Books, Music, Podcasts, Library Adventures

The Library Stack

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I am continuing my ongoing series, The Library Stack, sharing my stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library. This will be my last library stack for a while – I will explain later in this post.

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The Stack

One of my favorite books in this stack was A Year Between Friends: 3191 Miles Apart: Crafts, Recipes, Letters, and Stories (2016) by Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes.

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Image credit: 3191milesapart.com

Two friends who met through an online photography site, one living in Portland Oregon and the other in Portland Maine, formed a close bond 3191 miles apart. This book shares their letters, stories, recipes, and crafts. It is a beautiful story of friendship with wonderful photos and stories.

Enjoying the Stack

One of my favorite weekend morning activities is to sit in my quilt and afghan covered old chair in the front window, with tea, and browse a stack of books:

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I realize it looks messy in this photo but I was in my “happy place”

I used to make a pot of tea that I set on a warmer, but I discovered that my tea will keep just as well in a thermos!

Buying a Library Book, Literally

I decided to purchase one of the books from my previous library stack (see post Library Stackings) and found it used online. When it arrived, turns out – it was a library book!

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I now actually own a library book!

I was laughing when I looked at the receipt and saw it was from the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library.

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Our library in Central Oregon, Deschutes Public Library, also has a “Friends of the Library” organization that raises money for the library through used book sales. How cool I bought a used book from another library to support it!

Then to my surprise when I opened the book, it was stamped by yet another library – this time in Las Vegas, Nevada!

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So I book I borrowed from my library, that I decided to buy used, came from another library’s book sale fundraising activities that they got from another library! Wild, eh?

Taking a Break from Library Stacks

I’ve decided to take a break indefinitely from borrowing craft and home decorating books from the library. Instead I am going to focus on spending time with my extensive library of craft books (see my old posts Craft Book Hoarder?!?!? and Craft Book Purge).

To give you an idea of how many craft books I’ve collected over the year, here is our guest room with all my books and magazines in piles and baskets as we prepared to replace our 20+ year old bookcases with new IKEA bookcases:

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So maybe I will start a series of posts where I talk about the books in my collection, instead of the libraries!

Postscript

This is sort of a follow up to the post Shinrin-Yoku: The Japanese Art and Science of Forest Bathing.

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I were laughing hysterical when we came across this recliner at a local store the other week:

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Now no judgement directed towards someone who finds this chair appealing, but what gave me a laugh was that if you really wanted to feel like you were “bathing” in the forest while sitting in your living room, this chair would be the perfect solution!

 

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

15 thoughts on “The Library Stack”

  3. Your library stack is always so interesting. And I love the idea of supporting my library by being a member of the Friends group and picking up some bargains from their purge/sale table. This summer while I was recovering from two falls I began filling my tote bag with these and realized I couldn’t carry them. A sweet young woman (also browsing the sale) noticed my plight when I commented and began putting books back. She offered to carry them to my car and helped me with two bags full. I get a special joyful feeling reading from this particular stack, remembering this unexpected kindness. Blessings abound!

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  5. Completely unrelated, but I just bought a copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. I read the book many years ago, but I always think about it whenever I hear Steven Curtis Chapman’s song Great Expectations.

    Back on topic, I am look for a pattern for overalls. I cannot find any overalls in the local clothing stores. I need overalls. I wish there was a book that just went over the basics of how to create clothes based on what we know about anatomy and whatnot. Then I can freestyle my own designs.

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  6. Your post reminded me to do a post of my own, so I did that and am now back to read your post. The Coastal Cottage looks interesting – I was able to find a preview of it. There are a lot of books called Get it Together!. Is this the one about organizing your financial records? I completely understand about looking at your own books. I plan to post about that in the deep of winter when I don’t go to the library as much.

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    1. Coastal Cottage by Ann and Scot Zimmerman was a sweet book with tours of beach cottages across the US. It was a nice cup of tea browsing book. The book Get It Together: An Interior Designer’s Guide to Creating Your Best Life by Orlando Soria was part decorating book part life advice done comedically. I was giggling a lot while browsing through it. 🙂

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  7. There are many former library books in my stacks, and many more which I’ve read and then passed along to the Goodwill or Amvets or other orgs. I like buying the library books from eBay or Amazon or even locally because they are usually in very good shape (i.e., they haven’t been stored in someone’s basement!) Most of my books on the history of sewing machines are former library books.

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    1. That is so cool and how wonderful to have a collection of books on the history of sewing machines! I recently saw a video on exactly how a sewing machine works and they are such marvelous creations! Thanks for your comments 🙂

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  8. A good idea to revisit your book collection for a while! 🙂 I’ve been trying to keep to my (new) rule to read 2 books at a time, max (hopefully, the books will actually get finished that way! All best with the new shelving! And that couch made me chuckle — for those who can’t forest bathe, there’s forest-reclining! XD

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