Brummie Blogger

May's Cottage finally done

It seems to have taken ages to do these two borders considering I've left some bits off. All finished now though and I'm almost done on part seventeen of The Great Escape so I'll be able to start the next part of Around the World soon. That's if I can put my Kindle down, of course. I'm on a reading binge at the moment, having let my curiosity get the better of me on the current book craze that was intriguing me. Sigh. I never learn.

Still, some stitching has been done and this is the result.

As you can see it's completely bee-less. There should have been four of the vile creatures in each border but I left two out and changed the colours in the other two to make them resemble oddly coloured butterflies. Or floating flowers, whichever you prefer. I was going to leave all of them out but would have had to change the spacing of the leaves to avoid an odd gap and didn't realise that until I'd stitched most of one border. By then I just wanted to get it finished so I lobbed in the butterflies/floating flowers/whatevers  to fill in the gaps. They'll do.

I also changed the pink border flowers to white to calm it all down a bit and I'm much happier with that. In hindsight, I should just have used a different shade of pink but I'll know to do something before I start if I'm uneasy about the colours next time. Lesson learnt.

June's Cottage is kitted up and ready to go and I like the colours much more than this one. It's much fresher looking. I'm going to have fun with Around the World first though. Part two looks lovely.

May's Cottage- almost finished

I've been stitching away so intently on this that I've almost forgotten to stop and take photos. I've just taken a break to upload a photo before doing the two borders. I'm keen to get this finished so I can get the next part of The Great Escape done as I printed that off yesterday and as I guessed, it's the flowers, or rather the bush on the other side of the owl.

This is where I'm up to with the cottage at the moment.

I've done the right hand side to mirror the left side so the beehive and bee have been removed. I've also changed the colour of the birdhouse from pink to yellow as I'm not all that keen on the colour scheme for this one. The green is lovely and I like the yellow. The dark brown and white are fine and the other brown is nice enough, but I'm disappointed that there's very little variegation to it. I don't like the pink though and I could live without the two blue/greens. Mostly it's the pink that's bugging me so I'm going to change one of the flower colours in the border too.

I should get at least one border done today and maybe get a start on the other. There's still no sign of the next part of Around the World for which I'm waiting very impatiently but if I can get this finished, and the next part of the Owl before that comes out, at least I'll be able to dive straight into it.

In the meantime, must get on with my bee-less borders.

The Great Escape - part sixteen

This part consisted of some more flowers and some stems. The flowers were simple enough. They're just Eyelet stitch worked around in a square, leaving a square empty in the centre. I'll be putting beads in there once it's all finished. After doing several variations on both Eyelet stitch and Ray stitch for the first part of Around the World, this posed no problems at all.

For the flowers I used one of the off-whites that I've used for the other flowers. The green is the same one used for the stems at the bottom of the design. I'm trying to use as few colours as possible to keep it looking more like a night scene.

The stems were done in backstitch on the chart but Abi suggested several variations on that to make them stand out more. She gave instructions for a couple of types of whipped backstitch and also a thinner chain stitch. I decided to be a rebel though and got out my Jane Greenoff book to find something interesting, and ended up using stem stitch. I think it looks quite good and is another stitch that I hadn't used before.

Not much left to do now. I'm guessing it'll be the remaining flowers on the right side for the next part and the moon and stars for the final part.

Meeting Rachel Caine

I've had a lovely Sunday afternoon. I spent it in a bookshop with my friend Heidi. We were in a queue for an hour to see Rachel Caine and had a nice chat while we waited. I can't think of a nicer place to stand around waiting than being surrounded by all those lovely books. I was very good and only bought the one that I wanted signed. Mostly because I was enjoying chatting to Heidi so much. Had I been on my own, I'm sure I'd have succumbed to many more.

We were in Waterstones in Birmingham New Street and I'd like to say how well organised it was and how lovely the staff were. It's the first book signing that I've been to in years appart from the informal ones that I've worked and I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly it all went. It helped that we were there an hour before the author, as advised by the staff, so although we had to wait for the signing to start, once it did, we were near the front of the queue.

I've just snagged this photo from Twitter, taken by one of the Waterstones staff. You can see me and Heidi about a dozen people from the front. I'm wearing a cream jacket.

I bought the new Morganville Vampires book, Black Dawn, for Rachel to sign. I have all of her other books apart from a four book series which I'll be getting soon. If they'd had that series in stock, and I did ask, I'd have bought a couple of those as well. R. Cat Conrad, Rachel's husband is travelling with her and was doing artwork in people's books if they bought three or more. He's a well known fantasy artist and I've seen his work online. It's amazing. I didn't quite have the nerve to ask if I could get some artwork on the grounds that I already had all of the books though.

As it happened, we went up to the table together, me with my one book and Heidi with her two books. Cat immediately offered to do some artwork in one of them and Heidi generously offered to let me have it in mine.

Is that not incredible?? I am awestruck. That is in the back of my book! And in the front is Rachel Caine's autograph. Wow.

They were both so lovely. While Cat was doing the drawing, Rachel was autographing, and we were getting our photos taken, we were chatting away. I asked about a new book that she'd been hinting about and she told us quite a bit about it. It sounds really exciting.

We'd both taken our cameras so we took each others photos.

It was well worth standing for so long to meet Rachel, and Cat was lovely too. I'm chuffed to bits with my artwork and it was great to have some time to chat with Heidi.

Around the world - part one #2

I've now completed all of part one and I'm really pleased with it. It took a bit longer than I thought so if all of the parts are going to take this long it's a good job that The Great Escape is almost finished. Hopefully now that I've got the hang of how to read the charts I won't need quite so much time.

This is the second heart.

It has Lazy Daisy stitch down the centre just like the first heart, but this time it has ray stitch around it. I had to frog all the ray stitch after I'd finished the heart as I realised when I tried to line one of the other stitches up to it, that it wasn't right. The top and bottom rays are placed into the same hole as the Lazy Daisy stitch, but the left and right ones are one stitch away from it. I hadn't noticed that and had put them all in the same holes as the Lazy Daisy. I had one of those internal discussions where I tried to convince myself that no-one would notice. Unfortunately, the voice that kept saying that I would know it was wrong was the one that won, which was why it ended up being frogged. Let's face it. It would have driven me nuts.

It does look a lot better now that it's done properly. Lazy Daisy stitch, with Ray stitch.

Around the outside is some pretty backstitch and some nice simple Scotch stitch. I've done that one before so it was nice and quick to do. I used a very dark blue Threadworx for that.

In the centre is Lindisfarne stitch. That's made up of three parts. The centre is done in the metallic thread. The main part of the stitch is in Gentle Art Highland Heather. I liked the effect of that as it was nice and subtle. It looked quite pretty but slightly bland compared to the first heart and then I added the backstitch outline. That really made it pop and made all the difference. That's done in another of the Threadworx, a lovely deep pink.

The backstitch outline even made the metallic thread look more blingy. It was amazing just how different the whole heart looked once I'd added it.

Finally, here are the two hearts together. One part down, twenty-three to go.

 

The Great Escape - part fifteen

There wasn't much to do for part fifteen but I needed to get some more thread to use for the spider's web. I had a couple of different metallic threads but nothing in my stash was suitable. I finally found something in Hobbycraft. I've used some DMC in a silver. It's not ideal but it's better than anything that I had and it saved having to send for something online and then paying postage. And you just know that if I'd done that, I'd have added several more items to my order to make it worthwhile...

This is the spider and his web that caused all the problems.

It's quite difficult to get the web to show up on a photo. It's supposed to look like a web glistening in the moonlight, which it does pretty much, but that doesn't translate digitally.

The other bit of part fifteen was a few flowers on the other side of the Owl. They were in Lazy Daisy stitch but weren't the same as the ones that I've been doing for Around the World. The instructions for TGE were excellent though and I had a good read through them before doing the other project and they helped a lot with the Lazy Daisy stitch on that even though it was done a bit differently.

This will have beads in the centre of the flowers but as with the others, I'll add them once I've finished the whole project.

Just three more parts to do now. I've got part sixteen printed off and will be doing it this week if all goes to plan. I can't believe it's almost finished.

Books read in April

 A couple of books this month took quite a while to read. Combine that with the amount of time that I spent stitching and you see why I only read thirteen books. It wasn't a bad month, but not one of the best either. I seem to have saved the best for last with that Val McDermid which kept me glued to the pages for hours, although there were some other rather good books in there besides that one.

Novel with cocaine - M. Ageyev
A short but interesting novel to start the month with. I got this via a bookring and thought it sounded quite good. It contained one of the most obnoxious characters that I've ever encountered in a book. I really hated him and was happy to see him get a bad ending. That's probably not very nice of me, is it, even if it is fiction.
(country hopping challenge - Russian Federation, 1001 list)

Dead Reckoning - Charlaine Harris
Loved this one although it's a bit surreal reading one version of True Blood when you're also watching another version. The TV series may be based on the books but although you can spot bits that are based on the books, it seems to be veering further and further away. It's still good though.

Thai Die - Monica Ferris
I realised that I hadn't read any cosy mysteries for a couple of weeks so I grabbed a pair of Monica Ferris novels and settled down. This one was a great read keeping you guessing almost to the end, although I did have a sneaking suspicion about what was going on.

Blackwork - Monica Ferris
This is the last of the Ferris books that I had in my stash so I'm a bit sad now. It was another good one too. I've really enjoyed this series. Must try and get more.

The Afterparty - Leo Benedictus
This was interesting. And odd. I read about it in an email from the publisher and thought it sounded offbeat enough to make it worth getting from the library. It was mostly about one night at a party and the afterparty at a house. It's the way it was written that made it different. It was as if the author was submitting chapters of this book to an agent, who was trying to get it published but the author wanted to remain anonymous. All the correspondence between the author and agent was included, as well as the chapters of the actual novel. Then it started to get really weird. Worth reading, I'd say.

The Penal Colony - Richard Herley
A freebie download for the Kindle, and quite good considering that. The government takes some islands around the British Isles and uses them as Penal colonys for the worst offenders. No supervision on the island, but there are prison ships watching them from offshore and there is also satellite monitoring. The prisoners are dropped basic supplies by helicopter once a week and then left to their own devices. The strongest would survive if not for one group that have banded together to live by a code on the island on which the story is set.

In memory of greed - Al Boudreau
Spies, corrupt politicians, industrial espionage, and lots of intrigue across the globe. Set mostly in Kenya, this was another Kindle freebie and was really rather good.
(country hopping challenge - Kenya)

Last Breath - Rachel Caine
I finally got around to reading the latest in the Morganville Vampires series and it was great. The author does the unthinkable in the middle of the book and for a while there I was wondering where on earth the book could go from there. Must have got something in my eye too, which made it all tear up. Of course it all ends leaving you wanting more and luckily the next book is out very soon. I don't think that one will be lingering on my shelves for too long. In the meantime, I may just read a couple more of the author's Weather Warden books.

High Rise - J. G. Ballard
This was a fairly short book but was excellent. It was about a large high rise development and the events that follow the last owner moving in. Small irritations build into larger ones leading to civilisation breaking down altogether within the building. Eventually people stop leaving the building altogether, they gather into cliques, form raiding parties and build barricades. It's quite chilling. The viewpoint changes often so you get a good picture of what is happening on the different floors. Well worth reading.
(1001 list)

To have and have not - Ernest Hemingway
This was set partly in Cuba, partly in Key West and was the tale of Harry Morgan, a rum-runner during the depression. Harry's luck goes from bad to worse and throughout the book you get the feel of life at that time. I love Hemingway's style of writing. This wasn't my favourite of his books. That still has to be The old man and the sea, but I liked it a lot.
(1001 list, country hopping challenge - Cuba)

Troubles - J. G. Farrell
I quite liked this one. It was very witty. Some of those old ladies were priceless and the hotel was a character all by itself. It did deal with serious subjects though and the violence of the ending did catch me by surprise. Not a bad read at all.
(1001 list)

Group portrait with lady - Heinrich Boll
This was quite a long read for something that was only 400 pages. I did quite enjoy it but I'm not sure I got it. It was a fictitous author conducting interviews with anyone who could tell him anything about one particular character, and in that way building up a picture, not only of that character, but of the times and surroundings she lived in. It was set in Germany from just before WW2 to a couple of decades after. Parts of it were fascinating, as were some of the characters in it, but very occasionally I lost the plot a bit and had to put it down. I didn't enjoy it as much as The lost honour of Katharina Blum, which I loved, but it was still worth reading.
(1001 list, country hopping challenge - Germany)

The Retribution - Val McDermid
I had another library book lined up but after the Heinrich Boll, I fancied something lighter and this had caught my eye on the shelf the night before. I love the Tony Hill/ Carol Jordan books and can so easily visualise Robson Green as Tony Hill since watching the televised version.
This was a 500 page book so when I started it at 6am today, after taking it back to bed with a cup of coffee, I thought I might get about halfway before reluctantly getting up. I'm off work this week so that's my idea of bliss. I should have remembered that once you get stuck into one of Val McDermid's books, you can't actually put it down until you've found out how it ends. At least, I can't. I finally got up around noon. I know, I know, the height of indulgence, but it was a really, really good book. Maybe I'll read something a bit thinner tomorrow though.
(Genre challenge)