D is for Dubric

Ahh, Dubric. The imaginary guy who both enhanced and complicated my life.


Not exactly sure what I should say about him, facts? Secrets? Where he came from? 


Let's start with a few basics.


For those who don't regularly read this blog, Dubric Byerly is the main character of my series, The Dubric Byerly Mysteries, published by Bantam Books (more information on my Books and Such page). Dubric was born on the 6th day of eleven moon, 2195, and is 68 summers old in all three published novels (they take place in the first half of 2264). Yeah, you read that right, 2264. But it's not earth, okay, it's a completely different place with its own timeline. Contrary to rumor, Dubric's world isn't medieval, it's post apocalyptic. Yup. Post apocalyptic. Only, in his world, the collapse happened near the end of the industrial revolution. The mages seized power and, centuries later, Dubric was among those who fought to restore reason. In his nation of Lagiern, at least.


Sounds rather patriotic, doesn't it? Being a leader in a revolution to assert the dominance of Reason over Magic. So is Dubric a revolutionary? Sort of. Of all of the leaders during the Great War, he was, in a lot of ways, the least reactionary. Yes, he knew they needed to stop the mages and worked quite hard to pursue that goal, but he was much more of a philosopher than a firebrand. His future wife, on the other hand, was quite vocal in her opinions, which made her a target and, ultimately, got her killed.


Only then, after Oriana died, did Dubric become the opinionated fellow my readers know and love.


I have to be honest here, and please forgive me, but I don't like Dubric. I've never liked him - I generally refer to him as 'that ass'. I think he's a great, multi-dimensional character, and he's certainly been strong enough to carry several novels, but he's not someone I'd want to hang out with. He's not a particularly 'nice guy'. Yes, he does 'good' things, like tracking murderers and standing up for the poor, but his core principles are generally self serving, or at least serve his vision of the greater goals and purpose he has set in his mind.


In Valley of the Soul, Sarea tells Lars, "I don't trust Dubric," she hissed. "He's never once, in all these summers, considered how things affect our family, our girls, our life. Nothing is more important than the damned job."


I consider that a true statement. Dubric doesn't care about how his actions impact others; only the end result matters. He claims to care a great deal about how things he disagrees with harm the populace, but it becomes much less of a consideration when his own ideals clash with other's needs.


I'm not saying he's a horrible despot. He's not. He isn't greedy or cruel or prone to subjugating innocents to his wild whims. He would, however, sacrifice one of his men if it would help him achieve his own goals. Others are like pieces on a game board to him. Tools, to be utilized.


Also, in Valley, Lars tells him, "...As long as I've worked for you, whenever you talk about the war you mention the boys that died under your command. Fourteen-, fifteen-summers-old boys. I'm one of them, sir, and it's quite possible that I'll die while serving you. I know that, and I can face that. But what of my life? What life, what joy have I ever had?"


If you haven't read the books, the dialog above is part of a scene where Lars (a teenage boy and member of Dubric's staff) is asking Dubric to honor a promise to give the kid a previously-scheduled day off to attend a faire with his girlfriend, Jess. Dubric is resistant because his own goals of finding a mage conflict with Lars's more personal goal of getting a kiss. Lars ultimately wins the debate and makes Dubric honor his promise, but not without an implied threat that he'd quit the job before missing his date. I believe that Dubric relents, not because of honoring the promise to let the boy have a specific day off, but because, at that time, Lars is a vital piece in the implementing of Dubric's overall plan.


Dubric consistently puts his broad goals ahead of personal issues, even his own, and it's become a long running theme in the story of his life.

C is for Cats

We like cats, that's certainly not a secret. We do have one dog - a slobber-generating lab mix named Gozer - but we also have five cats. Abbie, Cooper, Puufy, Echo and Peanut.

Why five? The joke is because we don't want six. ;) The truth, however, is because while we love cats - and all of ours are sweet and affectionate - they're often a pain in the butt, too, and five is pushing our limits.

Echo, this morning, wondering what I was doing with the thing in my hand.

Take Echo, for example. She's about a year old, is an accomplished hunter, and has a habit of bringing her victims into the house. Alive. Which then means that we get to chase down the bird/rodent/frog, catch it, and put it back outside before one of the other cats gets ahold of it. I rescued a finch Sunday afternoon. Was kinda cool, actually. Anyway, she's sweet and smart and ruthless, just about the perfect all around cat.

Abbie,

Then there's Abbie. She's thirteen, Cooper and Puufy's mama, and never saw a closed door she didn't want to go through. Closet door. Front door. Pantry cupboard door. She has this thing about doors. I swear, I spend too much of my life being her doorman.  She will cry and beg and bitch and drive us crazy until we open the door to show her that there's nothing out there, in there, or whatever. But does she believe us? Nope. She has to go on through and check it out for herself. And then, within moments, she wants back through the door, in the other direction. That's fine with most doors - we just leave them open - but regardless of weather, she wants in and out and in and out and in and out the front or back door, all day, every day. It's exhausting. I can't tell you how many times she wants out. Out out out, let me OUT!! While we can ignore her for a while, it kinda grates on our nerves, so we'll break down and let her out. As soon as our butts hit our chair, she's hanging or banging on the screen door demanding to be let in. Yep, Abbie and her damn doors = super cool fun times.

Btw, Abbie does not believe in Echo's catch-and-release nonsense. She catches something, it's lunch. Always.

Cooper doesn't like cameras.

Ten year old Cooper is a big (he's about 22lbs), fuzzy baby. He's very cuddly, very sweet, and not all that bright. He also sheds clumps of fluff the size of grapes or bigger. All over the house. All day, every day, year round. Clump, clump, clump, showing his trek through the house like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. For some reason, he thinks that if we can poop in the bathroom, he can, too. So we have to leave the bathroom door closed, which, of course, drives Abbie nuts. I spend a good part of every day picking up Cooper's 'fluffdcrumbs' wherever I go. He is a sweetie, though, even if he weighs a ton.

There's a nut on my shoulder!!

Then we have The Nut, or Peanut as her paperwork at the vet says. She is a nut. She's a year old and Echo's lovey sister. She's also wacky, prone to explosions of silliness, and she really, really loves jumping onto people's backs (if they're bent over), or shoulders (if they're sitting). Doesn't matter what you're doing at the time, if she sees an opportunity to perch, she's gonna take it. Honestly, the jumping onto us isn't a big deal, she's not a big, heavy cat like Cooper, but once she's there, she doesn't want to leave. And holds on. Which hurts. Because of this, she's the first cat we've ever talked about getting declawed. We won't do it, though, because, like the others, Peanut does go outside sometimes. She's the most indoor of our cats, though and would - we think - adjust to 'strictly indoor' life without losing her mind, or ours. Peanut also likes to get into things, small, confined spaces, and we occasionally have to help her get back out again.

Puufy and Goz. Goz is an 85lb lab. At about 20lbs, Puufy is not a little cat.

Lastly, we have Puufy, or the Puu-Man. Puufy is eight years old, and, like his brother Cooper, is a big boy. Not quite as big as Cooper, but close. Puuf has the hugest paws, and we've often wondered how big he would have gotten if he hadn't been neutered as a kitten. Puufy is very talkative and, well, he bitches a lot. Me-ah, me-ah, me-ah! (Seriously, we think it translates to 'where's my milk, bitch?' at least it certainly sounds that way.) We can just tell by the tone of his voice when he's griping or trying to sweet talk us. He's also a milk addict and while I flat out refuse to feed his addiction, he has Bill totally wrapped around his little fluffy toe. Despite his addiction, he's a sweetheart cuddle baby, and him's my boy!

Our cats all get along with one another, and they'll often sleep clumped together and touch noses and play, so that's good, much, much better than constant fighting.  And we love and adore every one, for their good points and bad. But we don't want six. ;)

B is for Batik

As a quilter, I go through a lot of fabric. My absolute favorites are imported batiks. Batiks are high quality, hand-dyed (often with a wax-resist technique) fabrics that are - usually but not always - imported from Bali, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. Some American manufacturers dye their own fabric here, but most batiks are imported. The dense, cotton base fabric, however, comes from all over the world, including the US.

Why do I love batiks? There are a couple of big reasons.

Thread Count. Most quilter cottons and prints are made of high thread count fabrics. These 75 thread count fabrics need stiffness and limited stretch to accept the pattern being printed on the front surface and to keep it from being distorted, but batiks, often made of pima cotton of 200 thread count or more, take this number even higher with a denser, crisper fabric that's great for complete dye absorption. Batiks are never 'flimsy', barely shrink, and resist fraying. They also have a very luxurious drape and hand.

Batik on left, quilting cotton on right. Can you see the thread count difference?

One downside to the high thread count density of batiks is that some sewing machines have a difficult time working through the fabric and it is much harder to hand quilt. Since my machine (a Pfaff) has never had a bit of trouble, and I don't hand quilt, these issues don't impact me, but I have several quilting friends who do not like batiks because of the difficulty of getting a needle through them.

A batik (left) and a quilter cotton (right) of similar coloring. Front of fabrics shown.

Color density. Most quilting cottons are, as mentioned above, printed on one side and the reverse is much, much paler in color, merely a ghostly mirror image of the front (see below). Since the surface dyes don't go all the way through the fabric, print fabrics tend to have a traditional looking flatness of color, even when several tones and tints are printed on the surface. Batiks, on the other hand, with their clear-through coloring, are luminous. Both sides of the fabric can be used. They resist fading, since the dye goes clear through, and even after many washings, they remain bright and vibrant.

A batik (left) and a quilter cotton (right) of similar coloring. Back of fabrics shown.

I've been quilting with batiks for about fifteen years now (I was an early adopter ;) and I make primarily scrappy quilts which, to me, are quilts with a wide variety of different fabrics. I've noticed that I can stick a batik or two into a primarily print-fabric quilt and the batiks will visually pop out, but if I put a print fabric into a primarily batik quilt, the prints just lay there dull and lifeless. So, when I plan a quilt, I consider the way the various fabrics interplay with one another and, usually, either use all prints, all batiks, or make a very scrappy quilt with a fairly even distribution between the two.

Cleopatra's Fan, all print fabric.

Cleopatra's Fan, all batik.

I have hundreds of batiks in my stash and they've become, by far, my fabrics of choice!

A is for Art

I love art. Seriously love it. So much so, I have a degree in it. Yup, a BA in Art, specifically graphic design with an emphasis on illustration. I worked as a graphic designer for about a decade, created a few line art illustrations and custom logos, but mostly ads and such. I left the biz in the spring of 2004, a long time ago, but I still do my own covers (for the ebooks, anyway) make an occasional logo, do custom floor maps of places in my books (you can see M's house here) and, well, other graphic-designy things, like custom chapter head graphics, like this one currently on SPORE's chapter two and my own quilt designs.

Anyway, I have a confession to make that might rattle a few artistic cages. I cannot stand Picasso. Eeeeyuck. I'm not saying the man wasn't talented - he was, in some ways, a freaking genius - but as far as I'm concerned, the only decent piece of art he created after his blue period (that and everything before was amazing) was The Guernica. All the rest? Well marketed crap. Being 'Picasso', and all the fame and attention (and sex, booze, money and parties) that went with it became the focus, not the art itself. He was already slipping into the embrace of his own greatness by his rose period, and, well, his ego pretty much took over after that.

Now don't be telling me that I don't like cubism(1), or surrealism(2), native influenced(3), or anything abstract(4) or even post-modern(5), because that's simply untrue.

Let's talk about Matisse for a bit. He was a decade older, yet a contemporary - and rival - of Picasso, and also delved in many of the same early 20th century styles. Soft spoken, grounded, a man who created art because to not create was impossible. Often penniless, he was also a musician, a sculptor, and a teacher, always a compulsive creative force. Nothing mattered but the art. Even late in life, when he could no longer hold a paintbrush, he could hold scissors. Yes, scissors. Some of his most famous works are just that, shapes cut with scissors.

Matisse could kick Picasso's artistic butt any day of the week, mostly because Picasso's ego would make him too top heavy.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. ;)

(1) Nude Descending Staircase by Marcel Duchamp
(2) Swans Reflecting Elephants by Salvador Dali
(3) The Dance by Henri Matisse
(4) Composition Eight by Wassily Kadinskiy
(5) Eye in the Heat by Jackson Pollock

The challenge starts tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the beginning of the A to Z challenge and I can't wait! I don't have a specific theme in the works, it'll be more eclectic, but it should be great fun!

I will add/alter my topics as I decide upon them, and put links on the list as I post, one per day. I'll keep the master list here. If there's something you'd like me discuss, PLEASE let me know. Btw, none of my topics are set in stone until they're published on the blog, so feel free to chime in!  :)

Tam's Blogging A to Z Challenge, April 2012

A:  Art
B:  Batiks
C: Cats
D: Dubric
E: Exercise
F:  Fear
G: God

H: Houses

I: Introvert

J: Joneses 

K: Kale

L: Laudanum

M: Manuscript

N: Nightmares

O: Oxycontin

P: Politics

Q: Quilting

R: Royalties

S:  Silers

T: Truth

U: Underwear

V: Valences

W: Writing

X: XXXenophile

Y: Yeast

Z: Zaftig

Btw, if you're participating, please let me know so I can include your blog addy in the blogroll on my main blog page!

This year's big quilts

I make one large quilt a year, on average, and a dozen or so smaller ones. By smaller, I mean a size that's reasonable for me to quilt myself with my standard-sized sewing machine on the definitely-not-huge-desk I have in my sewing room. So, um, less than 60" on a side is about my limit. I send out larger quilts to be quilted, which adds a hundred bucks or more to the cost, plus, well, I don't enjoy piecing big quilts. So I don't make many. Sometimes, though, I need to, for big events (like weddings) or whatever.

Anyway, here are all 49 blocks for this year's large quilt. It's from Scrap Basket Surprises (actually a much larger variation of the throw-sized quilt on the cover) and it's all batiks, from three jelly rolls and some strips from my stash (in this case, two different Bali-Pops and a Tonga Treat). I still have to put on two borders, one of which is pieced like piano keys, and the quilt will finish at approximately 96" square. That's pretty darn big. :)

I started this quilt the last weekend in February, at our guild's quit retreat, and finished sewing the blocks last week. The blocks above aren't sewn together, they're all separate squares, just set up on a friend's design wall so I could get a look at them, since I really don't have a good place to view an eight foot square quilt on any floor in my house.

It's my token bed-sized quilt of the year, but it's not the only biggish quilt in my queue. I'm also going to finish a pink and green quilt that I started a couple of years ago, and it's looking super cute!  (also laid out on my friend's design wall).

It's a variation of the Winner's Bouquet pattern from Atkinson Designs (I strip pieced the melons instead of having them be one piece of fabric, and it's totally scrappy, even the white-on-white backgrounds). I will possibly quilt it myself, I haven't decided yet. At 48x64", the size is already a bit big, especially if I add borders, which is likely, but I'm thinking it needs a fancier quilting pattern than I can do. So I guess it's probably headed out the door to the quilter's. ;)

I have other sewing projects I need to finish sometime this year, but these two are the biggies. :)

A to Z Blog Challenge

Since the January Challenge went so well, I've signed up to do the A to Z Blog Challenge in April. Should be fun! :)

Now to find something to occupy March ;)  lol