Skip to main content

Handmade books, slow stitching and more bargains from the charity shop

I'm still immersed in trying to uncover my family tree, but in between I've been catching up on 'The Archers' (George - what a nasty piece of work he's turning into) and re-watching the grim but compelling Scandi Noir series 'Wisting' on the BBC iplayer.  I've also been making a couple of art journals, using papers I'd painted and stenciled ages ago but that'd sat around waiting for me to do something with them.  There are certain crafty activities that're immensely pleasing and that definitely includes putting simple books together.  Compiling signatures, using a bone folder to make sharp creases in the paper, choosing fabric or a printed paper for the covers.  If I can get my act together I want to make three as Christmas presents, but with December just around the corner I really need to get a wiggle on.  
I'm also sewing another Jude Hill inspired piece of slow stitching.  A moon in a starry sky.  It's going to be a little wall hanging, & I've lots of tiny metal bells - saved from a broken Christmas decoration - to sew along the base of it, so it'll make a jingling noise if you brush past it.  
I'm still really enjoying 'The Girl in the Blue Dress' by Gaynor Arnold, and managed to add another four books to my never-dwindling-too-much pile of charity shop books waiting To-Be-Read.  I've read a couple of Janice Hallett books before, and they're very cleverly plotted, but don't think I've read anything by the other authors.  
I also spent four quid on this charity shop bargain, and I've been after a small bag with a crossbody strap for ages.  I'd wanted something I could use when I go out for a walk.  To carry the essentials - phone, house keys, tissues, lip balm - rather than trying to stuff them in my pockets and risk them falling out while I was doing a brisk circuit of the nearby RSPB reserve.  One of the charity shops I browsed in had a beautiful vintage Singer sewing machine.  Black with gold coloured letting on a polished wooden base.  I was tempted, and at £40 it was reasonably priced.  It was also certainly more handsome than its modern white plastic counterpart, but it's not like I'd actually use it.  So in the shop it stayed, and let's hope it'll make someone else's day to find it and take it home with them.  




 

Labels:

Comments

  1. Sharon15 November 2024 at 16:13

    I love your slow stitching piece. It's something I really want to try but have to add it to the crafts I'd like to learn list lol. Well done for tackling the to-be-read pile. I need to read more from my shelves!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Valerie blogs at rubykittyruby18 November 2024 at 04:10

      Hi Sharon. Thanks for commenting. My list of crafts-I'd-like-to-learn grows every time I browse Instagram! I ought to ban myself from social media for a month or two and concentrate on what's to hand. Hope you're well. Val

      Delete
  2. Vix16 November 2024 at 05:54

    That slow stitching piece is a wonderfully cheery sight on a gloomy day! At one point we had five Victorian Singer sewing machines lying around, I think almost every home in the Uk had one at some point and we seem to have inherited more than our fair share (and I much prefer my 1970s Frister and Rossmann) so in a fit of generosity over lockdown we left four of them outside with a note for passers-by to help themselves and enjoy them - they didn't hang about for long! xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Valerie blogs at rubykittyruby18 November 2024 at 04:13

      Hi Vix. I love it when people leave things outside the house with an 'I'm free!' notice. I used to live in Bristol and it happened all the time, but here in Yorkshire people aren't quite so inclined. Though I do see boxes of windfall apples at that time of year.
      I'm tempted to buy a vintage Singer just for the pleasure in looking at it. Daft but true! Val x

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

  It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to.  Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate.  Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden.   I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday.  I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different.  There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city.  It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery.  There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery.   My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...
Post a Comment
Read more

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....
Post a Comment
Read more

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

  Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites.  I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs.  It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know.  Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world!  I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them.  Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters -  I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet.  Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining.  I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar.  Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint.  Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste.  Applying paint with a ATM card wa...
Post a Comment
Read more