Just a Rumour

 

I’ve finally done it – set up an online shop for some of my crafty stuff

 

There’s not much there at the moment but instead of mucking around with stuff I think I should be productive and actually achieve something.

Phew! It’s hard work

Non-invasive decs ….. Frame cosies

So here are the real, felt versions of the non-invasive Christmas decorations, otherwise referred to as “frame cosies”.

I’m not quite sure whether this was an inspired idea or a very silly one.

Letters of note

I wonder how many people still correspond my letter these days? Once a computer dies and and backups have been overwritten all those emails will disappear, unlike a good old-fashioned piece of paper that can lurk in a drawer or languish in an old show box.

However, the wonders of the web allow us to view this website and read letter from the past. I think I will be adding it to my bookmarks.

 

Developing an idea …. non-invasive Christmas decoration

What if you were going to be away from home for Christmas? What could you take with you to ensure that your home-from-home would not seem bare in the festive season?

Voila – a  non-invasive Christmas decoration!

This is the prototype. Materials used here were a tatty old red paper napkin, a piece of scrap paper (for the leaves of unidentified species) and a large berry cut from a piece of sky in a magazine picture. As you can see, in the prototype, the side of the folded large triangle has been stapled, as were the leaves and berry.

I will now try a version made from red and green felt, with the side sewn closed and the leaves and berries sewn on with a couple of stitches. Or what about using  4 red fabric triangles with quilt batting/wadding sandwiched in between?

If my pictures and words don’t make sense then think about a photo held in an album by those triangular photo-corners.

Primitive hooked Teapot Mat

I’ve been thinking for a while that I should see if I can make and sell items on a site like Etsy, Dawanda, Folksy or Misi.

It needs to be something where I don’t have to go out and buy any materials so I came up with the idea of primitive hooked items. Whole rugs would take longer to make, weigh heavier in the post and have a higher price tag but many people who drink tea like to use a teapot and enjoy the look of the tea as much as the taste.

I have seen this sort of item described as “upcycled” because you add value to what is a somewhat mundane material. My teapot mat is made from a base of hessian which had been used as packagaing and strips of old t-shirt to make the design.

 

 

 

Ready, Steady, Bake

You are only allowed to use ingredients that you already have …. and you haven’t done a proper weekly shop for months…

if you can bear to use some of your cheese ration you can make …

CHEESE STRAWS

but you need to ensure that they don’t all get eaten while they are cooling

there’s an old tin of cocoa here – what can I do with that?

you could substitute it for some of the flour in fairy cakes.

ooh ooh! – I’ve found some flaked almonds

well bung those in as well

chocolate and almonds – nothing weird about that

18 chocolate almond fairy cakes

that’s 9 each

shall we have one now to see if they are OK?

maybe we need another notice?

Love Poem?

I guess tonight’s
dinner
is going
to
be
a disappointment
compared with last night.

We didn’t decide
before you
went to work.

Beans on toast?

This is a poem (under your rules) but I don’t know it.
xxxxx

My other half has been in the role of househusband for quite a few months. Almost 28 years after our wedding and with no domicile children  we  now spend more time with just the two of us than at any time previously. We have just been on holiday together, and realised when we came back, that other than a few minutes in the bathroom, we spent the whole week practically joined at the hip.

Recent topics of conversation have included “what is poetry” and, mainly due to lack of funds, “what shall we have for dinner tonight?”

Yesterday at work, I received an email from my beloved that combined both those subjects. To those of you who regularly receive huge bouquets of red roses and flagons of scented substances those few words may not seem like much but coming from my outwardly unromantic old man those same few words were worth waiting for!

Advice Noted – Timoloen Vieta has been allowed to stay

Following Harriet‘s advice to persevere with the, on the whole, delightful book Timoleon Vieta Come Home I find that I can’t put it down. To start with the book is a joy to hold. My version is a paperback, published by Canongate. The cover is enchanting, the paper ever-so slightly rough and faintly yellowed. The typeface and spacing of the letter and lines are so gentle on the eyes  and the margins all round are of ample proportions. There is the added delight of a hand-scribbled portrait of Timoleon Vieta.

I have just passed the halfway mark and am into Part Two,which for a lover of short stories, which I most certainly am, is an unexpected bonus. Our hero, Timoleon Vieta, briefly touches the lives of those he meets, and about who we read, and then moves on.

So more than just persevering I am thoroughly enjoying this book but will reiterate my caveat about some of the content so please do not think it is a delightful doggy story for children! So sweeping my prudery aside I shall recommend Timoleon Vieta Come Home to all and sundry – well as long as they are over eighteen.

Should I tell Timoleon Vieta to go away?

The cover of this book and the intriguing title,  ‘Timoleon Vieta Come Home A Sentimental Journey”,  caused me to pick it up and bring it home with me in the first place. The shape and taste of the words and the feel of the paper enticed me to choose it as my “on the train to work” reading. And so I began ……

On Monday I was lucky as my usual morning travelling companion was absent and so I had a good 15 minutes to make a respectable start. So far so good.

I really like this book. I love the deceptive simplicity of the way it is written. The words don’t get in the way of the experience. But… can you feel the “but” worming its way to the surface? Here’s the part where I confess to being more than a lapsed reader. I am also a certified prude. I don’t enjoy explicit sex in books, which is one of the reasons that  what is  often disparagingly referred to as “middlebrow fiction” has been such a safe area for me in the past and was instrumental in introducing me to some of my favourite bloggers in the days before they actually had blogs.

In theory I could skip over the explicit parts of the book. That’s difficult to do. Like watching a scary film, you hav eto keep peeping through your fingers to see if it is all over so that you can get on with the main part of the story. And I do want to carry on, if only to find out why the dog is called ‘Timeoleon Vieta”.

Is there anyone out there who wants to share their thoughts with me on whether or not they would continue to read a book that contained large passages of descripion they they found distasteful?

The Artist’s Widow by Shena Mackay

I’m still not sure what to make of this book. Apart from the main protagonist, the artist’s widow I just didn’t really believe in any of the characters. The book was published in 1998 and set in the preceding year. there can be no doubt about that as the final few pages fit the events of the story around the death of Princess Diana on 31 August 1997. It just didn’t come across as a rounded portrayal of that decade.

As far as I’m aware, I haven’t read anything by Shena Mackay but her name is very familiar and I don’t know why. I wanted to abandon this back but I couldn’t. Now I’m trying to work out exactly why I couldn’t put it down. The story wasn’t compelling. Nothing really happened. A woman’s artist husband has died and she is still alive and misses him. Apart from a few glimpses of their life together this is not the story of a marriage, rather the tenuous connecting thread of the widow allows us to be introduced to a range of stereotypical characters. So perhaps that was the point? But if that was the point it didn’t sit well with the more rounded portrayal of Lyris Crane, herself an artist but now seemingly existing only to others as ‘the artist’s widow’.

Though the book was not a page-turner I had to read to the end and I will certainly pick up other Shena Mackay titles if I stumble across them. And as an aside I wonder if anyone, anywhere has compiled a list of books that refer to iconic moments in popular history such as the death of prominent people or momentous events?

Doh!

Since the other half spent some time working in Texas, he has harboured the ambition to recreate the frankfurter-filled bread rolls that he was served up for breakfast. He insisted that he needed to find the right baking apparatus for this culinary delight and when we were away in Cornwall recently, he discovered the miniature loaf tins of his dreams.

He is not a natural cook and had to prepare himself mentally as well as assemble his batterie de cuisine. Somehow today proved to be the day and, in spite of a literally sticky moment, when I had to come to the rescue with copious amounts of extra flour, his long-held ambition was achieved.

They turned out to be amazingly tasty.