Sandy's Chatterblog

Proof!!!

2009-11-28T15:40:00.002+01:00

Here's the irrefutable proof that I am indeed turning into a chicken:

You might say, "But you've still got your head." Which is true, of course. You can clearly see it on the picture: I've still got my head. BUT -- for how much longer? I ask you. By now it can only be a matter of days, perhaps hours even, before it's going to fall off!

Academic Tablescaping

2009-11-27T19:17:00.002+01:00

Essentials:

1 cup of tea
1 primary text
1 sheet of paper for mindmapping
1 table

The Result:

I spent the afternoon planning my paper for the Manchester conference (for some reason, they want the papers well in advance) (no finishing the paper on the evening before the day you're going to present it for this conference - drat!). As you can just about see, my mindmap looks ... eh ... interesting - I hope I'll still be able to read my own handwriting tomorrow morning!

In case you're wondering: the topic of my paper is "'It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly': The Loss of Sight in Teresa Medeiros's The Bride and the Beast and Yours Until Dawn".

My Favourite Soup: Kallaloo

2009-11-23T22:39:00.004+01:00

Three weeks from the day after tomorrow I'll have my final oral exam. If I pass it, you can then call me Dr. Schwab (I won't be able to call myself Dr. Schwab yet as I'll have to find a publisher for the Dratted Diss first). But in the time until then I'll probably enter Lala-Land again and keep running around like a headless chicken, shouting "Waaaaargh! Waaaaaargh! Waaaaaaargh!" (Not an easy feat, given that the chicken is headless!) As this might be my last sensible post in a while, I'd like to share the recipe for my favourite soup with you. It's yummy and will keep you warm on cold autumn evenings. :)

Take 400g pumpkin, cut into squares, put into a large pot, add three potatoes, also cut into squares, then add some water and cook until pumpkin and potatoes are tender.

Take that thingie-dings with which you can stomp and mash potatoes. Stomp pumpkin and potatoes (or simply purée them), add vegetable stock, finely diced ginger. Mince 500g of spinach (or simply take a large package of Rahmspinat *g*), then add to soup. Add 200 ml of coconut milk, salt and pepper (and some chili, if you like - me, I don't like).

Heat and admire the marvellous greenish colour. And when the soup is all nice and hot, it's ready to be enjoyed.

I got the recipe from a friend (hello, Matze!), and the pumpkin that was cooked in these pictures had grown in the garden of another friend (hello, Anna!). The pot and the kitchen are all mine, though. :)

Tablescaping with Books & Kitteh

2009-11-22T14:14:00.005+01:00

You will need:

one pile of books

one kitteh.

Artfully arrange both on the dining table. Like this:

Try different angles.

With kitteh looking left ...

... looking right ...

... looking embarrassed.

(Do we have to continue with this? asks the kitteh. I feel a little bit stupid. - Yes, I say. - Ah, well, says the kitteh.)

Hmm.

Hmmmmmmm.

Hmmmm hmmmm hmmmmmmmmmmm

Hmm - ooops!

Sew & Tell Friday ... er ... on Saturday

2009-11-21T17:59:00.004+01:00

or, On the Search for the Religiously Neutral Christmas Present :)

Take: One of the patterns from Gail Pan's lovely A Christmas Wish BOM.

Trace, stitch, cut out, add a backing and a nice ribbon, stitch together, turn, stuff - finished!

Nice, easy, oh-so-fast, and the result is just lovely. Instead of the normal cotton stuffing, you could also use some dried lavendar and thus transform your pendant into a moth repellant. :)

~*~~*~~*~

Sew & Tell is organised by Amy. Click on the button to see what kind of projects other people finished this week!

Remembering my Sweetie

2009-11-14T17:53:00.003+01:00

One year ago we had to say goodbye to Jago. I still miss him so very much.

Temptation, Temptation, Temptation

2009-11-13T21:51:00.006+01:00

I haven't even finished my first quilt yet, but I'm already thinking about the second ... and third ... and fourth ... And it's all the fault of the Fatquarter Shop and their fiendish newsletter which leads me oh-so-much into temptation every single time I find it in my inbox. (Poor little me!)

But how to choose? Not just which pattern (I'm thinking about trying out some sort of scrappy log cabin), but, more importantly, which fabrics? Here's a selection of my favourites. What do you think? Any favourites?

Rouenneries is, hands down, my current favourite. The prints have been inspired by old French fabrics - don't they look wonderfully elegant, but in a somewhat faded, shabby way?

~*~

And here's Nostalgia. Aaaaah, Nostalgia. Makes you think of an English garden, doesn't it? To strengthen the impression of a garden, one could always go with the greens only. Like this:

~*~

Or perhaps another Glacé quilt? (Minus the blue again. I don't think it really fits with all the other colours.)

~*~

Blessings is more earthy and looks as if it would keep you nicely warm in winter. :)

~*~

Aster Manor - very feminine.

~*~

Alliance - another collection in more earthy tones.

~*~

And now some collections which would make fantabulous coin quilts (small stacks of colour against a solid - quite often white - background):

Thoughts? Ideas?

Preparing for Winter

2009-11-11T16:40:00.003+01:00

Each month the arrival of the credit card statement tells me that I'm spending too much money on books. It could be worse, I guess. Like other women, I could have a serious passion for shoes. Or bags and purses. Or jewellery. Books are relatively cheap by comparison (welllllll, if you love buying rare 19th-century editions of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, you might find that books can be horrendously expensive, too!).

So the piles on the top of my piano continue to grow and make me smile with satisfaction whenever I enter my little library-cum-music-room. (The Kitteh is less satisfied, I'm afraid, since the piles tend to be in her way when she climbs about on the piano and the lower bookshelves.) The sight of books has always filled me with warm, fuzzy feelings and thoughts of happily snuggled up on the couch with a cup of tea and a nice book (and a Kitteh).

Of course, at the moment I don't really have time to actually read all these new books thanks to the Dratted Exam that will hit me over the head in three or four weeks' time (*gasp* so soon??? Waaaargh!). So for now I regard those lovely piles as my winter hoard to be enjoyed over Christmas and in the new year. :)

Which reminds me of this lovely story:

Not that I would ever need an excuse to drool over the lovely Mr. Armitage. :)

Good Bed-Fellows

2009-11-08T14:06:00.007+01:00

In one of the last chapters of Susan Hill's Howards End Is on the Landing, titled "Bad Bed-Fellows", you find the following passage:

A child's nursery rhyme books does not have the language in which to speak to a Latin dictionary. Chaucer does not know the words in which Henry James communicates but here they are forced to live together, forever speechless. [...] Does Elizabeth Bowen find Swift congenial company? Ah yes, surely, they were both Irish, they have a lot in common. I should like to sit here on the landing in the last glimmer of daylight and listen to them whispering together. [...] Can books learn from one another? Can they change as a result of sitting on a shelf beside another for years?

What an intriguing thought, isn't it? To test the idea I'd want to sandwich Anne Bronte's (please imagine those two dots over the e; I've no idea how to insert an e with dots here in Blogger) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall between Elizabeth Taylor's At Mrs. Lippincote's and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Making of a Marchioness. One hopes that this would improve Bronte's angelic heroine (hey-ho, I run away from my husband because he's a beastly sadist, but when he's about to kick the bucket I'm going to return to mop his brow and make sure he doesn't kick the bucket after all *head desk*) and that, upon opening The Tenant the next time, one would find that Helen has bashed in her beastly husband's skull with the chamber pot.

Not that Burnett's heroine isn't any less angelic - in fact, she's a much better person than Helen: always smiling, always being grateful to other people, always happy to run errands for others. No, in The Making of a Marchioness you have to turn to the secondary female characters to get women with some more bite (and, eventually, one dead beastly husband).

Reading both At Mrs. Lippincote's and The Making of a Marchioness has finally convinced me (if I needed any convincing at all!) to teach a course on women writers of the early 20th century. Next winter, perhaps?

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The picture was taken inside Barter Books in Alnwick, a gigantic UBS inside an old railway station. I could have spent hours inside there (instead I went to see Alnwick Castle and then travelled on to Berwick-upon-Tweed - that latter point definitely not one of my finer ideas)

Sew & Tell Friday: The Little Red Bag

2009-11-06T17:31:00.004+01:00

Remember the little blue bag, my very first sewing project? This week I finished a little red bag (one of two):

Take a few stripes from a Moda honey bun (I used Aster Manor), sew them together.

Choose lining fabric, layer with batting, sew, turn right side out, hand-stitch opening closed - and voilà:

Quilt in the ditch (aka along the seams of the honey bun stripes) with nylon thread, fold, hand-stitch sides closed and as easy as that the itty-bitty bag is finished:

This is what the inside looks like.

It's just perfect for small gifts like a CD or some bags of tea or a nice card with a gift certificate. And don't you just love those reds?

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Sew & Tell is organised by Amy. Click on the button to see what kind of projects other people finished this week!

Edited to add: I cut the jelly roll / honey bun stripes in half before sewing them together!

Post Without Words: Piano Stairs

2009-11-05T17:42:00.002+01:00

The Sexist Reader

2009-11-04T16:29:00.003+01:00

I freely admit it: I'm a sexist reader. With a few exceptions (Michael Ende, Terry Pratchett, James Patterson's romances), my pleasure reading consists of books written by women. Granted, my favourite novella ever is Ludwig Tieck's "Der blonde Eckbert", I love Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories are always charming, but for real flop-onto-the-couch-drink-cup-of-tea-cuddle-cat pleasure reading I inevitably turn to women writers.

In former years this was done entirely unconciously - first there were Enid Blyton, Auguste Lechner, Rosemary Sutcliff, Helen Cresswell, Joan Aiken, Tamora Pearce, and Susan Cooper; then Anne Rice, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley (of course!), Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Roberson, Dorothy Gilman, and Victoria Holt; eventually Diana Gabaldon, Susanna Kearsley, and Dorothy Dunnett; and then I discovered the world of romance fiction.

By now, though, it is a conscious decision. I know I prefer the way women tell stories to the way men go about the business. Women's stories are much more relevant to my experiences and to how I see the world than men's.

A few weeks ago I read Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Literature, and it made me feel sick and angry all at once because the same mechanisms she describes in that study are still at work today. And so, I decided to act. Inspired by Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity, I'm now collecting books by forgotten women writers which I intend to read once the Dratted PhD Exam Thingie (DPHET) is over and done with.

Among the authors on my list are:

Nancy Mitford

Elizabeth Taylor (not the movie star!)

Jan Struther

Dorothy Whipple

Marghanita Laski

Winifred Watson

Julia Strachey

Barbara Euphan Todd

In addition, I'm thinking of offering a course on "Lost Voices: Forgotten Women Writers" next winter.

And now let's all say WHEEEEEEE!!!!

2009-11-03T20:15:00.004+01:00

Richard Armitage is going to read another Heyer novel, namely Venetia. Here's the blurb from amazon:

In all her twenty-five years, lovely Venetia Lanyon has never been further than Harrogate, nor enjoyed the attentions of any but her two wearisomely persistent suitors. Then, in one extraordinary encounter, she meets a neighbour she only knows by reputation - the infamous Lord Damerel - and before she knows better, is egging on a libertine whose way of life has scandalised the North Riding for years.

Yay! :)

Treasure Box

2009-11-01T15:08:00.003+01:00

The buttons from Miss Sock Kitteh came from this old sewing box:

My Mom found it in a thrift store a few days ago and bought it for me (for 5 €!!!). It turned out to be a veritable treasure box, filled with old thread, buttons, little hooks, bits of wool, needles, more buttons, cut-off bra straps, elastic, ribbons, and miles and miles of pinkish embroidery thread of the expensive kind. (Which I used for the lazy daisy on Miss Kitteh's belly.)

Needless to say that I was thrilled when my Mom brought the box home. :)

Sew & Tell: The Sock Kitteh

2009-10-30T23:44:00.004+01:00

Earlier today, the kitteh still didn't have any arms or ears. (Poor kitteh!)

But hey! Look, there's an ear!

-- "Hello, other kitteh! Could I borrow your ears?"

-- "Uh ... hm ... let me think about it ..."

-- "Have you thought about it?"

-- "Yes."

-- "And? Will you lend me you ears?"

-- "No."

Despite this lamentable lack of support and cooperation, the sock kitteh finally got her ears and arms (made from yet another sock) this evening.

Happy kitteh sitting in front of a pile of new books which I got this week:

The inspiration for the kitteh came from this book (also brandnew):

SOCK AND GLOVE by Miyako Kanamori.

The sock kitteh then made friends with the other kitteh.

"Yes, indeed. We R friend 4evah!"

The End

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Sew & Tell is organised by Amy Lou. Click on the picture above to jump to her blog & the Sew & Tell party. :)

Saturday / Sunday Tablescape

2009-10-25T19:22:00.003+01:00

Saturday, 2 p.m.

Saturday, 3 p.m.

Sunday, 3 a.m.

My brunches tend to last 16 hours, my tea parties mere 12 hours. :)

Still Re-Reading N&S

2009-10-17T17:27:00.003+02:00

Yup, I'm still at N&S (and am quietly freaking out about that final oral exam *sob*) (No, I'm not exaggerating: I'm already having nightmares about the stupid thing! As in, I'm in the exam and they're asking me questions for which I'm totally unprepared. Or questions about books I haven't read. Like Dickens. (I'm not a huge Dickens fan; I've read Oliver Twist ages ago + Mystery of Edwin Drood + beginning of Pickwick Papers + that's about all I remember.) Or questions about those big, fat 18th-century novels, which I haven't really read either. In other words: they're going to find out that I'm a fraud. *sob sob sob*)

Okay, so I'm still reading N&S (and lusting after Mr. Thornton) (especially when I think of Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton!!! Yum!). You can, of course, read the novel as a romance, and if you do, the dynamics in the relationship of Margaret and Thornton make so much more sense. In many ways, the relationship resembles that in Pride & Prejudice: At the beginning, the hero is attracted to the heroine (against his better judgment), while she thinks he is some kind of lower life form that has crawled out from beneath a stone. Consequently, his first proposal comes as a shock for her and she rejects him (and takes the chance to tell him exactly what she thinks of him). Yet almost immediately afterwards, our heroine begins to wonder whether she has misjudged the poor hero (who's broken-hearted; poor thing). Despite her rejection, he still cares for her, and when she / her family / her idiotic siblings run into trouble, he tries to help her. She realises that she has utterly, utterly, UTTERLY misjudged the poor man and herself (for she's actually quite in love with the hunky hero), but she assumes that her hunky man now detests her and thinks she is the lowest of the lowest and will never ever speak to her again. But he does! (yay!) And proposes again!!! And they lived happily ever after. :)

But Margaret & Thornton's story also reminded me of Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels. As with Jessica and Dain, sparks fly whenever M. & Mr. T. meet. They've got these very intense discussions, arguments even, but Thornton simply can't stay away and always comes back for more :)

*happy sigh*

Sewing Soothes the Soul

2009-10-15T09:43:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was a day full of worries and general panicking, which made it rather difficult to properly concentrate on my work (the yummy Mr. Thornton notwithstanding). So during my lunch break I took out my sewing machine and started on another pouch, this one in deep burgundy reds from the Aster Manor line by Three Sisters.

I'm happy to report that it no longer takes me 10,000 hours to pin together two strips of fabric (yay me!). Consequently it took me a little less than an hour to put together the outside of the pouch, consisting of seven small strips. I love the ratta-ta-tatt of my sewing machine, and the moment when you unfold the fabric you've just sewn together and there it is - a nice straight seam, all neat and lovely.

For me it's extremely soothing to concentrate for once on something that doesn't have anything to do with literature, books, or computers. And it's enormously satisfying to see something grow under your hands and to imagine the pleasure it will give to the person for which it is intended.

After an hour at the sewing maching I always feel refreshed and full of energy, ready to return to the world of books.

And now let's all say "Awwwwww!"

2009-10-14T19:29:00.002+02:00

I know I've mentioned Gaskell's NORTH & SOUTH several times when I first read it, but the novel is simply so good it deserves to be mentioned again and again and again and ... well, you get the picture. :)

Though Gaskell complained that she had to hurry & shorten the ending so it would fit into the serial format of Dickens's HOUSEHOLD WORDS, I still think the ending of N&S rather sweet and definitely worthy of a happy sigh or two.

"Margaret!"

Sill lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered - panted out the words: -

"Take care. - If you do not speak - I shall claim you as my own in same strange presumptuous way. - Send me away at once, if I must go; - Margaret!"

At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close.

*happy sigh*

1000th Post: Yes, I Can!

2009-10-13T08:13:00.002+02:00

Sew, that is. :)

So last week I got my lovely, new sewing machine. Hitherto I didn't have a very good relationship with sewing machines (this was probably due to the fact that I had absolutely no clue what things like "thread tension" meant ...), consequently I approached my shiny new Carina with considerable wariness.

What if I couldn't work with it?

What if it wasn't a good machine after all?

What if ...

(As you can see, I suffered from acute buyer's remorse.)

I unpacked it, stared at it, felt intimidated, decided I would have to study the owner's manual, watch the DVD that came with the sewing machine, and then study my sewing books. And after that, the owner's manual again. That was about eight in the evening.

About two hours later, I had finally worked up enough courage to switch on the sewing machine.

After that, it took me one hour to figure out how to bring up the bobbin thread. *head desk*

And after that, I could finally practice sewing. :)

A few days later I put together my very first project. I took a few stripes from the Glace jelly roll:

Sewed them together, then sewed together four more stripes of backing fabric, made a mini quilt sandwich (front, back, batting), sewed it together, turned it inside out and -- deep breath -- quilted it. With my sewing machine. And it totally worked!

Then I folded one side up, closed the side seams by hand (cleverly using invisible thread!), and ended up with this little pouch:

Then I realised that I had forgotten the button and the button loop. *head desk* As my little bag looked a bit naked without button and button loop, I added a little ribbon and tied it into a bow. Like this:

This is what the inside looks like:

So I guess this proves that I can indeed sew. Even with a sewing machine! :)

Planning a Simple, Simple, Simple Quilt

2009-10-05T17:43:00.004+02:00

When I bought the Moda Glacé jelly roll, I was a bit skeptical about the brown fabrics. But - oh my gosh! - they're gorgeous! And they look fantastic with the reds, don't they?

My Preciousssssss

2009-10-03T17:59:00.005+02:00

Next week this lovely darling will be ALL mine. 101 stitches, 7 or 8 different feet, super-easy to use (well, let's hope that this will turn out to be true ...).

Planned crafting projects: baby quilt with Aviary honey bun (from Moda Fabrics; picture snatched from the Fat Quarter Shop, my favourite online fabric shop where I've ordered my Moda fabrics) and the daisy chain quilt from Jelly Roll Quilts with Aviary and cream-coloured sashing. Here's the picture from the book:

Isn't it pretty? It's (apparently) very easy to make (sew stripes from jelly roll or stripes from jelly roll and stripe of sashing together, then cut into striped stripes, arrange stripey stripes so they form the daisy chains, then sew together). Nevertheless, it might take some time though until you'll get to see a picture of my quilt draped so prettily over a fence (and not just because it'll take me ages to find a fence such as this one *g*).

Reading for the Dratted Exam

2009-10-02T19:20:00.003+02:00

Now that I no longer have the Dratted Diss to worry about, it has become necessary to find something else to worry about: the Dratted Exam (though this doesn't have the nice, alliterative sound of the DD word) (speaking of alliterations, Germanic people seem to have been particular fond of them, hence all those lovely alliterations in Old English and Old High German literature; the German language has retained quite a number of alliterative phrases - e.g. "mit Maus & Mann" as in "the ship sinks with mouse and man", or perhaps even better, "with mice and men" - and within these alliterative phrases there are several words which are no longer used in other context, e.g. "mit Kind und Kegel", meaning "everybody". The "Kegel" in this phrase does not refer to one or more skittle pins; instead it is an old-fashioned word meaning "illegitimate children".)

Despite the missing alliteration, the Dratted Exam is a wonderful thing to worry about. I even had nightmares about it already! (Yay me!) (*snort*)

Apparently, for the most part the DE will deal with the dissertation (no worries there), and after that there will be another two topics (one for each examiner) to muddle through. I've chosen early English drama and the nineteenth-century novel. Last Tuesday I talked with examiner No. 2 about the latter topic, and we already settled on some texts:

Elizabeth Gaskell's NORTH & SOUTH
Elizabeth Gaskell's CRANFORD
W.M. Thackeray's VANITY FAIR

Now I only need one last novel. Prof. Erlebach suggested JANE EYRE, but I later remembered that Charlotte B. and Emily B.'s novels are a bit too melodramatic for my taste. Anne's THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL would be much more to my liking. But then I thought, How about some Jane Austen? After all, the topic is the nineteenth-century novel, not the Victorian novel! NORTHANGER ABBEY would be nice because it would allow us ... eh ... me, mostly, to talk about the gothic novel.

Oh my. Talk about difficult decisions! :)

At the moment I'm re-reading CRANFORD, and I'm once again marvelling at the wealth of detail in these stories. For somebody who's about to buy her first sewing machine, it's quite lovely to read about the Cranford ladies swapping knitting patterns and forming friendships over tartan wool from Edinburgh. And who could ever forget the cat & lace incident? (Well, apart from my students, most of whom weren't able to answer the test question relating to that particular scene from the book. *sigh*) For those of you who've never read CRANFORD, here's the cat & lace scene from the BBC mini-series. Enjoy!

Signs of Life

2009-10-01T17:55:00.003+02:00

In case you've wondered, I still haven't fallen off the edge of the earth (yay me!) so I still can't tell you the sex of the Great Turtle. (Besides I wouldn't know what to look for to ascertain the sex of a turtle anyway.) No, last week I merely did my taxes for 2008. Which was hellish (granted, not so hellish as that thing with the dragons, but there were numbers involved which is bad enough).

I also watched Morse.

Or rather, I'm still watching Morse - getting through all the 33 episodes takes a bit of time, after all. :) Obviously, I love the series not only because it's well written, but also because you can play many entertaining games while watching it. Like, "Spotting Colin Dexter" (he's the author of the Morse novels, and he has cameo appearances in almost all episodes of both Morse and Lewis) or (my favourite!) "Spotting actors who also appear in Lewis (but in different roles and with greyer hair)".

Karen White, The Lost Hours

2009-09-18T22:19:00.004+02:00

I spent the better part of this afternoon and evening (except for the ... eh ... 10 minutes it took me to re-read the first chapter of Nicoll's British Drama and for one pee pee break) reading Karen White's The Lost Hours. This is the first time in years that I literally couldn't put a book aside, and read it in one go instead. It's a great book, a wonderful book. As expected, it put me through an emotional wringer, but in a good way. I enjoyed every minute of it, even when I was crying my eyes out towards the end of the novel.

More tomorrow.