Ooops! I did it again. Bought yet another book that is ...

I finished reading Ann Patchett's excellent 'The Dutch House' the other day, and started on Sarah Winman's 'Still Life'. Which meant my To-Be-Read pile was a tiny bit smaller. Only now it's not as I succumbed to another charity bookshelf purchase. A lovely hardback copy of Kate Summerscale's 'The Haunting of Alma Fielding'. I am partial to a hardback, just that bit classier than a paperback somehow. Summerscale wrote 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' and I enjoyed that, so I've high hopes of Alma and her mysterious haunting.

'Still Life' is one of those books that you start and immediately feel like you're in safe hands. It's set in 1944 Italy, a meeting between Ulysses, a young British soldier, and Evelyn, a lively 64 year old art historian. The blurb on the back of the book claims it's 'Big-hearted, sweeping and full of unforgettable characters'. Just the ticket, eh?

What else have I been up to today? Lots of sewing. The hoovering went undone, and rainfall meant I'd a valid excuse not to bother with any laundry as it couldn't be pegged out on the washing line. But housework will always wait if there's something crafty to be getting on with.

I added wadding and backing fabric to this -

Forgive the slightly blurry photo. This second view of the same quilt shows the backing's made of two different materials, continuing with that mainly blue theme of the top.

I also started working my way through this quilting book.

Irene Roderick illustrates how she makes a series of different shapes, so I began with skinny lines.

First off, I cut a strip of purple 3/4 of an inch wide, and used that as an insert between two pieces of my dark blue background fabric. Making one long skinny line. Then I made another strip of alternating pieces of purple and blue - rather fiddly to do - and sewed that as an insert. Your eye only sees the skinny purple rectangles as the blue melt into the background.

The next insert is about half and half purple and blue.

After that, I sewed stripes that were angled, varying the width of the inserts, giving a sort of fan shape.

I'm going to try various techniques from the book, mainly using these two colours, and hopefully at the end I'll arrange the odd sized blocks into some kind of overall design. Or at least have a jumping off point for a design.

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Sari scraps, PVA, a couple of books and a necklace

I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....

In praise of wool

Just a quick post today. I'm offering you a short but peaceful break from the overwhelmingness (is that a word?) of Christmas. By now you've probably eaten your bodyweight in sweets//roast potatoes/pigs in blankets/cake/After Eights ... whatever your festive indulgences are. You're under-exericsed, over-stimulated, feeling broke and possibly guilty about an argument with a relative or friend you've never entirely got on with. So, here's something to take your mind off all that. I've two videos to refresh and revive, and they both concern wool. Interesting fact. Well, I found it interesting. About 1% - yup, one per cent - of the world's textiles are made of wool. Out of curiosity, I also googled how much is made of cotton. That's higher, but it's only about 24% and that's heading downward instead of up. Synthetic fibres are the bulk of all textile manufacture. Anyway, back to woolly wonders. My firs...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

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