Sublime Stitching’s Embroidered Effects

There have been two recently published craft books, that I have been desperate to have, Cath Kidston’s Sew! and Sublime Stitching’s Embroidered Effects and thanks to some frantic survey filling (I do surveys for vouchers on various things), I now have them. There have been lots of very good looking craft books released recently, so now I can just drool over all the other ones I want, like a box of chocolates I don’t know what to pick from next.

Anyway, what about Embroidered Effects? Embroidered Effects aims to take your stitching a step further, with various projects utilising a greater variety of stitches than just straight stitch. This was a timely book for me, personally I can do other stitches, but I have a tendency to look at a project and just pick from my normal repertoire of three or four stitches.

There’s lots of good looking projects (with transfers), ranging from stuff to wear and accessories for around the home. Projects I particularly liked include:

• Mahjong Tablecloth (a possibility for the mother-in-law)
• Fan Dancer Shower Curtain (need a new shower curtain)
• Felt Flower Bouquet
• Mexican Sugar Skulls Wrap Skirt (I desperately want this, I love Day of the Dead Skulls)
• Robot Parts T-shirt (Boy Lacer would love this)
• Pocket Bluebird Jeans (now normally I’m not a big fan of embroidered jeans, but the design and the placement just below the front pockets, is really cute)
• Imitation Cameo Brooch blouse (again, really cute).

Kingston Killers

I had a rare night out night tonight, in a bookshop, perfect. It was to see a collection of crime writers talk about their books. I think that’s a great idea for author promotion, go round in packs, although at the book signing afterwards it’d be a bit depressing if everyone else was having massive queues to have their books signed and no one was queuing for you!

Under the title Kingston Killers, I saw three groups of three, the first was a trio of historical crime writers; Ariana Franklin (Mistress of the Art of Death series), Laura Wilson (Stratton’s War series) and Nicola Upson (Josephine Tey series). Franklin writes fiction set in the 12th century and Wilson and Upson write in the 1930s and 1940s. They all read excerpts from their books and they all sounded really good. In the Q&A afterwards, they talked about why the write historical fiction and they all pretty much agreed that we need to understand our history, to know where we’re coming from, how things have changed, I like that. Franklin in particular talked passionately about her chosen era and how she didn’t need to think about plots, it was all there already. I liked the sound of Wilson’s plans to have her Stratton series follow the career of an ordinary policeman (i.e. not depressive/gambler/alcoholic/etc) through the 40s and on into the 60s. And Upson’s books about the real life crime writer Josephine Tey’s supposed real life inspiration, sounded really interesting.

The next trio was Yaba Badoe (True Murder), Cathi Unsworth (writes books set in the 60s and 80s) and Johan Theorin (Echoes from the Dead, The Darkest Room). Badoe’s book is set around events in a girl’s boarding school and Unsworth writes books set in London with a heavy music influence. Theorin is the next big thing from Sweden in the current wave of Swedish crime fiction and writes quite spooky sounding, atmospheric books.

The final trio was Chris Carter (The Crucifix Killer), NJ Cooper (starting a new series about a forensic psychologist) and RJ Ellory (he of Richard and Judy fame). Carter’s Crucifix Killer sounded really good, apparently too gory for the US market. Cooper’s book had a really chilling openings. RJ Ellory’s reading, sounded well, like an RJ Ellory book (in fairness to him, of all the writers there, he was the only one I was familiar with, so with him it wasn’t a ‘learning something new experience’). In the Q&A afterwards though, they did ask Ellory a question I’ve always wondered, he’s British, so why does he write about the US all the time? His answer was that he thought British crime fiction had a tendency to fall into stereotypes, whereas crime fiction set in the US was more of a blank canvas and it’s such a big country that you could in effect write one story in one part of the US and then write the next in another part and it would be like writing about different countries (I’m heavily paraphrasing here). He was also quite inspiring when he spoke about the sort of book he wants to write; one that people still remember, weeks after reading and he was very inspiring when he said how many books he’d written before getting published (amounting in the twenties).

I could have easily have brought all the authors’ books, but could only buy three (and really shouldn’t have done that, but they were on a one night 3 for 2). Chris Carter’s book was sorely tempting, but I didn’t have the money for a hard back, I ended up getting books by RJ Ellory, Johan Theorin and Ariana Franklin and all three were very charming when I asked them to sign their books. It was a great night, basking a little in the glow of publish-ability, maybe some of it will rub off!

Busy, busy, busy

I’m busy, busy, busy at the moment, culminating in a weekend that just the mere thought of it makes me want to break out into a cold organisational sweat. I’m currently writing this on a Thursday, in the afternoon, whereas I should, by rights, be working on one of the many things that should be done by this weekend or any other of the miriad of things on my must do list, but in 40 minutes (I’ve only just dropped Boy Lacer off at nursery as I type), I have to return back to school for my first meeting of the school’s asd parent support group and I just can’t be bothered to cross the playing field that sandwiches itself between our flat and the school, yet another time, so I’m currently sitting, blogging, in said playing field, proving highly attractive to ladybirds it seems. I have quite a few blog posts lined up (and two projects on my work table that when finished will need blogging to), so let’s see what topics I can get through whilst sitting on a cold, hard, metal bench, whilst waiting, shall we? Either that of I shall commence a ladybird study (just had a really unusual looking one land on me) or get savaged by a dog.

Right, first up on my menu of ramblings, tv. Did anyone see Defying Gravity last night (episodes 1 and 2 on BBC)? I loved it, possibly because anything remotely sci-fi and spacey on TV I will love automatically, as you don’t get much sci-fi on British TV, let alone the BBC. I really liked it though, episode 2 had me virtually screaming throughout, what’s in pod 4! Plus there’s lots of good character set up. And it had, at least for me, that ‘it’ factor that lots of the new stuff that’s started on TV recently, just hasn’t had for me, notably Flashforward and True Blood, both, at least on paper, shows I should love. Flashforward has qualified itself for me, as something I’ll watch if I’m in the room, although I found last episodes revelation of who the bad guys were, interesting, if anything just because of their nationalities, I love me a nice English bad guy, I do, I know it’s a sterotype but we do bad guys well. As for True Blood, well I was really loving the interaction between the main characters and the supporting characters and the interaction between just the supporting characters but when the girl and the vamp get together, blah! it just reminds me of Twilight, and I like Twilight, it’s just been there done that, I can see now, as lots of people have been saying, don’t bother trying to sell a new vampire story (and unfortunately my ‘alternate reality’ story over there on the side bar is a vampire story in essence) as everyone is sick to death of them!

Oh and one last thing I saw on TV this week, even if it’d been on my DVR since last Christmas, Lemony Snicket’s A Series if Unfortunate Events, absolutely loved it! Makes me want to go and read the books now. I loved the Sunny character best!

So, that’s TV done, food next (and probably the last topic, I’ll have to go soon). I was going to write a post about this week’s adventures with my Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall book, I was on the bread chapter this week, but unfortunately I’m too busy to make bread, but I did make his pizza and ok it wasn’t like going and buying a Pizza Express pizza from the supermarket but for what it was it wasn’t bad, the base was easy enough to handle, that I managed to get it very thin, which helped and when cooked, the base seperated itself slightly, creating bubbles within the dough, which is always, I think the sign of a good pizza. It was also, a lot cheaper than going out and buying a Pizza Express pizza and probably, considering you’re the one with the control over the ingredients, healthier.