Sew & Tell: The Sock Kitteh

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

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

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

Saturday / Sunday Tablescape

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

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

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!"

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!

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

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

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

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

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)".