) using the book by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran called Collaborative Quilting: Talking it Over. We established some “rules” for our block construction: they had to be a size divisible by three (to make construction of the final quilts easier), we had to use bright colors, and the blocks needed to be liberated trees, stars, and houses (or a combination of those images).

During the year we spent making blocks, we did not share what we were doing…which made it REALLY fun when we got together and started putting everything together. As much as we were alike, we discovered we were also different. I saw houses and trees differently than how Paula saw houses and trees. Our choice of fabric varied wildly. We also found that in putting together our quilts, we had a different vision of how blocks went together. The result was two very individual quilts even though they used blocks made by each of us. This week I finally finished the quilting of my quilt (Paula is still working on hers). All photos below are clickable for a larger image.

The finished size of this lap quilt is a generous 53″ X 67″. Much of the quilt is constructed with scraps. The blocks are all different sizes…so in putting them together, Paula and I had to create “filler blocks” which included rectangles of fabric as well as some pinwheel type blocks. If you look carefully, you can see that there is a letter “P’ and a letter “W” in the quilt…which is, of course, our initials!

The back of this quilt is pieced. Both Paula and I made letter blocks to spell out sisters on our quilt backs. We also made a large star block (I made Paula’s and she made mine) for the back.

The label is hand embroidered and “framed” using some colorful ribbon.

Here are some more photos of the quilt draped:

I quilted this quilt by doing a very free-form outlining of the houses and trees, and using a meandering stipple over the rest of the quilt (except for the borders which I straight line quilted). I am still working on my free motion quilting skills, so the quilting is not perfect – but I liked how it mimicked the folk artsy feel of the quilt.

I used a variety of fabrics for the border, including a Kaffe Fassett orange stripe and a Kaffe Fassett flower print. I bound the quilt with a Kaffe Fassett purple stripe.

In the end, I have a fun, happy, very bright quilt which I treasure because my sister and I made it together. This was a fantastic experience. I promise to post photos of Paula’s quilt when she finishes it. Until then, here is a shot of it in progress last October:

We are already planning our next collaborative effort!