books read 2009

  • Muriel Spark: The pride of Miss Jean Brodie
  • Toni Morrison: Jazz
  • Anthony Kiedis: Scar tissue
  • Tim Butcher: Blood river
  • Jorge Amado: Gabriella garofano e cannella
  • Stephen King: Dolores Clairborne
  • Kate Morton: The house at Riverton
  • Muriel Barbery: Estasti culinarie
  • Dorothy Whipple: The Priory
  • Andrea Camilleri: L'eta' del dubbio
  • Virgina Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
  • David Ebershoff: The 19th wife
  • Sidura Ludwig: Holding my breath
  • Vita Sackville-West: All passion spent
  • William Maxwell: So long, see you tomorrow
  • Mohsin Hamid: The reluctant fundamentalist
  • Noel Streatfeild: Saplings
  • Tracy Chevalier: Burning bright
  • Barbara Pym: Excellent women
  • Markus Zusak: The book thief
  • Annie E Proulx: Fine just the way it is

cinema 2009

  • Angels and Demons
  • Ghosts of girlfriends past
  • The boat that rocked
  • State of Play
  • He's just not that into you
  • Pane e tulipani (Bread and tulips)
  • Frost/Nixon
  • Yes man
  • Slumdog millionaire
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Friday, 03 July 2009

ironing board cover

ironing is a little bit nicer...

Ironing board cover

Thursday, 02 July 2009

the hottest day of the year...

and I'm painting furniture.

Small table

Don't ask.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

boys, boys, boys

I'm looking for a good time...

X 1 

boys, boys, boys,

X2 

get ready for my love

X 3 

I'm exhausted already and summer has barely began...

Help.

Wednesday, 24 June 2009

sometimes it's just a case

of right time right place

Meakin bowl 

if you want to snap up this delicious bowl

Meakin plates 

and dishes.

Parrot bowl 

Or perhaps you prefer fauna to flora...

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

Peaches

Peaches 1 

Pattern by Kim hargreaves in her latest book "Breeze"

Peaches 3 

Hook size 4.25mm and 3.5mm.  Rowan handknit cotton shade 355, 2 balls.

Peaches 2 

For my good friend Kirsty.

Peaches 4 

Because she asked very very nicely.

Sunday, 21 June 2009

what's your trick?

 I was sitting at my desk earlier, staring at the wall and pondering what to do next.  Mr M and the boys had left for the day and the empty hours stretched endlessly and ahead of me (irony, people, smell the irony...).

Potholder 3

What to do? how to get started? The wall stared back as I sat drinking green tea in my 'drama queen' mug. (Drama queen? Moi?)

Potholder 1

Working on a WIP? nah.  Too virtuous.  Today was a day dedicated to shameless me time and self indulgence; finishing a WIP sounded too much like 'work'.  I was having an ill timed case of sewing-block.

Pants.

Potholder 2

So I folded some laundry - which was completely way and above the call of duty and helped sweaping away the last crumble of guilt at having so much time on my hands - and then I sat down at my computer and 'surfed'.

I find reading craft blogs a double edged sword... there's so much talent out there that it can be kind of crippling and self-destroing to look at it all.  Today though, it worked. 

Potholder 4

I grabbed my box of scraps, turned my machine on and just went for it. The top and the bottom come from an old 'cutter' top I got off ebay; they're stained and have holes, they're crooked and faded, but they deserve love too and as long as they'll last they're going to get it - all be it under a very hot dish, love hurts after all.

Potholder 5 

The scrappy border is just that... scraps.

So how do you get out of a creative schlump? How do get back on the saddle again? How do you ride it out?

(Today my inspiration came from http://ayumills.blogspot.com/)

Thursday, 18 June 2009

granny's cushion

actually it's not granny's, it's mine. 

Granny cushion 1 

In my studio I have a very old office chair which - let's face it - has seen better days.  The armrests have fallen off and it doesn't go up and down anymore.

But.

But now it sports a brand new cushion.

Granny cushion 2 

My lumbar region is extremely happy.

Granny cushion 3

And I've fallen under the granny squares' spell.

Monday, 15 June 2009

'A' is for skirt.

Ta dah!!!

A-line skirt 1 

I finally did it.

Not brilliantly, but I did it.

A-line skirt 2 

And it fits. Eventually.

In the words on No 3.... "ME DID IT"...

(loosely based on Amy Butler A-line skirt pattern.  No lining.  Fabric is called 'Riviera' by FreeSpirity)

Friday, 12 June 2009

... life itself,

rushing over me... *

1 

3

2 

and how's your day coming along?

* Bruce Springsteen, who else...

Thursday, 11 June 2009

stock 1

I hadn't quite realised how depleted my 'stock pile' (grand name for a couple boxes of stuff which is most of the time a 'present pile') was till I look this morning.  Oh dear.

Let the work begin.

Bag  

Surprise suprise.  A bag.  How original of me.

But how girlie is the fabric?  Don't you want to run through a field of barley with a straw hat and a long flowy skirt?

Bag detail

No? Just me then.

Fair enough.