Lixie Makes It: 24 February 2013

Friday, 1 March 2013

Templates and Tutorials

Taking my inspiration from tortoises such as Charlie...

...and others...

Source: google.co.uk via Alex on Pinterest

I have decided to quilt my Nancy Drew Quilt hexagonally. So I made a stencil.

I've never used one before so time will tell whether it works out.

In the meantime I've been taking photos for a tutorial going into my new kits. Guess what the kits are for?

And it's definitely not my photography! The kits will premier at SkipNorth and then afterwards go onto Etsy.

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Since the Kindle arrived chez byrne I have turned some of my nefarious attention away from downloading american crime series and towards downloading books. This means that I recently started reading such titles as "No Cooperation from the Cat" by Marion Babson and "The Chocolate Moose Motive" by Jo Anna Carl not because they were on my wish list but because they were accessible. Shame on me. I read about ten pages of each before coming to my senses - drivel. Fortunately it is not all bad in the epub world and so you'll see one below which I got from the Guttenburg Project as it is out of copyright and was really rather delightful. They have 42,000 free ebooks so I feel a return journey there is definitely in my future.

#4 Death from a Top Hat
Clayton Rawson

Sadly out of print but available either as an ebook or, as I received this one, as an audiobook. The reader was Gregory Gawton who has a good voice for this sort of thing and brings the characters to life. This is the first in the series which book 56 from last year is part of. These stories are complicated so you need to pay attention but it is worth it. I love the former magician who now runs a shop and helps the police solve these crimes. The solution to this one is a little unfair but that hasn't discouraged me from procuring the next in the series. They are set in the early part of the 20th century and describe a calmer side of american life than we often get. I guess in terms of genre this is almost a 'cosy' but isn't as homely as that.

#5 Die Laughing

Carola Dunn

As you might have guessed from the lurid cover, this involves a dentist but this need not put any odontophobes off as apart from mentioning his profession there isn't much further discussion of drills (eek) or other elements of their macabre arts. These books are definitely cosy's. Daisy, for it is she, is now married to Alec and sharing the house with her disapproving mother-in-law. Much to her husband's annoyance Daisy finds her dentist deaded and is asked by the widow to get involved in uncovering the truth. This particular book was from the Library - but it is a ebook. Borrowing ebooks from the Library. How awesome is that? I'm very happy about it. And anything else that makes me less of a criminal.

#6 Hilda Hopkins: Murder She Knit

Vivienne Fagan

You all know that I am big fan of JB. So when I saw a free kindle book on Amazon that linked my Fletcher love with my knitting love I was in like Flint. This is more of a novelette than a full blown book but it's actually rather funny. I feel sure we all know someone like Hilda, who kills her lodgers but then knits 18" dolls that resemble them to ensure they are not completely forgotten. Her evading capture by lurking in a charity shop gave me ideas for when I eventually have to live the life of a fugitive and her eventual taking by the police os clearly a scene written by a knitter. OK - it is machine knitting - but that still counts. The rest of the series are an ungodly £1.27 or so each but I dare say I might be getting a couple in time for my holiday to France.

#7 Glimpses of the Moon

Edmund Crispin

Not to be confused with the Edith Wharton novel of the same name, this is really charming. Gervase Fen is another hero of mine and featured in the books I read in 2012 but this was an audiobook and something I loved coming back to (I have read it before several times). The voluntarily bed-ridden pub landlord with his happy wife, the cavalry major with his distrust of horses, the vicar with his...everything, the tortoise, the pig's head, the pisser...it's all vintage genius. This is late in the series and I've read complaints that Gervase has gone soft in this one but I think he's entirely in character still - just getting on a bit and taking it easy in an english village during the summer. I wouldn't suggest this as a way to start Crispin's ouevre but if you have read Swan Song or another one and liked it you'll enjoy this too.

#8 The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade

MJ Trow

Awful cover but interesting book. A series of murders follow a children's story book. But that's not the core here - the point is that Lestrade is the much besmirched policeman in the Sherlock Holmes books and here he is as our leading man with both Watson and Holmes coming into the story as side characters and around whom fiction blends with reality. This is one of Liz's recommendations and another audiobook. I found myself intrigued and thinking about the story in between listening to it so I've happily downloaded the next book and will continue to listen with interest.

#9 That Affair Next Door

Anna Katherine Green

Published in 1896 so well out of copyright and available free and pre-kindle formatted or through the Guttenburgers. This started a little frostily as I was relating the protagonist to someone who I am currently finding very annoying. But once I got over that I really got into this. A very proper lady of the period clearly spends a lot of time thinking about how correct she is and how incorrect others are. She happens to see a man and woman entering the house opposite hers late at night. Improper! She goes over the next morning to see what's what and finds the body of a dead young woman. The plot thickens to the consistency of treacle and doesn't clear until pretty late on. The solution isn't new - but then it probably was when this was written - but it is clever and well written and well worth a read. This is the first in a series so I will, and I seem to have said this a lot, be reading others when I get hold of them.

Now for some knitting on that scrotum.

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Me-ow

My newest buttons have arrived.

Squuuuuuueeeee! Could not be happier. They got here amazingly quickly from Australia AND free postage AND half price. Her Etsy Shop is here. She has other buttons, earrings and lots of other very beautiful stuff. Definitely to be recommended.

It has made me think again about making the most of my most precious and loved buttons which otherwise live in a storage box. This would be a good way to display singles:

Source: blog.luulla.com via Alex on Pinterest

But then I am thinking more like this kind of thing except just with carded buttons.

Source: baltares.blogspot.com via Alex on Pinterest

Ah - the craft we would do if we didn't have to work!

Speaking on which, on my way in this morning I noticed a block I pass twice a day had added a flag.

"So what?" I hear you ask. But look what it says.

Hello!

Monday, 25 February 2013

Wrung Like A Chicken

Thirty minutes after meeting a man (whose name I can't now recall) for the first time I was semi-naked, oiled up and he had both his arms around me. Then he wrung me by the neck like a chicken.

Another day, another medical professional. This one is an osteopath and has just caused me the most pain I've experienced since the days before my back operation. Then he cracked me, vibrated me with what felt a jackhammer and then zapped me repeatedly with a laser.

On the other hand I do now feel considerably better. Plus having been subjected to that much pain I am obliged BY LAW to comfort myself.

Current favourites are Cherry Deluxe, just in case anyone's buying...

Having not been able to look over my right shoulder properly for two months now it genuinely does seem to have eased after just this first session. And as knitting seemed to aggravate the problem I really had no choice but to seek a solution. Fingers crossed this does it.

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Spooling

I have added some new necklaces to my shop.

I have also updated my Stitchmarker packaging.

Little bit of a shop spring clean, rather than doing any actual cleaning. I was out with friends on Friday night and one said he felt strongly you should do your own cleaning. I am not a subscriber to this theory being more than willing to hand my cleaning off elsewhere. Although a natural extension to it would be that you should make your own clothes. And that I can relate to. I have cast on a new project - avoiding my previous malaise by deciding to knit something as a present.

Knitters know that unblocked lace looks like nothing so much as a pencil sketch of a scrotum so won't be surprised to hear this is going to be a glorious lace shawl. One day.

Things I'm finding intriguing at the moment...