I've moved to....

I've moved to www.craftypeople.wordpress.com

and for inside..safe from the snow

Snow!

Stash-busting progress

Using this....

I've been making this....

with a largish hook I made 130 chain and started randomish stripes using dc (double crochet or single crochet if you are from the USA)

I'll keep going till I run out of yarn in these colours. It's a snuggly throw 'cos some of it is fluffy yarn. Just right for cuddling up with one or two others and watching a film on a rainy day.

DANGER stash-busting in progress

Pics later

Thought for the day

from Jan Struther, the author of "Mrs Miniver"

" HARD words will break no bones:
But more than bones are broken
By the inescapable stones
Of fond words left unspoken."

Having finished ASH of T in U (see previous posts) I needed to start something quickly so, like a drowning man, I grabbed the nearest object. I suspect that many of you carry out the same good work that I do, I rescue old green Virago books. And so it came to pass that as I was in desperate need , "Try Anything Twice" by Jan Struther lay in reach on a tbr pile on the hall table.

This book is a collection of writings that were published in various places including The New Statesman (where my 2nd son, Greg works), and Punch. If you feel like finding out more, then you can read the whole book online.

This is ideal "train reading" and so I am already halfway through and in very good humour. Who cares if the train is 5 minutes late, it just means that I can get properly started on the next piece and know I will be able to complete it by the time I'm feeding my monthly train pass through the ticket monster. Perhaps the train companies should dole out similar "in transit" books to keep us all smiling. Speaking of going to work by train, I love it most of the time. I have a group of friends that I made because we travel in the same direction at similar times. I even have a lunch date with one of them tomorrow. Mmm can't wait, we're off to Giuliano's in the Apple Market. Pumpkin ravioli here I come.

Good news / bad news ?

The good news is:



Someone loves me enough to send me a book......

BUT the bad news is:
All that arrived was an empty envelope with a huge shark-bite out of it and no contents.

The even BADERER news, as one of my children used to say, is that when I popped down to my local sorting office at the crack of dawn this morning I was told that I would have to phone CUSTOMER SERVICES aaaaghhh!

I wonder if it was this edition?



Oh yes, forgot to tell you - I have finished "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian". If you are in between books at the moment the I can highly recommend it for an entertaining but thought- provoking read.

Ploughing along at full speed now

You will have to forgive me for not posting a pic or anything interesting but I have the final furrow of "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" in my sights now....

Aaahhhh!

Children never listen to what you tell them do they? I told my eldest that he was absolutely NOT to buy us anything for Christmas. Financially things are extremely tough for him at the moment even a penny spent is a penny too much. But.... this is how he disobeyed me - see above. Bought in the Christmas German market, a salt and pepper set, in one of my favourite colour combinations., blue and orange.
Group hug everyone... aaaah!

Yes I am still alive

Life, mainly work, has been so hectic recently but I am still here.
Nothing much made recently apart rom several pairs of socks, including a trial toe-up pair and a real toe-up pair. I appreciate that working this way you won't run out of yarn, you can just stop when you don't have any more. The trouble is that I found it required more brain cells per sock.

Meanwhile, I have actually started to read a book this year, see above. So far I'm up to page 80 and thoroughly enjoying it. My mother-in-law married a younger man very soon after she was widowed, though the great age difference was not as big as in "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian". Some of the comments of the two daughters in the book by Marina Lewycka could have been lifted straight from conversations in our family.

EXTRA TIME QUESTIONS

1. If you had an extra hour would you do with it?

2. If you had an extra week what would you do with it?

3. If you had an extra month what would you do with it?

4. If you had an extra year what would you do with it?

The beauty of this experiment is that in the extra time you don't have any responsibilities, commitments etc so you can do what you want, wish, like, dream of ......

Cosy Times

I'd been wanting to have a felting session every since my Sunday with Dawn down at Dorking with felting queen Gillian Harris. On Saturday I was determined that nothing should get in my way and here is the result. the design is from Gill's new book and despite my husband thinking it is a jellyfish it is actually a cupcake. This has been made as a present for someone and so I can't say any more.

Young and slim is beautiful

Saturday morning brought ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ from DGR in deepest darkest Devon so you can guess what I did next. Yes, large mug of tea in hand, and a refill a bit later, I sat down and read SKELLIG by David Almond, cover to cover. By the end my T-shirt was dripping wet and the box of tissues empty. I must be getting soft in my old age. I don't think I want to read any other books by DA for fear of them not living up to this.

Oh I forgot to say, this is a children's book, whateverthat means.

Let's all play BlogTag

Now that I've confessed my addiction to the utterings of DGR I can happily trail along behind her blog entry for today. She talks about her son receiving a desperately needed autograph from Gary Lineker. My claim to fame is that I am in possession of a hand-written note from poet Laurie Lee.
One wet and windy westish country evening I turned out to the Bath School of Art to attend a poetry reading by Laurie Lee. I was so overcome with his down-to-earthness and the way he had turned a rather grim day into something special that I wrote and told him so, care of his publishers. Can you imagine my ecstasy when this hand-written IN REAL INK reply arrived on my doormat and survived the teeth of our border collie who was partial to paper?

If you can write you can write

I joined the "Woolf for Dummies" class over on writer Susan Hill's blog. I bought the books: two biographies and The Voyage Out to start with but of course, as we all know, having the coloured pens and a nice new ruler doesn't magically mean you can do Maths or Physics or whatever your worst nightmare is. Life is too short. Maybe I will go back to VW, in fact the postman dropped a second-hand copy of Moments of Being through my door yesterday and a cursory glance promises that this will be very readable. So I have been searching around for something to read when I do read, which these days is very little. It's not that I don't WANT to read, in fact I gaze admiringly at the "big girls" who plough through piles of books AND manage to write something interesting, instructional and pleasurable about them.

Top of the list of big girls is DoveGreyReader. Other people can't start the day without a cup of coffee or a cigarette but there is no way I can get on that train to work or do what I should be doing at the weekend without my daily dose of DGR. How she manages it I don't know although she has recently posted hints about her methodology, much of it involving the sensible use of her spouse's talents and her own skill of knowing when NOT to interfer (see her comments about staying well clear of the kitchen when the three men in her life are doing manly breakfastly things).

Oh dear, typically me, I've wondered off the point. Where was I? Talking about what I am reading now, I think. I dipped into Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I haven't actually abandoned it because I am enjoying the way it is written. It alternates between the autobiography of a girl from the moment of her conception, mentions trivial objects in the narrator's life and then procedes to give the backstory of the object. I have a penchant for books that are mainly about women, especially those written in the first person and preferably with nothing TOO nasty in the woodpile. So far An Experiment in Love (see review by Margaret Atwood) is fitting the spec exactly with the added bonus of a touch of convent schools and nuns. Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten about nuns. There are quite a few of us who have a thing about them. What a wonderful blog subject. I feel like going off at a tangent but I must save that for tomorrow or whenever this dilatory blogger gets round to blogging again...

I'm feeling a little like Ronnie Corbett when he sits in his chair at the end of his show and rambles on then gets back to his original point by saying, "anyway, I said to my director..."
I started writing this blog entry because I am so enjoying An Experiment in Love that I thought I would have a look for a review to see what others thought. Up popped Margaret Atwood's review and that's what made me realise that... if you can write you can write!

Sunday Never Felt So Good!

Almost half a year since we first met, Dawn and I met up again to play with fibrous stuffs. This time it was at a felt workshop with Gillian Gladrag (alias Gillian Harris).

Her home is a wondrous Aladdin's Cave of colourful arty stuff. No details here. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise in case you decide to take part in one of her classes. No more than five in a group and lunch provided. Who needs afternoon tea at the Ritz? Who needs a weekend at a spa retreat? This is the stuff for stressed-out souls. Fluffy, soapy colour therapy.

Arranged around the soap dish and small pieces of merino fleece tops are the five items made by the five of us who eagerly lapped up Gillian's expertise, enthusiasm and tea-making skills.

For those of you who know Dawn and me, can you guess which are our works of art?

The Middle Ages Are Over

Phew! Bed just after 3 am on Friday morning having finished the medieval costume. It was due to be worn last night (Saturday) at a medieval banquet so I hope it was fit for purpose. We had no internet connection here for almost 36 hours. I have no nails and I am bald. Well what else is there to do other than biting nails and pulling hair out when you are disconnected from the world? So, no connection and I couldn't go out as the engineer was due to drop in "anytime".

Ta da! I did some more weaving on my rigid heddle loom (pic to follow). Now, you know those instructional books that have diagrams/photos of what NOT to do. Well, that's what my weaving looks like. Having said that I am still very pleased and know in my heart that I am unlikely to progress much. I am just too impatient but it does keep me out of mischief.

I have learnt several things from this project. It is very important what you choose for your warp. I should NEVER have used that slubby very fragile red yarn, especially not at the edges of the warp. No matter. My "thing" is all mine apart from some input from offspring Greg when I aked "what colour shall I weave next?"

Just left port

Almost reached the 100 page mark in THE VOYAGE OUT (page 93) but not yet steaming along comfortably. I have yet to get my sea legs. I couldn't read on the train as I was lucky enough to bump into one of "train friends" and chatted with her for the 12 minutes train ride. However, I did catch up as I very stupidly left all my keys at home and so had to wait on the station till middle offspring's (Greg) train came.
So why didn't I do some reading last night? Well I had this medieval dress to make... don't even mention the word tension to me! Those of you who are possessed by a sewing machine will understand. Anyway before I could get on with that I had to be a guinea pig. That elderly wise crone, Ann of Corfe, now has a walking, talking webcam and just had to try it out. Yes, it works and I was able to see the result of Ann of Corfe's magical powers. She spins yarns about being a hair's breadth away from owning a bus pass BUT she looks to me as though she has only just moved up to "big school". As the woman in "When Harry Met Sally" says "I'll have what she's having"!!

I need to catch up

with the rest of the class. I decided to join Susan Hill's WOOLF FOR DUMMIES autumn class.
This involves reading chapters of the Lyndall Gordon biography together with selected VW books. So far I'm still on Chapter 1 of "The Voyage Out".

Lazy Blogger

I can't believe it. I knew I hadn't blogged for a while but my last entry was on 1st September. Why don't I blog? Because I am too busy reading DoveGreyReader and Susan Hill. And of course once I have read their daily offerings I feel that anything I upload will not be worth bothering with. What these writers have in common is that they open our eyes and minds to the world of literature and also,as a bonus, life in the country.

DGR is "only" a gifted amateur, or rather was, as those in the world of books have been sensible enough to make use of her obvious talents. You can read more about DGR on Norman Geras' blog. Susan Hill has achieved a wider audience out in the "normal" world by having written (and had published) many books. Some of these are "ordinary" novels, "I'm the King of the Castle" has been used as a GCSE set book for many years and has mainly been the cause of SH's overflowing inbox. She is also the creator of detective Simon Seraillier, with who I have yet to become acquainted. On top of this she wrote "The Woman in Black" which was adapted for the stage by Stephen Mallatrat and has been running in the London West End for 17 years.

This morning, following my usual ritual, I read DGR (she will always be my first love) followed by SH. SH is fond of throwing out lines of prose or poetry and challenging her readers to identify them. She knows that someone will catch them and today Walter J Essex obliged by identifying 'the idle hill of summer.' as a line from A. E Housman's, A Shropshire Lad.

Having read my two favourite blogs I usually spend the rest of the day following up on subjects they have discussed and going over off on about twenty different tangents. This morning my roamings led me to the website of The Poetry Society whose home was always on the top floor of the Royal Festival Hall. Due to extensive renovations of this building which dates from the 1950s the Poetry Library has been closed for some time but when it reopens in 2007 I urge you to pop in.