52 Books - Week 10

My book for this week is a bit of a cheat really because I had to read it. I'm doing a course through the Open University - AA100 to be precise which is "The arts past and present". For part of my first assignment I had to read Doctor Faustus by Marlowe, so that's my book for this week.

Left to my own devices I probably wouldn't have read it. Reading blank verse in old fashioned English doesn't make for easy reading, but I'm glad I did.

The plot is interesting. Doctor Faustus makes a pact with the Devil to exchange his chance of going to heaven in exchange for power for twenty four years. I can't get too much into the plot here because the OU understandably doesn't want people discussing the assignment questions on line. I don't think I could discuss the plot without touching on what I wrote on the essay so this weeks description has to be brief.

Book Title: Doctor Faustus

Author: Marlowe

Enjoyment: 7/10

Would read again: 5/10


Comments: I'm glad I read this and I enjoyed it. However without working through my textbook and the activities in there I probably wouldn't have got as much out of reading this as I did, and I think it will be a long time before I try reading it again. Still it was worth having to read it.

Waterstones

52 Books - Week 9

This week a lovely reader contacted me on Ravelry to tell me she'd been reading my blog, which was lovely. By a strange coincidence we'd both been reading the same book The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

I loved this book, it was well written, balanced and very engaging. What scares me about the book is that it is 1962. Not 1862, but 1962. I was born in the 80's and so 1962 doesn't feel that far away to me. Yet at that time black women were still bring up white women's babies but had to use their won toilet in case they had "diseases". The social divide was enormous. There were black women who had been to college being treated like dirt by white women who's only accomplishment had been to marry the right man.

Its a fantastic book, it makes you think and it made me get all worked up. I like a book that can bring out emotions and make a time and a place feel real.

Book Title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Enjoyment: 10/10

Would read again: 10/10


Comments: This is worth reading over and over again. Its passionate, fluent and moving. Its been promoted to being the other side of Gone with the Wind, but its more than that because its a story of white people of the time as well as black. Its more Upstairs Downstairs but in a more serious way.

Kathryn Stockett Website

February round up

I'm a couple of days late posting this but that's the way this whole week seems to have gone. The first day of the month coinciding with the end of the week meant lots to do at work yesterday and to be honest, the sunshine the rest of the week has tempted me outside in the spare times I've had; but here we go:

Recipes blogged this month:

None this month which isn't very good. I must try harder next month.

Projects started:

Colourful stripy crochet blanket - there's no post about making this yet but the link does take you to the yarn I'm using

This doesn't seem like much for me, but the thing about blankets is that they are addictive which means I'm not starting lots of projects and then putting them to one side like I can end up doing.One the other hand they are time consuming, so I don't feel like I've finished much recently.

Projects finished:

High Speed knitting

Stripy crochet blanket






Projects frogged/ in the WIP Pile:

15 stitch blanket: this is still in the WIP pile but I finally have the yarn to finish it so once my colourful blanket is finished this is next on my list.






Yarn in this year:

7150g As this includes my monster haul in January there's not much I can do to make this figure better this year. I've bought less than half what I bought last month, possibly even only a quarter.

This converts into 22,445 meters or 13.9 miles

Yarn knitted or crocheted this year:

1675g

5723 meters or 3.55 miles

I've still got a way to go on trying to balance my yarn in and my yarn out for the year. In fact it might never actually happen, but still its interesting to compare what comes in and what goes out. 

Books reviewed:

Week 6: William - An Englishman

Week 7: Mariana

Week 8: Cranford

Week 9: The Help

Well, I didn't quite meet my aim to post two or three times a week, but I still think its been a busy month. I'm really enjoying making my blankets and I'm hoping that I get my colourful one finished in March. I have plans in my head for about six or seven but I have a feeling some of them will remain as plans.

Still a red one for the living room would be nice.....

Swap Parcel - Alice in Wonderland

Today I received a wonderful swap parcel from an Alice in Wonderland swap I took part in on Ravelry.

Its full of beautiful things:

All in all I received:

A key to wonderland
Two different types of yarn plus some fibre (the fur of a Bandersnatch to be precise)
Some tea part gloves
A shell
A tortoise (or a sea turtle perhaps)
A Vogue knitting magazine with Alice in Wonderland themed patterns
A scarf
Some fruit tea
And all sorts of wonderful little things likes buttons, stitch markers, kool aid dye (I've always wanted to try and use this), sewing needles, hair grips, a dormouse (not a real one obviously), a tape measure and some Alice in Wonderland stationery.

This was a lovely parcel and I feel very spoilt! It also seems appropriate given that the first book I chose to read this year was Alice in Wonderland.

52 Books - Week 8

I realise we are on week 9, but I read this last week and didn't get chance to write it up. Week 9's will follow sometime this week with any luck.

I wasn't feeling well last week so I fell back on some comfort reading - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. My mother suggested I read this as a teenager and I loved it. I've read it again several times over the years, and whilst I enjoyed the TV adaptation for me it wasn't a patch on the book.

Its a gentle story told over several years. Its one of those which seems like its meandering slowly, but actually quite a lot happens over the story. I feel that unlike many books, its quite a life like story. It has highs and lows but they are realistic highs and lows, leaving you feeling like Cranford is an actual place and you know the people.

Plus I always wanted to live in Cranford, the town where women rule!

Book Title: Cranford

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell

Enjoyment: 10/10

Would read again: 10/10


Comments: This is a dreamy, quiet book with a realistic story. Its got some great humour in there and its really a tale of friendships and how they survive through life.

W H Smiths

FO - Stripy crochet blanket

I've been a bit quite this week, my ME/CFS has flared up a little and I just seem to have had one of those weeks.

On the plus side I've finished my stripy crochet blanket:

Taking photos of blankets is quite difficult but hopefully that will give you an idea.

It weighs 1.15kg, which is 3590.3 yards of yarn, and it took me a month altogether. I used the following Stylecraft Special DK colours:

1099 Grey x 4
1203 Silver x 4
1063 Graphite x 4
1001 White x 7
1002 Black x 4

The stripes are completely random, which actually bothered me as I was doing it. I tend to organise things and  doing something randomly like this was strange. But I'm glad I did and I liked the effect once it was finished.

I had bought 2kg of yarn to do this with which means I have some left over. I already have plans for that though...

The blanket is 185 stitches wide and the whole thing is double crochet stitch (UK terms) including the border. Its very simple but that was what I was going for. Nice mindless TV crocheting which I could do even when I was tired because I didn't have to think.

The yarn is surprisingly nice. Its quite soft, its warm and it was easy to work with. I have definitely found an acrylic I like. I wouldn't necessarily rush to make jumpers out of the stuff, but for a blanket I can sling in the washing machine every once in awhile its perfect.

Now I've started on blanket number two which is definitely more colourful than this one. There were times making this one where my brain  was convinced the whole world had gone grey scale. It might go with my living room but its a little on the boring side to work with.

Craft storage

Before we moved house I didn't really have much specific craft storage. A lot of it was kept in the spare room in various drawers, some was kept in the living room and the rest was stashed away in odd places here and there without a huge amount of organisation.

At some point in this house this:

Is going to be my craft room. Please try not to laugh too hard when I say that, it really is going to look good one day honestly...

In the meantime my dining room also has all my craft stuff in it which means it is less dining room and more random furniture room.

I do however have more storage space for my craft stuff, even if it means part of it is under my stairs, at least it is all in the same general vicinity.

As I've been buying blanket weight quantities of yarn recently I wanted to keep it all together and at the same time have some sort of porable storage for it. When I am making my stripy blanket I have a minimum of five balls of yarn sitting around. I was finding myself not tidying them away because it was easier to balance them along the back of the sofa. Which doesn't make for a tidy living room.

So the other weekend we had a quick wander around the town centre where I live. Its not exactly got much but it does have a B&M Bargains which yielded these:

Each basket contains a blankets worth of yarn. The middle one holds my yarn for the current blanket, and it does make my life easier. It sits next to the sofa when I am crocheting and it easily whisked away into the dining room if someone calls. Even if I don't have time to move it a basket full of yarn somehow looks a lot neater than random balls lying around.