It may sound a bit strange, but Sebastian Faulks is one of those authors whose name I instantly recognise, but if you'd asked me to name one of their books I would have failed. That has changed though as if I look on my bookshelf now I can find four of his books. It was this realisation that made me think that it was about time to pick one up and actually read it. On Green Dolphin Street was the one that ended up on top of the pile and I have to say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, especially when I consider that it only cost 79p from a local charity shop.The ... read more
Archives for October 2008
Knitalong
I get quite a few e-mails from Amazon and I have to admit that quite a few of them end up not being read properly. However, I am a big fan of the recommendations that they send out and have discovered quite a few good authors via this route. I've not really tried out the system for non-fiction books, but having now bought quite a few knitting related books I'm starting to get some interesting recommendations into my inbox. One that arrived recently that I took advantage of was Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together by Larissa and Martin John ... read more
Knitting highs and lows
The thing with knitting is that it doesn't always turn out as planned. I made great progress with my tea cosy yesterday afternoon. Got to the difficult part of having to purl two together into the back of the stitch and decided to leave it until today when there wouldn't be quite so much read wine in my system to confuse my brain.Sunday started early so that we could watch Lewis Hamilton's efforts to get the championship from Massa. A bit of help from the internet meant that I felt positive about the next stage so I continued. I managed the difficult ... read more
Evening entertainment
Saturday night at home. Mr C and I used to play a lot of Scrabble against each other. Recently we've been busy with other things, but tonight the board was dusted down and the book that's necessary to prevent arguments found on the bookshelf. We still play with the set that originally belonged to my parents and we take the scores very seriously with an excel spreadsheet that plots our scores and personal averages.Annoyingly Mr C won. Again. ... read more
Battenberg Tea Cosy
My sister asked me a while ago to knit a tea cosy for her, after seeing one that she liked in Jane Brocket's fantastic The Gentle Art of Domesticity. A quick flick through my various knitting books found a perfect pattern for a 1940s style cosy in I Love Knitting and the search began to find the perfect yarn colours online. The Rowan website provided colour charts and a decision was made. Shopping list in hand I went off to my local John Lewis. I managed to find the Calmer in one of the shades I needed, but struggled a bit with the Carnation shade. Luckily their clearance sale was on at ... read more
Salem Falls – Jodi Picoult
I'm not quite sure why, but Salem Falls initially didn't draw me in as other Jodi Picoult books have done. It may have been the talk of paganism and witchcraft that I'm not too fond of, but luckily as I carried on the strength of the characters came through and it ended as a reasonably good read.Jack St. Bride arrives in Salem Falls having been released from prison where he was serving a term after being accused of raping a pupil. He is determined to pick up the pieces of his life and takes a job washing dishes at the local diner that is run by Addie Peabody. ... read more
NZ Stitches
I had a bit of a sort of all my sewing and knitting things over the weekend and realised just how bad I am at actually finishing things. I have a whole pile of half finished projects and a single box full of not finished (or in some cases not even started) cross stitch projects.We're swiftly running out of space in our little flat so I've vowed to finish a few projects before allowing myself to buy anything else, no matter how cheap it is. (Mr C's probably reading this and hoping that I'll do the same with books!) The first projects to get finished were probably my most recent ... read more
Woolly Embroidery
I certainly wasn't planning to buy any more craft books when I went to the Knitting and Stitching show, but this one on the Embroiderers' Guild book stand caught my attention and I just couldn't put it down.Woolly Embroidery is an American English language version of a book that was originally published in Japan in 2006. Split into two halves, the first part of the book provides beautiful photographs of various embroidered items, whilst the second half contains instructions and patterns for the reader to be able to reproduce them, along with a detailed reference ... read more
More purples
As I said in my last post, quite a few purple items ended up in my shopping bag last week. Another example was this 'experimental pack' from Stef Francis. An exciting little bundle containing dyed silk noil, Indian organza, Indian fabric, two skeins of dyed yarn, coloured copper wire and some sequins. I'm not sure how it's going to be used yet, but just looking at it and feeling the contents is keeping me satisfied for the time being until my creative juices take over. ... read more
Purples
As a child, if asked what my favourite colour was I was never too sure how to answer. I just seemed to go for what everyone else liked. After all, no child liked to stand out from the rest for the fear of being picked on as a result. One colour that I would never have dared respond with would have been purple - my school uniform at the time was grey and purple.Nowadays I'm still not sure how to answer the question as it very much depends on my mood. Last Thursday though, looking at the contents of my shopping bag from the Knitting and Stitching show, I must have been in a purple mood. This ... read more