Ponder: The Last Dress from Paris

The Last Dress from Paris by Jade Beer ©2022 tells the parallel tales of two main female characters, Alice and Lucille. In Paris in 1952, Alice, the wife of the British ambassador to France, lives in a life showered with luxuries and haute couture fashions by famous designer Christian Dior. In London in 2017, Lucille is asked by her grandmother Sylvie to go to Paris and bring back a specific Christian Dior dress from the 1950's. There is mystery surrounding this particular dress and a collection of notes takes the reader on an adventure where not one, but eight, Dior dresses are involved. These clues piqued my interest.

The mystery and adventures aspect of this book's description is what enticed me to read it and I was not disappointed in that respect. As a quilter, having somewhat of a love affair of my own with fabrics, I thought the high fashion Dior aspects could provide an interesting backdrop, which it did in a secondary sense; learning the construction of some of these dresses was engaging. The setting of Paris is alluring, but having never been there myself, it neither enhanced nor diminished the novel for me. A torrid love affair between Alice and a dashing young artist, fueled by the cliché lack of attention and love from Alice's husband, securely establishes the plot and further retained my interest.  Eight notes associated with eight dresses are the main clues, introduced in Chapter 3. I bookmarked them so I could refer back and understand the dresses in context as I read on and unraveled the mystery.

• "I saw something different in you."
• "Meet me tomorrow. I'll wait all day if I have to."
• "I need you as much as you need me."
• "Even if you never let me touch you, this is enough."
• "Try to love me a little because I already love you too much."
• The kiss that saved me...
• "I can make all this go away."
• I continue to hope.

Each strong women character in this book strives to make her life what she wants. The thought processes and emotions of these women are well portrayed. Sadly the male characters are not.  The men in the novel are weak as characters as well as in character. In the two cases of Alice's husband and Alice's lover, they each make abrupt character changes and the reason is left unexplained and unjustified. Shortly after completing The Last Dress from Paris I saw the most recent 2022 remake of the movie Lady Chatterly's Lover, (and liked how it was portrayed). I was however, struck by the all too familiar theme of a wife justifying her affair due to an unfulfilling husband. In The Last Dress from Paris thankfully there was an interesting backstory to engage the reader more than relying on a few scattered, subtle, non-explicit, sex scenes.

This book was slow moving at first but then picked up. I felt the feminism triteness was overplayed a bit, but the mystery aspect overcame this shortcoming. The tendency of recent novels to rely on dual timelines did annoy me, though. I was sorely tempted to read all the odd chapters and then all the even chapters so as to get a continuous storyline for Alice or Lucille. Despite these shortcomings, I rate The Last Dress from Paris 4 stars. I enjoyed it, especially a couple surprises near the end.

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience

Ponder: A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles ©2016 – I absolutely loved this book. It is long. There are sections with political implications that I do not understand, nor attempt to. But neither the length nor the fickleness of Russian politics detracts from the wit, intelligence, manners, charisma, and kindness of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov. 

In 1922, at the age of thirty-three, the Count is dealt a life sentence under house arrest at the Metropol, a grand luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin. His crime is being an unrepentant aristocrat. He is forced to live in an attic room, a far cry from the luxurious suite to which he is accustomed under his standing of wealth and privilege. He must never to go outside the walls of the hotel under penalty of death. Quoted directly from the front flap of the book

Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry to a much larger world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's other denizens, including a willful actress, a shrewd Kremlinite, a gregarious American and a temperamental chef. But when fate suddenly puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she so deserves.

The language in this book is mesmerizing and the cast of characters is a joy. The Count performs feats of cleverness with unwavering tact; his polite exchanges a delight to observe. Count Rostov's interactions with a young girl are heartwarming, as he romps nooks and crannies of the grand hotel with her in exploration.

As an aside, I noticed each chapter begins with a letter A. I am unclear of the deeper intent behind the author's practice but I looked forward with amusement to each title heading and seeing how it fits with the subsequent text.

• Book 1 begins in 1922 with An Ambassador, An Anglican Ashore, An Appointment, An Acquaintanceship, Anyway... , Around and About, An Assembly, Archeologies, and Advent.
• Book 2 continues in 1923 with the first chapter reading An Actress, an Apparition, an Apiary. 

What is the plot? When one relates a biography, is there a plot? This is a story of a man who, with the utmost  dignity, compassion, affection, loyalty, and bravery deals with the adult life he has been dealt. It is an uplifting story of making lemonade out of the lemons one has been handed, deserving of a five star rating. This summary may be vague but I have intentionally avoided divulging any spoilers so readers can discover and enjoy the novel for themselves. If you must know more, I warn that the five star reviews and plot summaries on Amazon are very lengthy and reveal too many of the unanticipated anecdotes. A Gentleman in Moscow is most definitely worth the read. It was recommended to me by two friends and they were spot on. A Gentleman in Moscow was superb.

★★★★★ Great! Read it!

Ponder: Dreamland

Per the accolades on the back cover flap of Nicholas Sparks' newest book Dreamland ©2022

Nicholas Sparks is the author of twenty-three books, all of which have been New York Times bestsellers. His books have been published across more than fifty languages with over 150 million copies sold worldwide, and eleven have been adapted into films. 

I used to claim Nicholas Sparks as one of my favorite authors but no longer. Dreamland ©2022 is his twenty-fourth book and, like his previous book, The Wish ©2021, it was a mild disappointment to me. I rated The Wish three stars overall, but two stars relative to is own work. I rate Dreamland two stars overall.

There are three main characters. Colby is a professional farmer who fell into that occupation by default. Parentless, he is raise by his sister, aunt, and uncle on their farm. He is musically talented but he is accepting that other farm and family commitments stand in the way of reaching for his dream of a singing career. On a three week temporary gig, a rare occasion to be away from the farm, he meets up with Morgan, an amazing vocal talent who is pursuing a performing career. Predictably they fall in love. The third character is Beverly, a mom with an incredible love for her six year old son, and who will go to great lengths to protect him and keep him safe. Chapters alternate between Colby and Beverly and are seemingly unrelated. It is my wonder/confusion/curiosity about how the separate paths will cross and intertwine that keeps me engaged. Dreamland does have a climactic section with heart pounding action, but on the whole the book is slow-moving.

There are three upsides of Dreamland. First, it was a short, non-taxing read that I complete in one evening and part of the next day. (Recently returned from travel, it was all I had energy for.) Second, I learned some aspects about farming such as "what are heirloom tomatoes" and "how you keep cage free chickens from running away". Third, commitment to the people in our life can take many forms; an uplifting theme of this novel was seeing aspects of selflessness.

Nicholas Sparks always has a twist in is novels and that is why I claim him to be a favored author of mine. I want to see if I can figure out the twist before he reveals it. Usually I do not and this time was no exception. I hopefully step along through each chapter, having faith that I would eventually be surprised. And I was. Maybe that is why Sparks remains a best-selling author because of those characteristic surprises. Maybe that is why I keep reading his books. But I no longer buy them as soon as they are released. I put my name on the library wait list and once a year I eventually read the next one, just to keep my perfect record intact of having read all his works. 

His most recent track record in my book is not stellar. I gave The Return ©2020 only two stars; I gave The Wish ©2021, Every Breath ©2018, and See Me ©2015 , Two By Two ©2016 a mediocre three stars each. Dreamland is below par with some of his earlier novels but I do not regret reading it. Sometimes even a stale cupcake can taste pretty good. I will read his future works, not with gusto, but with a relaxed attitude of anticipation.

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it

On the Road in Texas – Days 3,4

Tuesday, Day 3, of our Country Heritage Texas Stars tour consisted of a motor coach ride north of San Antonio to two towns, Kerrville and Fredricksburg, where there were quilt shops and a quaint main street to explore. Time sitting on the bus was a welcome relief from all the walking the previous day. Stores we visited were Creations, One Quilt Place, and Things In a Room. Wednesday, Day 4, would begin our trek to Houston for the Houston Quilt Festival with two stops in Luling and La Grange to break up the approximately 3-hour journey. For earlier days of our tour, see my previous post San Antonio, TX Days 0,1,2  dated 11/17/2022.

Day 3: Tuesday
As we set out, our tour manager Sheri, sent us off with a Willie Nelson song, as became her traveling tradition. The theme song of our bus became On the Road Again. Click on the previous link to listen. We would be traveling about 90 miles to visit three fabric locations.

When we first started out, I had a window seat on the left side of the bus with Frank in the aisle seat. All of a sudden I felt a presence very, very near, in my peripheral vision. At what seemed about 6 inches away was a huge steak many times larger than my head! A trailer truck was traveling in the lane adjacent to our bus. I guess these two profession drivers, truck and motor coach, were comfortable next to each other. I was not and was much more relaxed when the meat trailer switched lanes and pulled ahead.

Our first quilt shop stop was for Creations in Kerrville. The shop is in a refurbished old house and, fittingly, the porch had rocking chairs. Frank liked those rockers since he could relax comfortably while I browsed. Once we were back on the bus I texted my daughter that I had completed my first quilt shop. She said, "What? No pictures?" I'd been too busy among the bolts of fabric to take any photos but instead I texted her a photo of our group back on board the bus, headed for the next shop.  For indoor photos – which I did not take – check out the link for the online store tour of Creations. 

From memory what I bought at this first shop was a collection of grays, unexciting but necessary, for a future teal and gray project I had planned: 1 yd gray lattice, 1 yd wood grain gray, 1 yd Kaffe Fassett dot gray. Other unrelated purchases were 1 yd black/white animal faces print, 1½ yard of a magenta line texture print, and a fall panel. Photos of my purchases at several shops this trip are consolidated in a post in my other blog Diane Loves2Quilt.blogspot.com. Here I only show the striking fall panel. It was the store's last one and one of the clerks painstakingly remove each staple that held it fixed onto a foam board for display so I could take it home on a plane.

Our next stop was 24 miles away, One Quilt Place in Fredericksburg.

Again remiss on taking pictures within the store, I display this image from a 2017 post from Dragonfly Quilts blog to illustrate two things: the bright airiness of the store and the comfy chairs at a far rear door a the store. My husband made good use of the furniture on our visit, just as did some other husband five years ago. Also note that One Quilt Place was one of ten shops featured in the 2018 Spring/Summer edition of BH&G's Quilt Sampler shop hop magazine.

One of my purchases was 2 yards of watch fabric that caught my husband's eye. He has a clock collection and a fondness for time pieces of all kinds and ages. I do not know what I am going to so with this fabric – perhaps two pillowcases – but I could not pass it up. Other purchases from this shop are shown in a post in my other blog, DianeLoves2Quilt.blogspot.com.

Fredericksburg, known as the Texas Hill Country, is 70 miles from San Antonio and 240 miles from Houston. After this shop we traveled through Fredericksburg to the visitor center in the downtown area. En route we learned a bit of history about Fredericksburg. It was initially settled mainly by Germans, enticed there with the promise of 10 acres in the countryside and 10 years free of taxes. Germans still found that they needed to come into town for church services on Sundays and therefore built "Sunday houses", small in square footage with a second story of one shared bedroom accessible only by external stairs. We passed several of these on our trip to the downtown area

Once in the downtown area, our bus parked in the lot of the visitor information center (yellow oval), we walked down Lincoln Street (blue dotted line) to Main Street. We ate lunch at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company (red rectangle) where we indulged in apple strudel, a staple dessert in a German town. Not only were the huge copper vats in the restaurant an interesting sight, but the doors to the restroom were amusing, also.

 

After we ate, Frank and I browsed some of the stores in the charming town. A few doors down from the Fredericksburg Brewing Company at 245 East Main Street was Things in a Room at 239 E Main Street. Down a floor and around several corners was a fabric area with a unique arrangement for displaying the bolts of fabric. My husband wondered how difficult it would be to remove a bolt to measure fabric off it. He asked a clerk and they revealed a secret for those horizontally stacked bolts. Every five bolts there was a concealed shelf.

I fell in love with this gray woodland print and added it to the grays I was collecting. This was my only purchase at this store but I strongly plan to include at least part of the 1½ yards I bought into my teal and gray project. I will definitely fussy cut it.

Our approximately one hour trip back from Fredericksburg to our Menger Hotel was uneventful, and somewhat quiet at some ladies grabbed a quick snooze. We were on our own for dinner. Frank and I grabbed a few tacos at the Mengarito Tacos and ate outdoors, enjoying the pedestrian traffic about Alamo Plaza. As we watched horse drawn Cinderella type carriages pass by, Frank spontaneously asked me if I wanted to ride one. I readily agreed and we picked a pretty pink one. It was dusk when we boarded and our timing was perfect. By the end of our ride it was dark and we got the full benefit of the lighted magic. A couple members of our tour group saw us pass by and snapped a photo for us in motion while there was still enough illumination to see us.

As the sky darkened we could look up and see the night sky overhead.

Yes, I know these are a lot of photos, perhaps repetitive, but after 47 years of marriage, ya gotta capture those moments when you can. It was a memorable closing to our last night in San Antonio. We said our goodbyes and thank-yous to George on the left and Chris on the right. One them pulled the carriage and the other took the photos.

Day 4: Wednesday
On the morning of Day 4 we left San Antonio and began our transfer to Houston, about a three-hour drive east. To break up the drive, there was a comfort stop, a museum, and a fabric yarn/shop. The comfort stop was couched as a surprise and at the last moment revealed to be a Buc-ee's store in Luling. At the announcement, a cheer went up on about half the bus and the other half looked at each other in confusion with an unvoiced "Huh?". We became educated that Buc-ee's is a chain of travel centers known for clean bathrooms and many fueling positions.

First confronted with an entire array of sheet metal structures, I learned they were feeding stations to be filled with corn to attract deer. Land owners then sell permission to licensed hunters to come onto the property and try their sport with a greater chance of success. (Did I say that delicately enough?) To be honest, when we walked in, we wondered, "What is the big deal?" Per an online article titled "Why People Are Nuts For Buc-ee's"

These giant roadside convenience stores and gas stations are officially the world's largest and required stops if you drive by one.

Per an RV Travel online article titled How it happened: How Buc-ee’s convenience stores got so famous"

We RVers see our fair share of roadside pitstops. But one stands above the rest. Far above. That’s Buc-ee’s roadside stores. First, realize that your Buc-ee’s visit will not be your ordinary “fuel-quick-and-get-back-on-the-road” kind of stop! Instead, this roadside mega-store will cause your jaw to drop. Your eyes will go wide, and you may even forget your urgency to locate the restrooms! No, really.

I was not so impressed; however, I do acknowledge that part of travel tours is to expand a knowledge base and learn appreciation of other cultures. Maybe having experienced a Buc-ee's I can now answer more questions in the Jeopardy category of pop-culture or at least Texan culture. I now know there are 35 Buc-ee's in Texas and several more in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The Buc-ee's we stopped at was #17. I will admit their bathrooms were really clean and provided a much needed relief. We bought food to eat at our picnic lunch during our next stop en route to Houston, La Grange.

La Grange is located almost equidistant from Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. The Texas Quilt Museum is a moderately-sized, restored, 19th-century building composed of three galleries for show casing quilts. The exhibits rotate and while we were there fifty two quilt from the exhibit Seeing in Color were displayed.  There is a wonderful mural stretching the full length of one exterior wall.

Once inside there were quilts hanging at multiple levels. The historic aspect of the building was preserved and evident in the various stones and bricks of the walls.

There was one quilt in particular that fascinated me. I photographed details of it hoping to possibly employ some of the free motion quilting patterns in my own works.

Adjacent to the Texas Quilt Museum was a fabric and yarn shop called The Quilted Skein. More photos of the shop's interior are available at this yelp link.

Here are two 1½ yd pieces of batik from among the treasures I bought here. I was still restraining myself with purchases in anticipation of the Houston Quilt Festival the rest of the week. My purchases from the shops along the way and the festival are consolidated and presented in my DianeLoves2Quilt blog post Houston Quilt Festival to Home - Day 5,6,7 dated 11/TBD/2022.

After shopping The Quilted Skein and eating a picnic lunch on the bus, we continued on to the Hilton Americas - Houston. The Uber from the Hobby airport had just dropped our  daughter Robin off outside the lobby when our bus arrived. She hugged us as we exited the bus. Timing could not have been better. Several ladies on the trip were happy to meet Robin since many of them had complimented Frank on the shirts he was wearing that he bragged proudly "his daughter Robin" had made for him. We had a family reunion in the fancy lobby all ostentatious with marble columns and a Chihuly glass chandelier.

Our room was on the 16th floor at the end farthest form the convention center and our first order of business was understanding the layout of the Hilton. It was U-shape and one leg of the U, not the base, was directly across from the George R Brown Convention Center that housed the show. One leg of the second and third floors each had a skybridge over to the convention center as seen in on right edge of the next photo. Once we caught on that we could cut across the lobby on one of the first four floors and then riding up in an elevator, we could eliminate trudging along three of those long, long legs of the hotel on the way to our room. To be honest, the length of one those legs was about equivalent to the length of an aisle in the vendor half of the show but it sure did not feel that way – not after browsing many aisles and laden down with packages and bundles. But we quilters are tough and my husband was a good sport about carrying stuff. After all, he is the C.E.O  – Carries Everything Out.

Here is Frank paused in one of the skybridges, wearing a Robin made shirt. Those walkways were poshly carpeted and landscaped with good sized potted plants.

We were to meet up with our group just before the opening of the show preview night for an orientation and tips on how to get the most out of our time at the quilt festival. Entry bracelets were handed out for the advance preview 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm. We peered down through portholes on the second level overlooking the festival floor to get orientated. Show particulars are addressed in my quilting blog DianeLoves2Quilt in the post Houston Quilt Festival 2022, publication date 11/19/2022. That post contains background information, exhibits I particularly liked, and purchases I made.