Category: Meadville-Erie

Trying Libby for the First Time

I recently joined a library again and it feels great. Going to the Meadville Public Library was a staple of our time as residents. Saying goodbye to those endless shelves, antique architecture, and Stars Hollow view of the gazebo from the sweeping windows was a precious gem I took for granted. When we moved to my current town, we checked out the new library and were underwhelmed from both the location – under the borough building – to the sparse and watered down collection. With current attack on public libraries by the big oaf and his minions, we decided to look around for a better option and we found it in a neighboring town.

With library card in hand, I downloaded an app my friend recommended – Libby. It’s a new to me digital book, digital magazine, and audiobook loaning platform that reminded me of audible but better, because its free. We briefly had an audible subscription to fill the void and it was a blast, except for the price. There was also a gatekeeping aspect to it, all these amazing audiobooks are here to change your life – now pay up. 🤨

Although with Libby, there are wait times, I deeply enjoyed my first listen. I chose ‘The Cousins’ by Karen M. McManus. I had started her book ‘One of Us is Lying’ back in 2021 and returned it before I could finish, but I liked her writing style. Since this title was checked out I went with her stand alone novel, for its mysterious yet Gossip Girl- esque plot.

The audio was smooth, with four different narrators that felt more like I was listening to a play than a book. It was atmospheric and enveloping. Listening to a book is my favorite way to craft. It keeps me engaged and off my phone.

What I have discovered since finishing ‘The Cousins’ is the magazine section which offers Marie Claire Korea, Vogue Japan, and several new Korean and Japanese fashion magazines I’ve never seen before. These are the editions I’ve seen my favorite bands featured in but have no way to interact with unless I wanted to pay $50 for an issue sold secondhand. All for free because of the library and the Libby app. I am delighted! 😄

To Write, You Must Read

To write, you must read. Simple right? Like any skill, it requires building those muscles, learning from example, immersion in a new concept, but as I started to brainstorm a new novel project, my tank was empty. I had concepts, settings, character types, but the world building through dialogue and metaphor…it was pretty bland. Not what I expected!

When I began work on Udal Cuain in the summer of 2016, the story poured out of my mind. I had to carry a notebook around, for the small pieces of plot, personality, and setting I found welling up throughout my day. Names were easy to determine, as well as the dramatic conflicts. Why does it feel so different? Well, I remembered something when I picked up Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim – to be a good writer, you must read other stories. In 2016, I wasn’t sewing, knitting, or gardening; I was reading in my spare time. I was still watching movies and TV shows regularly, instead of how I spend my time now watching far too many YouTube videos.

Although I have read a lot of books, it’s past tense. I have not been a consistent reader for years now. Honestly, since 2021, my reading has dropped off. We moved from a town with an incredible library to a borough with a library that is so underwhelming, and on the verge of losing its funding, that I have not been reading new things, nor have I discovered new authors. I have a few books on my TBR list, books that I have bought with the intention of reading, but instead have become bookshelf decor. It’s disappointing.

I used to have a Kindle, where I would buy books on sale for $2.99, sometimes splurging on a full-price one if it was intriguing enough. I would borrow a book a month, and browse the free section for something fun to pass the time. A book I remember finding on a sale that became an absolute favorite of mine was ‘The Shadowy Horses’ by Susanna Kearsley. I found this book initially in high school, reading it before work and during breaks at my summer job. I found Susanna Kearsley again, books upon books of her work at my local library in Meadville. They had a fantastic selection, with a monthly rotation of featured books and new authors. This is how I found Elizabeth Lim – her debut novel, ‘Spin the Dawn’, was a featured YA selection with a stunning cover that drew me in.

I miss the rotation of books and the lack of consumerism. The books were picked by the librarians, books that I could borrow and return with the option of buying. Now, if I want to find something new, the best affordable option is Thrift Books, but it lacks the in-person ambience of a library. Kindle helped me find some great twisty thrillers during the time that the mid-2010s. Remember when Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, The Wife Between Us, and An Anonymous Girl? I used to love these twisty books. There was a fantastic emergence of fantasy around this time, too. I remember finding endless YA fantasy series on my library shelves – I miss that time in my life, diving from adventure to the next. A good story connects us, inspires us. I forgot how important it is to be immersed in stories to be a good storyteller.

So I have picked up reading again. I am forcing myself to put down my projects, and the Animal Crossing, which I didn’t play before when I was reading often, and to read again. It’s going okay. The moments I give myself to sit and read are magical, like I remember, and I think I’ve already had better ideas since reading again. I wish I had kept a list of the books I read in the 2010s; it’s a bit of a blur. Maybe, with a little research, I can find them again and share my favorites with you?

I hope you are enjoying your summer (or winter if you live in the southern hemisphere) and that you have a good story to escape into today. Thanks for checking out my corner of the internet today. I hope to see you again. ❤

Remaking My First Sewing Project Four Years Later

Last September, I felt this aching in my creative heart to make what I didn’t make well the first go around. A project that some would say was insane to attempt as a beginner because of the difficult nature of velvet and the frustration that is sewing with stretch fabric. The dress pictured below was my first wearable garment. I saw the same purple stretch fabric on sale for Halloween at my local Joann’s and my heart skipped a beat. It still exists – I could try again!

You see the first dress I made was constructed so poorly that I ended up cutting it down into a skirt because I was embarrassed to continue wearing it out. After all, the bodice was bunching up and gathered strangely in the back. I lacked the confidence to keep going and try to alter the dress for success. I see now that it would have been an easy make to take out the gathers and bunches of fabric for clean seams, but that kind of thought came with trial and error. I needed a bit more experience and patience to make it right, and at the time in 2020, my younger self was not willing to wait.

But what if I am living in the past? My mind thought, maybe I should let it be and let the dress be a learning experience. I put the purple velvet down and left it, it was not on sale, it would be a sizeable impulse purchase at 15.99 a yard for 4 yards. I can’t justify 60 USD for a passing whim, that would be a poor use of money. So I left the daydream and moved on. Still thinking about that fabric. Another few weeks passed, finding myself in my local Joann’s again. It was my favorite place to explore. I went to the shopping plaza over the weekend where Joann’s remains live boarded up with the lights still on. It was eerie. I found myself thinking about what was blocked off inside? Was the fabric slumbering in the bolts, waiting to be made into something new? Would the yarn ever find a home in a fiber artist’s hands? It felt like a mistake, a bad dream, but it was not. It is over and now it is just a memory.

Anyway, on the second trip to Joann’s during the Halloween sales, I found my purple beloved. The bolt was still full, now marked down to 7 USD a yard. But this time I couldn’t get the project out of my mind. I’m glad I did give in to the creative urge or this project would be left without an ending. At the time, I had no idea Joann’s was going to go under. I thought I had plenty of time to remake this when in reality the window was closing. As I worked on this dress in 2025, I followed Joann’s story with frustration and weight of expectation. This remake is the final try, for this fabric I will never find again.

I made a different dress from the original and that surprised me. I believed going into the remake project that I would duplicate the same dress but with better technique. Instead, it was a project of feel. This time, I had a dress form I could drape the garment on. I had fabric clips with securely held the the slippery fabric together while on the dress form or for a quick test of fit on my own form. This time I understood proportion and where this dress would fit into my wardrobe instead of making a dress that only went with my moto jacket. I reinforced the shoulders and was thoughtful about my stitching, to make the garment strong. I added darts to pull the dress in where it was fitting baggy instead of leaving it like a velvet sack.

It became something new and I am okay with that. None of us are the same as we were years ago, we grow and evolve with every passing year. Making a dress for now, with the spirit and the fabric of my first garment, but with a new neckline and a new fit I think is an inevitability of learning and growth. I had the patience this time to try on the dress, mark what was not fitting right, and go back to work until it was correct. That was not something I was willing to do when I started, because it was all so new and confusing, but with time and practice, those new concepts became a familiar old friend. Like this tan carpet. It wasn’t until I looked at the 2020 mirror photo and the 2025 mirror photo that I saw it. The carpet in the house we bought looks just like the carpet in our apartment in Meadville. How random is that?

I have one more section of the purple velvet left over that I plan to make something with, possibly a mini dress, a blouse, or maybe a jacket. I think knowing this fabric is a relic now, makes me feel unwilling to finish this scrap project, because once it is done. I’m going to feel like my time experimenting with fabric from my first craft store is done. A chapter of my sewing life is over, and I hate saying goodbye. I’m a sentimental person. When things end, I take it hard. I dwell on the loss and muse on it. It might be unhealthy. It certainly makes life harder as a person who wants to keep things alive that are gone, it’s why I think I was drawn to study history in college.

As I keep making things, some of these projects become an archive of crafting past. What are some things in your own life that have moved from the present to part of your past? Does it surprise you to consider these things as your history instead of your current story? Thank you, reader, for joining me again down this sewing memory lane. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Form and Posture – Canada Goose Study

A year ago, I started drawing geese. The Canada goose specifically. They’re a special bird to me.

I see them everywhere – on our walks on Bailey Trail, at the pond in town, flying over our house, on the side of the road, flying over the parking lot in Erie, and hanging out in the Lemur pond at Keystone Safari. They are my comfort animal, a reminder for me that I’m not alone.

God’s used them as a reminder of His promises in my life.

This is a sketch I did to practice the posture of the goose on land. Their necks, their postures, and the way their wings look have a completely different view from land to sky to water.

I usually rush through my drawings, but today I studied the example photo before I jumped in. I also used a technique I learned as a kid to use circles to mark the lines of the body.

#63 – Apple Picking

We did something incredibly comforting this past weekend that gave us both a small delight. We went apple picking at our favorite orchard – Heagy’s Orchard in Northwestern Pennsylvania. It was the first time going back in four years and everything felt shinier, and happier, like the slump of the 2020s had shed and the area we used to haunt had come back to life, and so did I.

The interesting thing is I think now we instinctively felt like it was apple season at Heagy’s Orchard because these photos were taken on the same weekend, years apart, picking the same varieties of apples. None of it was planned. The pictures of my husband in the yellow plaid are from our first fall in Meadville in 2019, taken on Sept 5. The ones of me in a flannel and him in a hoodie are from Sept 7, 2020. And the first grouping, above, is from this past weekend, Sept 7, 2024.

How weird is that? I didn’t know we had a family tradition, him and I, but apparently we do and it was special to go back after such a long hiatus. Leaving Meadville-Erie area, a place that became home to us both after feeling like nowhere was home no matter how far we moved or how hard we tried in familiar places, was such a relief. Having to leave our home under the unfortunate circumstances of a dangerous living situation sucked.

It was frustrating that it was because drug dealers moved into the bottom unit of the house we were renting, with a considerable amount of domestic violence going on with them too, and the police doing little to nothing about it, which was despicable! There was so much pain and suffering in that situation. It only got worse when it became a squatting situation, the air was tense, and there was a gun. Not something you want to mess with. But not being able to fix the situation was a heartbreak that I shoved down in a box, to be left until I was ready.

Our new neighborhood in our new town where we lived from 2021 to the beginning of 2024, was like a high-strung Bailey Downs from Orphan Black, it never felt like home and so I had to keep that box shut and therefore couldn’t go to Erie or Meadville without feeling this rogue frustration, that until I returned there this past weekend, I couldn’t figure out why I was so frustrated and scared of the big emotion, But now I understand, it was a lack of acceptance compounded with the confusion of the dumpster fire that was 2020.

It was a lot of change in quick succession and my neurodivergent brain didn’t know what to do with in the moment, so I shut down. I was afraid I made a mistake leaving although I felt isolated and lonely after 2020, moving closer to family felt like oxygen. I’m glad in buying a house we are still able to go back up to the Meadville and Erie areas, because I realized I’m not done with that area, I just needed to be done with that living situation, and in turn, I really needed to get out of that suburban hell I fled to afterward to go back and see the place that made me feel home again.

The nature is just too pretty to be away from it for too long. There are these incredible ridges that stretch out in every direction. Fields, forests, creeks, ponds, marshes, and the closer you get to the lake it gets flatter until the big blue horizon meets you. It’s incredible. Is there a place or a tradition that helped you feel at home again after going through a tough time?

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