Well hello there, it’s Saturday again! And just a heads up that the newsletter is eclectic, sprawling and random today ~ enjoy!

It’s Valentine’s Day and it’s also sewing class day for me. We’re making the Free Range Slacks pattern I’ve been playing around with for the last month (already made shorts & sweatpants with one version of the pattern), and I’m going to try out flat felled seams for my first time on the other version of the pattern ~ wish me luck!

On the topic of V Day, the NYPL has done their amazing annual thing of creating a Best New Romance Books collection and it’s HERE!! I love perusing this every February to help curate my romance TBR.

Planning as Escapism

One of the my secrets to beating winter doom and gloom is spending serious time planning future trips ~ trust me, it works! While not watching the football parts of the Superbowl last weekend, I booked five nights of a variety of campsites for a trip (FAR, FAR NORTH) that my girls and I are planning for June. Cheapest five nights of vacation I’ve ever paid for! On Wednesday morning I booked some National Parks campsites for a July road trip, and Thursday I booked my one and only flight of the summer for yet another trip.

Prepared, yes, but also trying to escape the winter reality! Dreaming about road trips and campsites and FREEDOM truly helps. Also, if you want great campsites for summer, you really do have to book now!

Wuthering Heights Update

Remember how I told you last month that I’m reading Wuthering Heights so I can be fully prepared for the movie*? Well, my contact over at PRH was kind enough to send me a GORGEOUS copy of the new Puffin in Bloom edition of the book, and just look how it matches my other Puffin in Bloom titles! I wouldn’t be sad to have the entire set of these beauties someday. I’m almost done reading WH, and regardless of my feelings about the actual story inside, this edition definitely deserves a place in my forever collection!

I am almost done with the book and let’s just say … this goes in my category of “I’ll be glad to HAVE read it, didn’t actually love the ACT of reading it.”

*As for the movie, I’ll be watching with my girls on our little getaway trip next weekend ~ ignoring all thoughts and reactions until after that, thankyouverymuch.

What’s the scariest thing?

When thinking about all of the things in the wider world that frighten me right now, the one I honestly worry about the very most and don’t see a glimmer of hope in stopping or changing, is AI. I see people earnestly working on politics and climate, my two other major fears, but AI is now a power of its own that it feels no one in the general public even WANTS to stop and the people who have the power to do so refuse to try. It’s a small group out here, banging away on the “AI will ruin society” drum … it’s a lonely place to be.

My friend Laura G shared a piece with me last weekend that we were both incensed by, and then a great essay from Anne Helen Peterson popped into my inbox right after. I think these pieces read together, in conversation and contrast, really sum up where we’re at right now, without even talking about how AI AGENTS LITERALLY AND FOR REAL AND THIS IS NOT SCIFI have their own social network.

• The New Fabio is Claude: The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.(NYT gift link)

• Don’t Let the Machine Do the Work by Anne Helen Peterson on Culture Study

One of the first things I ever wrote in this newsletter in January 2023 was about AI when ChatGPT first went mainstream. Nothing has gotten better, everything has gotten scarier. Please, please convince me otherwise.

One Book ~ The Perfect Book for ME

Let’s end on a happier note, shall we? I have been spending considerable mental time recently pondering wardrobe and fabric and consumption and creation, and have had my eye on this book since I first saw it on Edelweiss months ago. Well, my library hold came in on Thursday and I ran to pick it up immediately, and then read the entire little volume that evening.

Patchwork: A Sewist’s Diary by Maddie Ballard is a book that would have been foreign to me even last summer, before I dove suddenly and fully into patterns and garment fabric and a totally new world of sewing than my quilting experience. Ballard’s essays are based on sewing specific garments, and they weave together her personal journey and her sewing journey ~ it was just delightful to find my own experiences mirrored here.

This is a very niche recommendation, but if you sew garments or want to sew garments, or even are just interested in slowing down and being super mindful about clothing consumption, definitely grab this short book. I have added it to my “buy my own copy at an indie when I see it in the future” list.

I hope you all have a restful or invigorating weekend, based on your own desires! I’ll see you again on Tuesday …