A-haunting we will go...

Hiya!

Gosh, look at this, sticking to my promise to post again today! What IS the world coming to??

It's not very often that I sit down and read a novel, I don't have the stamina for them. I tend to get very bored by novels very easily, but I do occasionally enjoy reading short stories, and especially SPOOKY short stories.

I'm a fan of M.R. James (the M.R. stands for Montague Rhodes) who is considered to be the finest ghost story writer of them all. The stories have contemporary settings when James wrote them (between 1904 to 1925) and many reflected his academic background and his expertise on medieval history, and it is this where most of his inspiration for his ghost stories comes from.

Some of my favourite stories of James' are "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad", in which a man discovers a very old whistle with inexplicable powers; "Number 13" which pertains to a hotel room number which doesn't exist... or does it? But perhaps "A View From a Hill" is to me the most horrific, mostly because of a very eerie pair of home-made binoculars.

Many of James' stories have been dramatised for television (some of which are available on YouTube), although I particularly like the audiobooks read by the wonderful David Collings (who also played Silver in the late 70s/early 80s paranormal drama 'Sapphire and Steel', and was the voice of Monkey in the fantastic series of the same name (sometimes called 'Monkey Magic' but I always called it just 'Monkey').

Anyway, I was recommended to read 'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' by my friend Claire's eight-year-old son, Elliot.  As you may guess, the name 'Uncle Montague' is a nod to James himself, so how could I resist?  And to read a ghost book aimed at children seemed like not too much of a strain on my very short attention span. However I wasn't prepared for what turned out to be a real treat!

Chris Priestley has crafted a wonderful collection of very uncanny stories, tied together within the unsettling setting of Uncle Montague's creepy house, and by the very creepy Uncle Montague himself who tells the stories to the book's protagonist, Edgar. The stories are satisfyingly short and to the point, but with enough substance to linger in your mind for some time later. I am a slow reader by nature, but towards the end of each story I was racing through the last paragraphs as the pace quickened and the tension gathered.

Every story is accompanied by two black-and-white line drawings by David Roberts.  I really like Roberts' style of spindly, spidery lines, shadowy cross-hatching and uncanny settings, which go so well with the tales.

If you want to read an intelligent and short collection of spooky stories, now that the nights are starting to draw in and the leaves are starting to fall, this is an ideal book, whatever your age.

I've already read the sequel, "Tales of Terror from the Black Ship" and just started "Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth"; both are full of imaginative twists and the same creepy atmosphere of "Uncle Montague" that I've come to expect. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for more like this to satisfy my taste for dark, creepy tales.

Further reading: 

Uncle Montague's very own blog! Which is humourously called "Uncle Montague's Nether Regions." http://www.unclemontague.blogspot.com/

the author, Chris Priestley's blog: http://chrispriestley.blogspot.com/

Tales of Terror site (this is a beautifully-designed site with lots of creepy sounds things to look at, well worth a look!) http://www.talesofterror.co.uk/

Hope you have a lovely Sunday afternoon, everyone!

Best wishes

Joey x

Thank you for my Rainbow of Threads!

There aren't seven colours in the rainbow... there's 454!

Hiya!

I hope you're all well and happy!

At last, I have got around to photographing all those lovely, lovely DMC threads and the wonderful Rainbow of Stitches book that I won in the recent Feeling Stitchy Rainbow of Stitches Contest! Thank you to all the kind and generous folks at Feeling Stitchy and DMC threads for giving such gorgeous prizes! Check out my Flickr set for a closer look here.  I asked Little Tiger if he was pleased with the prize; he said it was nice and big, but would have preferred a set of Top Trumps cards, especially ones with monsters on. Bless him!

King of the Thready Castle!

The book is fabulous; I've been taking it around to friends and showing it off who've all "ooh-ed" and "aah-ed" at it. The book contains hundreds and hundreds of sweet embroidery patterns and cross stitch charts and plenty of ideas of what to embroider. The patterns and charts are all monotone, so it's an ideal book for beginner embroiderers. The patterns and the beautifully photographed bags, napkins, samplers and all manner of decorated clothing and other homewares are divided into sections for green, pink, blue, red, and white. The colours used are just suggestions though, so you can choose your favourite colour, or more adventurous stitchers could easily turn the patterns into multi-coloured ones. There's a good variety of styles of patterns too, from cute little children and animals through elegant women and lacy borders, to nine different alphabet and sampler patterns, giving lots of scope for personalising your creations. There's so much choice, that I hardly know where to start!

Then we come to the threads. What can I say about a MASSIVE pile of 454 DMC six-stranded cotton embroidery thread, in all the colours available?? It's WONDERFUL!! DMC thread is a joy to work with, it's colour-fast, has a lovely shine and the colours are very clear. I like how they've given me lots of variegated threads as well, because I love those. There's more shades of green and blue than I will ever need, but I'll give it a good try! I've put together perhaps my favourite 19 (there was meant to be 20 but I seem to have miscounted!) colours from the 454 I now have, pictured below.

My personal rainbow :-)

I'm going to be designing a new Little Tiger embroidery very very soon (this afternoon if I can pull my finger out, but unfortunately my greatest strength is procrastination, so don't hold your breath!) and I'll be using some of the rainbow!

Have a great day, whatever you're doing.

Peace & love

Joey xxx

Meomi's Olympics!

"Dress Rehearsal" by MEOMI

For someone who isn't particularly into sport, it's remarkable that I can get mesmerized by the Winter Olympics, like half-pipe snowboarding, speed skating, ski jumping or luge etc etc (but NOT curling)... but it's GREAT!! It's the same with the Summer Olympics... I loved watching the last Olympics in Beijing, and to top it off, they had a bunch of really pretty mascots! They were called "Fuwa" (good luck dolls, or "friendlies" - awww!) and were designed by Han Meilin, a famous Chinese artist.

And for this Winter Olympics, there's even more super-cute mascots! Here they are:


The Vancouver Winter Olympics mascots were designed by the fabby illustration couple Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy, who go by the collective name Meomi. I didn't realise until very recently though, that they've illustrated a series of children's picture-books called Octonauts.

Link to Meomi's site: http://www.meomi.com/
Link to the Octonauts site: http://www.octonauts.com/

Here's some pictures from their book, “The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade”. I love Meomi's sleek, colourful and cute style and the amount of detail they put into their pictures.

The cover which attracted me...

Look at the cute endpaper design!

It's a noisy world at the bottom of the ocean.

Not all Olympics mascots are so cute (there's some real abominations), but another particularly cute mascot was designed for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, a little bear called Misha, designed by the Russian children's book illustrator Victor Chizhikov.

A few years ago, an odd little shop called something like “Russian Cultural Centre” opened on Commercial Street in Sheffield. It was open for only a few months and because I was a bit nervous of going in to have a look around, I never did. I do regret that now. However they did have a Misha ceramic ornament in the window which Mathew really wanted, and the worse thing was, when they closed the shop they left it behind, all alone and gathering dust when it could have been warm and loved in our house! I hope that someone claimed it and is at this moment cherishing it.

Have fun!

Joey x

G h o s t s . . .

As its approaching Halloween (can you believe it?? Minutes ago it was still summer!!) I thought I'd indulge myself and go for a truly scary ghost theme for my next treasury. Click on the picture above to see the treasury for real, until Thursday 8th Oct when it will disappear forever). I love reading ghost stories and I went for images that evoked that feeling of chilliness I get when I reading, or listening to on audiobook, a story like M.R. James' "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad" or Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman's "The South-West Chamber". Both of these stories involve bedrooms as the scene of horror which I find particulary effective because its something everyone can relate to; sleeping in a room with another (empty) bed in it (which I have done, and didn't like), and sleeping in a bed in which you know someone has recently died (which I haven't done, and I don't think I ever could).

The Literary Gothic is a great site; a guide "to all things concerned with literary Gothicism, which includes ghost stories, "classic" Gothic novels and Gothic fiction (1764-1820), and related pre- and post-Gothic and supernaturalist literature written prior to the mid-C20"

A Bunny-centric Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday; it was a quiet but pleasant day, consisting of sewing, watching lots of episodes of Flight of the Conchords and eating naughty treats! But I thought I'd share with you some pictures of some of the lovely books I got for presents. Oh, and do you like the fantastic picture above? It's a portrait of me (uncanny likeness) drawn by my 7-year-old friend Elliot. It was drawn in pencil but I thought it'd look rather jolly in orange. It's brilliant, isn't it?! :D

I have been wanting "Fluffy" for ages since seeing another book called "Both" in the Sheffield Central Library, jointly drawn by the illustrating partners Simone Lia and Tom Gauld . Fluffy is a little boy bunny who lives with a single man. Michael, and Fluffy thinks that Michael is his daddy. But Michael tells Fluffy that he's not, even though he treats Fluffy with the same love and attention that a caring parent would show their own child. I haven't finished reading the book yet, but so far, it's an affectionate and funny story, beautifully drawn in Simone's simple and cute style.

I used to cut pictures out of books too. Did you? I think it's a natural thing to do, innocent and not naughty at all.

Fluffy is a an energetic and irrepressible bunny!

Like all bunnies, Fluffy leaves little presents everywhere. :-)

I hope this story doesn't have a sad ending...

Another book I've longed for, for a while is the Aranzi Aronzo book "Cute Stuff" in which a couple of very cute bunnies show us how to make various simple accessories and decorate them with cute appliqués. I think I really need to make something with the happy train appliqué...

Aranzi Aronzo is actually the collective/company name for a couple of very talented crafty ladies who write and illustrate all the Aranzi Aronzo books. Their catch phrase is "cute, strange, cool, silly, a little bit horrible, stupid and comfortable ARANZI ARONZO"! Visit their official website for more information: A Message From Mr. Aranzi and Mr. Aronzo

As well as very clear and engaging diagrams, there are photos of the finished projects, with large bunny toys modelling them with great style!

The bunnies are very knowledgeable and helpful!

Of course, all rabbits are ecological, but I think this bunny just wants to try to push the idea to humans. Reduce, reuse, recycle - it's the bunny way!

Yes, lets! I always take reusable shopping bags with me, but they are bought ones... maybe time for an Aranzi Aronzo bag!

Rabbits are gentle creatures, and always try to encourage and reassure you.

Bunnies don't make fun of anyone. They have a high level of emotional intelligence, you see.

Crafty friends!

Mathew got me this Grange Hill annual from the Oxfam charity bookshop in Bradford. Thank you, Mathew! <3>This is Todd Carty (in the water-filled bin), who played everyone's favourite Tucker Jenkins, in comic strip form! I think they've drawn him a bit curmudgeonly... if I were Todd Carty, I think I'd be rather annoyed! He's not THAT funny-looking!

Oh, but here's a very young Todd Carty (he's the one wearing the blue jumper I think) in a Green Cross Code public information film with Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who). So remember... SPLINK!

Book Review: Felt - Handmade Style by India Flint and Toyoko Sugiwaka

I've loved felt for as long as i can remember. I love it because it's soft but also strong, dense but also flexible, so easy to sew... and it never frays!

I came across this book in my public library, and it's not only got lots of lovely pictures to look at, all the instructions are clear and easy to understand. This book is great if you've been inspired by seeing everyone else's beautiful wooly creations and want to make your own.

This book concentrates on basic wet-felting techniques and includes more than 20 interesting projects to make useful and stylish things to wear, to keep other things in, or to decorate your home. I've not tried any of the projects yet... but I think if I had all the materials, this book would tell me what I need to know.

Yes, you need a special material: wool. Not something easily purchased from high-street shops, however you'll find plenty of suppliers on Etsy. The tools you need though, are mainly household things - bubble-wrap, soap, beach-mats...











Among the 20+ projects are felt beads, bowls, a delicate scarf, a curly-fleece rug, slippers, hats, purses and bags... really plenty to get you started. Then once you feel you have a grasp of the basic process, you can have fun making things of your own design.

What i'm most attracted to is the ability to make multi-coloured and patterned felts... watch this space!

Anyway, this is a book i'm definitely going to borrow from our public library again... when I get around to buying some wool roving!

In case you want to get hold of this book, here are the details:
Felt: Handmade Style by India Flint and Toyoko Sugiwaka

Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Murdoch Books (1 Feb 2007)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1740458826
ISBN-13: 978-1740458825
Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 22.2 x 2 cm

Hop in the Pop-Up Wonderland

This is my latest bunny brooch, he's called Hop, and he's hanging out with Alice and the mad hatter in Robert Sabuda's wonderful pop-up adaptation of Lewis Carrott's Alice in Wonderland (2003, Simon & Schuster). We've got so many wonderful picture books in our house, it would be a terrible shame not to use them as backgrounds for my handmade bunnies and other creatures.

Sabuda truly is a master of the art, which shows so clearly in all the small details he's included and the fact that the book is bulging to bursting point with pop-up upon pop-up. The way that three-dimensional forms, like the table above and the white rabbit's house below, slowly emerge from the pages as you carefully open the book, is fantastic.

Sabuda's pop-ups are not just lovely books for children but also beautiful objects which will be appreciated by people of any age. You could use one pop-up as an ornament one day, turn a page and it turns into something else, then the next day you need a bit more space so you can put it to bed on the bookshelf.

Now there's a space-saving idea that no-one has yet appeared on "Dragon's Den" with! Remember, I got there first. ;)

There's even a lovely Victorian peep-show, pictured on the left, at the bottom of which you can see Alice falling into the hole which she saw the white rabbit go...

Perhaps one day i'll make my own...

Please visit Hop in my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9590382

Take a look at Robert Sabuda's official site: http://robertsabuda.com/
there are even instructions for making your own pop-ups, if these pictures have inspired you!

Time for me to pop off now, byeeeeee!

Joey x