Stealing a kid from “Stuck”

There are some bloggers that just seem to be writing for me. Top of my list is Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book. He will insist on writing things that make me scream “me too” or, worse than that, I end up stealing borrowing snippets and putting them on my own blog. So here we go again. S-i-a-B’s posting today is about the other five books that Bloomsbury are going to reprint (the first is “Miss Hargreaves” by Frank Baker.

S-i-a-B had not heard of “A Kid for Two Farthings” by WoldMankowitz so finally I know something that he doesn’t. Phew! I’m more than twice his age so it’s about time that age won out over beauty. AKFTF is one of those books that I picked up a million years ago in a bin/box outside a shop (probably charity shop but who rememebers). Usually those bins contain nothing but dross or what looks like dross and to be honest my copy of AKFTF (as above) certainly looked like pulp fiction. it gave the appearance of being nicotine-stained even if it wasn’t. I was about 14, actually thinking about it, probably more like 12 when I picked this book up and it widened my knowledge of the world considerably, but in a very innocent way. I remember being appalled at the way pets were sold on the market because, although I was born at the tail end of the 1950s, I think I must have lead a sheltered life and been protected from some of the upsetting things in life. I also rememebr being fascinated by dealing in antiques in this story. If I remember correctly then there is a touch of the Lovejoys in one strand of the stories that weave together. So if you are up for a bit of magic, in an era before everyone wore jeans everywhere then stand in line and wait for the Bloomsbury reprint of “A Kid for Two Farthings”.

How popular are you?

Well, your NAME rather than you. Both my sons names have gone UP in popularity but my daughter’s name has gone DOWN.  If you want to see the ranking for the names of you and your family then pop over here.

Just for fun

Do you know your biblical references?

Go on, click on the link and give it a go. I managed 8/10 probably due more to luck and old age than anything else.

The N U M P bag

I’ve spent most of today making a N U M P bag (Network cable, Usb cable, Mouse, Power cable)
for G.

He saw my drawstring sewing things bag and decided that he would like a bag, made to a similar design,
to contain cables and other bits and pieces for his laptop. This cable-organising bag could then be
slung in his rucksack without everything ending up as a rat’s nest.

When opened completely flat, the sewing bag is a very large circle.

The  N U M P   bag, however, is made as a cylinder. It looks a little like a small fabric bucket.
The exterior fabric is black cotton duck. Black chosen to be masculine and the cotton duck because it is a sturdy fabric.

Inside the  N U M P  bag there are 4 pockets/dividers, each made from a different fabric. A really
organised person will always put a particular cable back in a particular pocket, therefore making it
easy to know where each cable is. Each of the pockets has a smaller pocket on the outside, two of
them wide and two skinnier ones which can be used for pens, pencils etc.

The bag has a circular bottom and a drawstring closure. There is a sturdy grab handle on each side,
and a loop so that the bag can be hung up on a hook.

Exciting News

I’ve just read some exciting news over on Stuck-in-a-Book. Bloomsbury have decided to reprint a selection of early  20th century books.  So in August look out for “Miss Hargreaves” by Frank Baker but make sure you pronounce her name correctly as “Hargraves”, she is very particular about that.  Miss H will be in a batch of 6 with hopefully more to follow. I’ll be sure to grab a copy because my old orange penguin copy is falling apart.

Under the weather

I can’t believe it. I have now been in bed for 7 whole days and am now halfway through my 8th day of incarceration. All that time i haven’t  had any strength at all to do anything include eat or use the computer. Anyone who knows me will find that hard to believe.

Is the grass greener on someone else’s TBR pile?

Whether you have 3 books waiting to be read or a giant range of TBR (to be read) mountains in your home it is always difficult to decide what to choose next. Now i am going to make it even worse for you.

Go to  flickr.com and search for “TBR pile” and you will find over 50 images of other people’s TBR piles.  Can you read the titles that other people will be reading soon?  Do their covers tempt you? Will you have to go out and get your own copy?. If those piles aren’t enough then go and do the same “TBR pile” search on google images. Oh my goodness! Can there be that many books in the world.

Snow pics – no pics

Snow today and no trains or buses so the only way to get to work was to walk the 5-6 miles to work. I’m a lucky girl so that doesn’t mean tramping through city streets. Once I have walked down to old Father Thames then it’s barely a couple of steps till I am in the largest Royal Park complete with deer, heron, Canada Geese and exotic Psitacula krameri (ring-necked parakeet).

Of course I took my camera with me and took loads of pictures of everything I saw including a SNOW DALEK  taller than a man. It was so well-executed. I suspect that it was built my arts students from Kingston University who have a hall of residence across the road. When I arrived at work i wanted to share my delight at this creation with my colleagues so I borrowed my boss’s universal card reader and prepared to download my pics.

Thank you Julie for finding my exact "Kingston Bridge Snow Dalek"
at http://flickr.com/photos/afraidofducks/3247872829/
I hope that "Afraid Of Ducks/ Mark Merifield" won't mind me showing you his photo.
I wonder if he made the dalek as well as "shooting" it?

Things don’t always go to plan, do they? I shouldn’t be so reliant on modern technology. I should enjoy what I see and not always think, “Oh take a picture” “put it on my blog”. First of all I thought the computer wasn’t recognising the card it kept asking me if I wanted to format the card. Nooooooo!!!!!!  So I put he card back in the camera and tried to look at the pics on there. But the pics that HAD been there, because i saw at least two of them had DISAPPEARED!!

sob … sob …. sob     so my snow pics have turned into no pics!

I’ve tried searching online for the Kingston Bridge Dalek but the talented people who made it were sensible and enjoyed the process of making their artwork and causing everyone to smile as they crossed the bridge to work. They weren’t as blog/online/web/intenet addicted as some people. If you google “snow dalek” you will find some examples. Snow Daleks are obviously IN. However, you won’t find a snow dalek as impressive as the one I saw this morning.

Purple Play & Sock Silliness

I live not far from Hounslow, Middlesex. It is a mini-mini-mini Southall. By that I mean that it has a high Asian population and consequently a good few shops full  of Asian goodies. One of these shops sells fabric, much of it with a great bling factor and even better than that there is usually some very cheap fabric to be had. The downside is that I never really NEED any such fabric but of course I can’t resist a rummage in the remnant bin or the purchase of “just one metre” of this and that. So it was that a few years ago I acquired this purple fabric.

If you look at the bottom of the photo you will see the front of the material. It really is a bit too much for me to think of anything to use it for and so it has languished in various bags, piles and heaps since it came home with me.

For a while I have been considering that the back of the fabric would be more useable even though those gold squiggles show through in places. My scissors first cut into two pieces that I sandwiched together with some wadding to make a cover for a notebook. I also sewed in two bookmarks made from wrapped yarn. I used a length of red yarn and machine wrapped it with red bobbin thread and blue top thread.

My second piece of purple playfulness was the unfinished clutch bag in the middle. I bought some bondaweb with the idea that being double-sided I could fuse it between two layers  of the fabric and it would also give it some substance. I don’t know what I was thinking of because of course the bondaweb is so gossamer-like that once the two protective layers are removed  there was no substance left. I probably should have abandoned the project there and then but I’m not like that. I enjoy messing around. So I picked up my second attempt at wrapped thread that had turned out to be what I grandly call “antique gold”. I then began to sew strips of this wrapped thread all over the cut out & sandwiched fabric pieces (one body +flap piece and two gussets). Soon they began to act rather like a corset and when I sewed the pieces together into the bag shape it was more or less self-supporting. Now I think that I will I have to line it somehow and I’ll probably use a double or triple length of the remaining wrapped thread for a strap (even though clutch bags don’t need a strap).

Moving on to the SOCK SILLINESS …

I have my father’s big toes. They seem to have a life of their own and though I don’t ever feel them at it, I know that they wriggle and jiggle all day inside my shoes. How else would I have one giant hole in each toe of nearly all of my socks. Yes, I do know how to darn and I do darn although most of my socks are a cotton mix and don’t accept a lot of darning or in my case, major reconstruction, as well as wool socks do.  A week or two ago I was being all New Yearish and I emptied and sorted my sock drawer. I had no idea how many pairs of socks I had  because quite honestly I ran out of fingers and toes (big or small) to count them on. I took a deep breath and decided to throw out all those socks that had darns on the darns or were in urgent need of such. The pile was mountainous and I just couldn’t bear to throw them out. I had several pairs of spotty, dotty socks and many with stripes. I have a weakness for both. So .. I cut off the damaged toes, the heels (which  are the most three-dimensional part of the sock) and the cuffs. This resulted in two “tubes” per sock and I cut down each down the length resulting in a flat pirce of sock fabric. Then in a very haphazard way I zig-zagged the pieces together. Now what on earth have I ended up with …. a squilt? And what on earth do I do with this “squilt”?

Finally … on the left …. two more pieces of the fabric, right bright sides together. The flower’s centre made from a green foil wrapper from a chocolate (“borrowed” from the Loom Monkey’s magpie stash of “useful things”) and the orange petals machine embroidered. Finally I stitched a decorative machine-embroidered border around the edge of the piece sandwiching the two pieces of fabric together.