Books #47 - #58

The images are amazon affiliate links so click on them if you want to buy - but dudes, I'm only in it for the pictures.

At the start of the year I said I wanted to have read 60 books. I seem to have managed 58. I've been using goodreads.com to keep track and was up to 46 when I wrote my last review post in November.

#47 One Man Show
By Michael Innes

Probably one of the best Innes books I've read in a long time. Although there was a lot of long winded description it almost made sense and the plot twists and turns (it was like a freakin maze) were just extraordinary enough to keep me entertained as well as intrigued. In a nutshell - your detective goes to anart exhibition with his wife, sees a painting by a recently dead artist which is then stolen. Except it's all linked up with another stolen painting and it's not clear if the artist was murdered or not and what's happened to the woman upstairs and meanwhile...you get the idea. 

I got this with a bundle of his others from Bookmooch so no surprise that at number forty eight we have...

#48 Appleby on Ararat

By Michael Innes

This book was an early on in the series and was preposterous, racist, farcical and generally not a byrne-pleaser. Your hero is aboard some sort of boat going somewhere when it sinks and only the passengers survive, adrift on the entire entertainment deck with hardly any food or water. No mention is ever made of any of the crew who presumably drowned, but were lower class - or worse! Foreign! The only black passenger is talked about like he'd only just left off evolving from a monkey and later natives don't fair much better. Having only just avoided all going nuts with thirst they pitch up on tropical island which they live on for a while without apparently noticing it has a luxury hotel over the hill. Eventually they make contact and then it starts getting really silly. Let's just forget this book happened and move on...

#49 Come Away, Death

By Gladys Mitchell

After the last book I thought I'd go to the trusty Mrs Bradley as I have enjoyed others in the series. This is number eight in order and I fear I struck out, as sporting people in america might say. The story was interesting but ridiculous. An archaeologist trying to create some sort of Greek spiritual visitation by carrying out certain rights. It was also a very slow story. Not her best. 

#50 Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters

By Ann Budd

The original book, Knitters Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, is my go-to book for my own jumpers so when I heard there was a top down version, and with *contiguous* sleeves, I was right in there. My single criticism of this book is it isn't available as an e version. If ever there was a book you wanted on your phone to use for quick reference it is this. I'm surprised Interweave have missed that but I am equally sure there is a highly commercial reason for it. Sweaters got from 24" to 54" chest and the complete patterns included for each type of sleeve/cardigan/neckline are all satisfactory. 

#51 Tom Brown's Body

By Gladys Mitchell (audiobook)

I'm always a bit hesitant - and this is going to sound weird - of listening to audio versions of books I haven't read. For me, an audiobook is a comforting thing to have on in the background, to dip in and out of, to fall asleep to. So having not read this one first I had to listen to it twice (and it is about 8 hours long) before I felt I'd got the story straight. Kudos to Ms Mitchell for writing realistically about little boys (or at least - they are as I remember them being when I was at a similar kind of mixed school) which is something that can be said about all her novels. She doesn't patronise or make them talk like idiots. The ending was a little confusing and the element of witchcraft felt a bit jarring but all in all a good one. 

#52 The Père-Lachaise Mystery

By Claude Izner

This is the second in the series and unusually I am reading them in order. The first was one was #38 in August. I found this one much better and very gripping - I read the whole thing in 36 hours and went to work in amongst all that as well. Victor's previous mistress's husband has died and she's visiting a spiritualist to try and contact him. Then she vanishes. Meanwhile there's lots of jealousies and intrigues and relationships and so on. Interestingly the author is the pen name of two sisters living in Paris. Well, I thought it was interesting. I'm still getting over Fred Vargas being a woman though. Speaking of which...

#53 Seeking Whom He May Devour

By Fred Vargas

Ooooo, this was good. While #52 was gripping, this one went fully in, grabbed you by the giblets and rang them out like a dishcloth. The wolf on the cover is a giveaway that wolves feature heavily in this story but given recent Twishite type writing I want to assure you that they are wolves, just wolves. Not werewolves, not shapeshifters, just wolves. Our hero, Adamsberg, is in the background for a fair bit of the novel and it is his lost love Camille who leads. Rather sweepingly, I am going to assume most women would say they saw something of themselves in Camille. Or something we would like to see in ourselves maybe. We could all have been free spirits, moving from place to place, befriending smelly women in the mountains and hooking up with Canadian versions of Ben Fogle had our lives gone a little differently. I love these books. I've got the next two in the series but I am afraid to start them in case they don;t live up to the first two. I know - man up Byrne. 

In fact that reminds me - when observed to be cowardly men are often told to 'grow a pair'. I heard this in a number of different contexts recently and it caused me to speculate more about testicles than I think I ever have before in my life, all put together. 

For example, some lizards shed their tails when frightened or can lose them and grown them back. Is it implied therefore that men could lose theirs and it would leave them free to get on with whatever it is they were scared of doing? Could a man grow a set if he lost them? And what if you were in a scary situation with him and they fell off in front of you. What would the etiquette of handing them back? Testicles withdraw towards the body when cold and swing free'r when hot - so when you're scared what do they do? Could you grow a pair of testicles on the back of a mouse, like they did with that ear, and graft them on to the man should the need arise? And would you need a mouse per testicle or would one do both?*

#54 The Long Farewell

By Michael Innes

Another good Appleby story - like #47 but slightly later on the timescale I would guess. Our hero looks up a friend in Italy and when back in England hears that he has apparently killed himself. Two wives, domestics, academic rivals, trophy hunters and various family members appear and it all winds up into a weak ending but a very good story. 

#55 Watson's Choice

By Gladys Mitchell

Maybe I should have a new year resolution to broaden my pool of authors. I seem to be repeating a lot of them. However, having loved all things Sherlockian since I was about 9 I was naturally interested in this and immediately longed for my own party where everyone came dressed as a character from one of the Conan Doyle stories. This book was great, right up until the ending. I realise I've criticised a number of endings and I have started to wonder whether it is me. I find myself watching detective shows on TV and guessing in the first few minutes what the plot will be. I have now been reading and watching this type of thing for 25 years and there can only be a finite number of plots. Having said that I can't work out if I am dissatisfied when the outcome is too easy to guess or when the author puts in a twist you couldn't have predicted (as Conan Doyle frequently did) and so makes the build up in the book seem pointless. Maybe in 2013 I'll find out. 

#56 No Coffin for the Corpse

By Clayton Rawson

Isn't that cover awesome? None of the characters, especially the magician, reminded me of a white rabbit but the symbolism is good. I think Knitting on the Green did a review of this - either that or Goodreads itself recommended it to me. I had it on my wishlist for ages in any case before tracking it down in the deep stacks of Holborn Library. It's a great read except for, guess what, the ending. Maybe I'm too harsh though. Maybe. The style is a little bit Dashiel Hammett but think Thin Man rather then Maltese Falcon. It's essentially a 'cosy' and the magician is a good inclusion. For a book from 1942 it wears its age well. I'll definitely be reading more of these. 

#57 The Murders in the Rue Morgue

By Edgar Allan Poe

This is said to be the first detective story and it was interesting in that light but I'm not a Poe fan. The introductory essay was much more interesting than the story itself. What a strange man our Edgar was. Even excluding the whole judging-by-todays-standards thing. I only read the title story since I was only reading it out of academic interest. 

#58 Where Women Create: Book of Organization

By Jo Packham

I added this to my Amazon queue when it was first announced and bought it with some xmas money otherwise it is essentially Pinterest in print. Lots of full spread photos of studio and craft spaces. Minimal text pointing out little details or speculating about what 'your craft room' looks like. It's printed on what feels slightly like blotting paper - presumably to mop up the tears as you weep when you reflect your 'craft room' is the side of the sofa and your 'creative storage solutions' are largely pieces of tupperware from asda. Having read through the book I did today go out and buy some different storage - plastic boxes...from asda...BUT THE BOXES ARE NOT MEANT FOR FOOD. So it's ok. Besides, if I create some unnecessarily kooky labels for them I'll practically be Martha Stewart so it all works out in the long run. 

If I can pluck up the courage my first read for 2013 will be the next Fred Vargas. Now I've just got to grow a pair and get on with it.

* I do know none of this is possible, except maybe with the mouse, but it was a 'what if' kind of train of thought. Besides - apart from the fertility thing - what woman would mourn if men did lose them? Stupid things really.

Crafting For, During and After Christmas

These are some of the presents I made for people this Christmas.

I made quite a few presents and managed to forget to photograph a fair number of them too. But they have all been very happily received which is the main thing. I also bought a few things from other makers.

My Dad adores his Bird Nerd keyring and tells me it is a compliment in birding circles. This one was from an Etsy seller in the USA.

I'd decided on a silk scarf for my ma-in-law and knew this was the perfect one as soon as I saw it on Folksy. Lovely UK seller and designer too.






I was also crafting on christmas day and in the last few days. My pin cushion, made before the days of blogging, was falling apart so needed replacing. The original was a flower made out of felt on top of a small round cardboard box such as you get told to decoupage nowadays. The replacement is a variation on that.

I made a few of these for christmas presents last year. The top is a patchwork hexagon I made out of diamonds that wasn't sitting well with the others in the series. Too pas-tel if you know what I mean. These are a great way of recycling jam and pasta jars. I've added a lne of washi tape around mine just because I am still in the washi zone. And having washi'd one pen pot (in my last post) I turned my attention to another one which is just a plain mesh one I believe I purloined from a former employer. I've seen some iphone cases made of mesh which have been embroidered and so I've been pondering a bit of bargello. I am not short of inspiration.

I picked out a few favourite designs. (Excuse the photo quality.)

But I think this is the winner...

I am just awaiting full daylight to choose the colours.

Then lastly I'm working on a new cushion cover for a round cushion in hand stitched english paper pieced diamonds. I'm using shades of red from stash and scraps.

I like the way it makes my eyes flicker from place to place picking up elements of the patterns. Not a restful piece but an exciting one.

My volunteering is over now. I had signed up for five days but by the end of day three I was burnt out and cleared it with the team there to leave it at that. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are apparently the hardest days to get people to turn up for (especially with the tube strike the last few years) so I'd done good by making it for all three. I will be doing it again but a max of three days in a row.

C is for C...C....C....Christmas!

Merry Christmas one and all! This is where I ate my christmas lunch, consisting of one jam sandwich and a big sainsbury's chocolate cookie.

Day two of volunteering went very well. Towards the end of my shift I took a call from an Outreach Worker who had come across a man sleeping rough. He had been in one of the Crisis shelters on the 23rd but thought it was like at the rest of the year when they can only stay for one night and then have to move on. Together with others in the Ops Centre we arranged for him to be picked up and driven back to the shelter he had been in and to stay there until the 2nd so he doesn't have to sleep outside for at least the next 8 nights.  There he'll have a dry, clean bed with the chance to have three meals a day, clean clothes, have a shower, a haircut, medical attention (including psychiatric if needed) and advice from people on the services he can access to try and get him  permanently off the streets. I only played a minor part in all that but to know that I've helped does give you a little glow that makes it all worth the effort.

It's cold out there. If you can't donate your time think about donating a few pounds instead. 

You can donate online here. 

Click on 'reserve a place' and enter any amount from £1 up.

C is for C...C...C.....Crisis

Go me!

My first day of volunteering saw me up at 5.30am and hard at work by 7.30am. I'll be there all week. It's rather nice to be helping out when otherwise I'd just be sitting about doing not much. Although I am not often doing not much. For example, I broke out the washi tape. 

My formerly plain pound shop tin is now all cat and dotty. Also I had another chance to experiment with Nickerjac's Cricut. Sadly this did not exactly go to plan. 

I'd bought a new blade and done much research into how to cut fabric with one. I followed one tutorial, much encouraged by her description of it "cutting like butter". Mine cut more like a sword made out of modelling balloons. 

So. Right. Not to be put off I switched to just cutting freezer paper, which did indeed cut like a soft foodstuff. I then ironed the freezer paper shapes onto fabric, cut round them and glued (yes, glued) them onto bibs and onesies. 

A quick zigzag stitch around them and ta da!

On some of them I plan to add a little hand embroidery. For example:

This one is going to have "food" added to the blunt end. 

Just to finish... want to take part in an awesome swap requiring a yard of fabric? Sign up now!!

Now I'm off for a crafty Baileys. 

Presents

Pooch and I swapped gifts early since he will be in Colne over xmas while I will be here in London. I got chopsticks, an amazing printed linen cloth with cat faces on it which I forgot to photograph and....washi tape.

I'd asked him to pick up couple as I've seen it on various craft blogs but the UK prices seem a bit OTT. Turns out the prices in Japan are just as bad but...

I've only got as far as unwrapping one roll to play with but I don't want to get caught in one of those 'saving it for something special' traps which so easily leads to hoarding. I'm therefore scouring Pinterest for ideas. Apparently it is wall friendly and I am rather taken by this:

Source: fellowfellow.com via Alex on Pinterest

And you know I do rather like polka dots.

Having finished my christmas crafting I've got a few FOs to share. During my flu I wasn't capable of anything more complicated than a Frankie's 10-stitch blanket which I've made twice before. This one is destined for a french cat and another is half complete.

Details on Ravelry here.

I also tried a sock - 4-ply fairisle with flu? It was never going to work. I cast on the suggested 68 stitches and changed to top down. By the time I got to the ankle I knew it was too tight and had to frog it. That was in this combination of yarns.

I retried with a different yarn with a greater contrast and an extra 8 stitches.

Looking good and fitting much better. I've used a plain, vertical stripe on the sole and gusset.

I love the look of fairisle stripes because it's like a secret only a knitter would understand. To a non knitter I suspect they'd assume it was just alternate rows not real fairisle.

I've got the weekend to relax before my volunteering starts on Monday. I've used it so far to start my somewhat overdue spring cleaning. My bathroom now sparkles and the kitchen has no idea what is about to hit it.

Google Doodle

Today's doodle was a long cartoon about Red Riding Hood. I loved the way the Granny's knitting saved the day. This is the final frame:

Awesome work Google!

Don't forget...

I've extended the sign up deadline to January 1st. You can read all about it and sign up here.

Oooo Quick! Sign Up!

I've extended the sign up deadline to January 1st. You can read all about it and sign up here.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Not being a religious person, Christmas for me is more about the food and festivities than anything else. And a major food staple for me is Marzipan Fruits.

This year's are from Waitrose. I know they are only shaped bits of marzipan and I know they're just covered in food colouring but when it comes together it results in so much more than just coloured marzipan. Each one is a magical christmas jewel. AND they taste good. I do like marzipan. Then of course there is the tree. I don't have one myself but was on hand to help decorate Mum's.

Yes, she does have the decorations my sister and I made as little ones. But she also has some more recent additions. The glass Father Christmas is one of my favourites.

I spent the weekend at Mum's getting over the last of my flu. I actually spent more than half the time I was there asleep but I guess that has helped since I was able to go back to work for almost a full day today. While down there I got some quality cat action. Artemis is not usually a playful cat - she prefers an actual kill to a pretend one with a screwed up piece of paper - but she noticed my knitting and the wool moving against the chair.

Before long it was the enormous, round, black pupils and the lightening quick paws with claws fully extended. All too easy to imagine those eyes and claws being the last thing the small, furry creature of the fields ever sees before squeaking their last.

Source: etsy.com via Alex on Pinterest

The Joys of Creative Commons Licensing

Ms PurlPower asked me how you get decent images into your blog posts. Allow me to share my method.

First of all, a brief introduction to Creative Commons.

What is Creative Commons?

This is genius. It is a not-for-profit way of protecting your copyright. You choose which of six licenses applies to you and then mark your work in some way to show the license applies to it. Your work can be a photo, video, document, tutorial, pattern, song etc. Now to some, six licenses may sound confusing but this is not the lie of "tax doesn't need to be taxing". This is actually a simple process. The six licenses are explained here (scroll down) so let's take two examples to show how they work.

If you choose the most basic license, this is "Attribution". This means that when someone comes across something with this license they can use it in any way they want to as long as they identify you as the original is credited to you. So if you were to knit something from a Rowan pattern and take a killer picture of it, Rowan could come across it and use the photo in their publicity materials without asking permission or paying you a bean as long as they put your name on it. You still own the copyright in this and all other cases and you do have moral and a few other rights, explained online in more detail.

If you want more protection you might choose the "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs" license. This means that as well as attributing the work to you, they can't use it for commercial purposes (so Rowan couldn't use it for marketing) and they have to use it as is - they can't edit or change it in any way.

Still confused? CC have created a little tool to help you choose a license (should you wish to license your work through Flickr or somewhere else for usage).

CC and Flickr

Now once works (photos, in this case) are licensed you can start using them. I source all my images from Flickr and I store all of mine there too (and yes, mine are all CC licensed). If you go to Flickr's Advanced Search tool and scroll all the way down you'll see this:

Tick the box relevant to you and your search will only bring up images you can use. Alternatively search within content with a specific license. To do this open up Flickr, go to 'Explore' and choose 'Creative Commons' (or just click here). Click on "see more" next to the license your heart desires and search in there.

Using an Image

Let's say you want to advertise my Charm Square Swap. You could just write about it but a picture is worth a thousand tweets so find the image on Flickr. Hint - it's here. Above the image and on the left click on 'share'. You'll get this.

You want the "Grab the HTML" section. Choose the size you want the image to appear on your blog from the drop down below the code and the code automatically updates (I usually use 500px wide). Now copy the code and go to your blog post. This bit is only about Blogger but I assume it is the same for Wordpress and others.

Personally I stay in 'compose' mode (the one it takes you to automatically) and paste the code wherever I want the image to go. Just like this:

Then, because I'm like that, I select all the code and centre it using the menu option above the text box, next to the numbered bullets icon. I don;t do anything else. That's it. So now, as soon as someone clicks on the image it takes them to the page on Flickr where the original is, from where the owner can be contacted and any information they wanted related to the image (such as camera type, location etc) can be found. You can do this to use any appropriately licensed image on your website or in print (as long as the print version has the attribution printed visibly somewhere).

Telling How an Image on Flickr is Licensed

You may have already found an image and want to check how you can use it. Easy enough. Take this image for example:

Click on the image above to get to the Flickr page. On the right towards the bottom of the page you'll see "Owner Settings" and the details of the license. Now compare that with this photo. This one says "All rights reserved" under the owner settings heading. That means that if you use it without the explicit permission of the creator you are potentially in a pile of poo. Best case scenario you get a polite email telling you to take the image off your blog pronto. Worst case and it all gets legal and expensive.

If you are a charity a lot of people will be ok with attribution-only as long as you are clear about how it will be used, but you MUST get written permission to use an image which isn't currently licensed. Can't get permission? There are two hundred million images on Flickr with some form of CC license. Just choose a different one.

Leave a comment if you have any questions!

Clear Liquid

The NHS Direct website has reassured me that I'm not dying and should drink 8-10 glasses of clear liquid a day. This confused me for a while (not difficult since I'm so tired I find myself confused by things like light switches and my feet). Did this mean cheap apple juice was ok but the posh cloudy stuff wasn't? And indeed it turns out that that is completely true. Juice is fine but nothing that has pulp in. Coffee and tea are fine but only without milk. Jelly is fine (?) as are fizzy drinks but not lumpy soup. And always be grateful you are not having a colonoscopy, at which point blue and red liquids are also out.

No smurf soup for you.

This has been the worst time possible to have this kind of flu-like cough/cold. It was my sister's wedding yesterday. She looked proper amazing.

I won't post any other photos though until the proper ones are issued as my blurry efforts don't do the wedding justice. I made it through the service with relatively little coughing and firmly seated but the confetti and then walk to the restaurant did me in and I had to leave. I don't blame her for being annoyed but I hope she understands I wouldn't have left if I didn't have to.

I'm off work today but tomorrow the exam results are due out and it's me who does all that. The one possible bright side is that being this ill now makes it (in my mind and do not question my logic) less likely I'll be ill when I volunteer for Crisis over christmas. Two years ago I volunteered and then had swine flu for three weeks and couldn't do any of it.

It will be different this year.