Ruby's Button Tin

Art Trail coming up ...

Autumn gold

I'm sitting here drinking a cup of Cranberry & Sanguinello Orange tea, looking out of the window at a rainy Sunday.  There are leaves of every shade of gold and brown flying through the air and coating the pavements, and it looks windy and a little chilly out there.  Good!  Lately the weather's been freakishly warm.  I mean, I know it's a freaky time of year anyway, what with Hallloween and all those ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.  But yesterday I was wandering around in a short sleeved summer top, and on 31st Oct that was just too weird.  So I'm glad the autumn colours are everywhere ...

Colour is so important in our lives.  I love the intense blue of this image.  There's something so uplifting about seeing vivid blocks of colour - whether a wooded area carpeted with bluebells or a field of lavender or a sea of poppies wafting in a breeze.  

The other image I have today is another shot of my knitted cakes.  I've nearly finished a baker's dozen.  

 
 
I thought the cherries looked good backed by the reds and pinks of this simple quilt. 

 

Bright Star

I'm really looking forward to seeing Jane Campion's 'Bright Star' next Friday.  I love 'The Piano' and 'Portrait of a Lady' and she always creates such beautiful films with images that stay with you long after the credits have rolled.  To get in the mood I bought an edition of John Keats's complete poems and selected letters today, and I'll be dipping into it over the next few days.  

On a completely unrelated matter, I was given a stash of thread, spools of every colour of the rainbow.  Crafty clutter can look so good ...
  

Books for Autumn nights ...

Now that the clocks have gone back and autumn leaves are making the pavements slippery, it's time to browse the bookshelves and settle down with a good book.  So I've got a couple of recommendations. 

I've started reading 'The Heretic's Daughter' by Kathleen Kent which has fairly recently come out in paperback.  It's set around the time of the Salem witch trials, and the time and landscape come vividly to life.  Those kind of small, ultra religious communities must have been suffocating to anyone of an independent wayward, nature, and I'm really looking forward to learning more about the mother / daughter relationship which seems - from what I've read so far - to be at the heart of the book.  Another recommendation is from a much later period in history.  It's 'Hearts Undefeated', an anthology of writing by women about the 2nd world war.  The excerpts from letters, diaries and news reports includes both famous womens voices and those of 'ordinary' women, no less valid.  They cover the span of the war - from prelude to aftermath - and include both the uplifting and the harrowing.  Ultimately you marvel at the resilience of the human spirit.  The book is published by Virago, edited by Jenny Hartley.  (Not Jenny Hart!!)

Finally, just a 'still life' of a crafty corner in my sitting room.  Looking unusually neat ...

 

Cakes unlimited ...

I'm still knitting cakes, and these are a collection of 'em waiting to have labels sewn on them and some of them haven't even got their cherries on the top!  They're going to be for sale at November's art trail in Totterdown, though I've no idea how well they're sell or what I might charge for them.  

 Between knitting and the odd bit of patchwork I've been reading Beth Saulnier's 'Ecstasy' which is a great 'crime' novel with a gutsy independent female lead and a very believable setting and gripping plot.  I've read a couple of other books of hers, and really enjoyed them.  I do love a fictional murder!  I've come to an absolute halt with Muriel Barbery's 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog'.  Just finding it soooo dreary.  Finally, before I go I just have to say I'm loving the new Autumn / Winter fashions.  Lots of dramatic black and highlighted by sequins everywhere, faux fur (the only kind that should be worn) and jewel colours of teal, purple and ruby.   Summer's fashion seemed - like the hedgehog book - rather dreary, so it's good to buy 'Grazia' and leaft through saying 'like that', 'like that'.  Was looking at coats today in Primark, and for £30 you can buy a pretty decent one which is fantastic value.  I find with Primark's coats or jackets that you need to swap the buttons for something classier, but that's a simple thing to do and worth the extra pound or two. 
  
 
 

Knitted cakes, coming along nicely

These knitted cakes are coming along nicely.  Some in this basket are nearer being finished than others. 

 

 

Knitted not baked

These are the knitted cakes that are still being finished off.  They're waiting for embroidered sprinkles to be added on top, as well as juicy red (knitted) cherries.  The paper cakes cases are represented by cream or very pale pink wool, then there's brown for the cake itself and pale lemon or egg yolk yellow wool for the icing.  

I'll add a label on each, and disguise the sewing to attach the labels with a button.  These are really easy and quick to make, and I'm going to try different types of yarn such as mohair to jazz 'em up. 

By the way, the cakes are sitting on top of a recent edition of Selvedge.  I love the magazine but it was always a luxury to buy it.  Now it's gone up to £10 and I'm not sure I can justify spending that on a magazine.  Well, that's it for now.  I'm going to read a bit more of 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery.  Not that I'm recommending it.  Oooh, no!   It's going to be discussed at my next bookgroup, otherwise I'd have ditched it by now.  Have read about a quarter of it so far, and I'm finding it tedious.  The characters don't come across as real people, just vehicles for putting across ideas and theories.  One of them is a concierge in a French apartment block, the other supposedly a 12 year old girl, but neither seems real.  They don't leap off the page.  Oh well, maybe it'll get better if I persevere ... and I've got a real bumper book to look forward to.  I've bought Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall'.  Can't wait to get started on it. 

 

 

Knitting cakes - why!!!??!!

I've been knitting cakes this week.  No, I don't know why either, but it seemed like a fun, silly idea.  I worked out a pattern myself which - when I eventually get around to it, I'll put on this blog.  Unfortunately I haven't got round to taking any photos yet - what did I do with that camera? - so here are some felt cakes instead, so you've got something pretty to look at :-)

Hexagons and a messy desk

Sunday's rolled around again, and another working week beckons.  It's nearly October, and would you believe the shops are already full of Christmas decorations.  Even mince pies in the supermarket!  It's ridiculous.  An advert for a furniture company is appearing on telly offering to deliver by Christmas.  Err ... hello!  Halloween's not even gone yet, so why the heck wouldn't you be able to deliver by Christmas!!!  Talk about wishing the year away, I think retailers ought to get a grip.  Oh well, on to less blood-pressure-raising matters ... a little gentle hand sewing is called for.

This is a quilt that's (very) slowly making progress.  I unearthed it from the chaotic fabric piles around my desk. 

Hmm, needs a tidy-up.  

Tidying-up can wait.  Cleaning should always come second to crafting, don't you think?

 

Another batch of knitted coral

Well, the first time I tried knitting a coral reef (as you do!) it didn't turn out too badly.  So I thought I'd have another go.  This weird looking shape is the beginnings of the thing.

The previous one I made was assembled by using a cane basket for a base, but I improvised this time with a cut up cereal box.  I formed it into a shallow dish shape and covered that in bubble wrap.   Then covered that in turquoise fabric. 

This is the back of the base, with the fabric gathered up and roughly stitched in place, ready for the knitted coral to be attached. 

It'll all come right in the end, I'm sure, but at the moment it looks like bizarre.  Anyway, on to other matters: I'm halfway through Steven Galloway's 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' which is making me ashamed of how patchy my knowledge of 20th century European history is.  The destruction of Sarajevo made so little impact on me at the time, though it was hardly any distance away from England, just a short plane ride away.  One of the good things about being in a book group is that it can introduce you to fiction you wouldn't normally pick up off the shelf.  It's always good too to hear the range of views about a book - no two readers seem to react in the same way. 

I was scanning my bookshelves the other day, and there are so many books I want to re-read - from 'Wuthering Heights' to 'Jane Eyre', 'The Poisonwood Bible' (loved that!) and lots of Dickens and Austen, Judy Budnitz and Margaret Attwood.  I really need to have a year when I don't buy any new books but just concentrate on the novels I already own.  Maybe that could be my project for 2010?