How I spent my summer......

How I spent my summer vacation...........Sewing log cabin blocks by the dozen and........
reading. I read 4 books about Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. 
Visual aid please Log Cabin Quilt of course.

This is my first log cabin quilt sewn in 1987, traditional red centers with three dark fabrics gradually getting darker and 3 lights gradually getting darker. It is about 40 inches square and I hand quilted it.
Reading list:

1. Love is Eternal by Irving Stone  I have been reading biographical novels by Irving Stone since college, he researches all of his books the facts are there along with the real places and people, he gives them personality and dialog. He also wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo, Lust for Life about Vincent VanGogh, The President's Lady about Rachel and Andrew Jackson, Those Who Love about John and Abigail Adams and many more. I should reread some of them.
2. Behind the Scenes or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley  non-fiction, this book is referenced in the three novels. She was an incredible woman.
   
3. An Unlikely Friendship A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley by Ann Rinaldi  Look for Ann Rinaldi books in junior fiction and young adult fiction in your local library, she also  researches her characters,events and places. At the end of her books she tells what is fact and what is not and who she created or embellished and why.
4. Mrs. Lincolns Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini  This might be Jennifer Chiaverini's first book not about the Elm Creek Quilters. This is a look into the Lincoln White House, Mrs. Lincoln after the assassination and publishing Behind the Scenes. 

I had no idea there was so much controversy and scandal during Lincoln's presidency. 

another visual aid please    A ceramic figurine that my mother painted in the late 1940's, I think it looks like one of the dresses Elizabeth Keckley sewed for Mrs. Lincoln.

Sometimes when I am reading a book I imagine the actors I would cast as the characters in the book. It was always Sally Fields voice who was speaking to me as Mary Lincoln and I have not seen the latest Lincoln movie. I could not imagine any other actor in that role.

That's what I did this summer.
would I be teacher's pet or what for all this historic reading!?!
  And now that all my kids are done with school vacation just continues for me!!--Ann--