CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO

Books for a Sunday afternoon

In this house books don't get read anymore, they used to but then came fanfiction, netflix, pinterest, blogs, facebook and soon it was game over. Hopefully this month marks the beginning of a come back, after trudging through the new P.D. James Death Comes to Pemberley (apparently not my thing but enjoyed by a dear friend) I picked up Hitchers from the reader's choice shelf at the local library. A sure way to find something enjoyable, I have been told. The main character in Hitchers is called Finn, a good sign surely and so far the story has been riveting. This book is really well crafted, I find myself re-reading entire paragraph to enjoy them all over again, and thinking of sending a copy to my mother who likes to practice her English by reading novels. I sent her Never Let Me Go, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Beware of God, all personal favorites... This one might fit in just fine.

Speaking of favorites, this green vase from  uber famous French florist Christian Tortu has been a really great ebay find. You can fill it with one flower or five and it works! Magic...

Loot and recycle

Our Local public library is 'weeding' its shelves, books can be had for 50 cents hard cover and 25 cents soft. Which means this stack cost a grand total of $1.75! Still I had no money in my pockets so S. had to bankroll this coup, great friend to have.

The shed chic is going to be a classic for all ages. It's part sheds part cabins part tree houses and beautiful gardens around them. S. also brought the flowers, held in a water bottle on her bike, very neat. The petals fall in my hair while I sleep, I feel very romantic (wink).

Speaking of flowers, I was in the unenviable position to wrap a doll today for a little girl fourth birthday. It's a Lalaloopsy (big head, button eyes) and it comes in the most uneven shaped box ever seen. After much grunting with brown paper I gave up and sat down to consider the meager options remaining in the bag closet. But I shouldn't have doubted the ever sturdy/cool JCrew bags. A few stapled leaves( from scrap-booking paper) one sheet of tissue paper made in a peony, some hot glue, and some more hot glue et voila! I like the bag better than the present now, and wouldn't mind at all making more...

 

Crafting With Cat Hair, a review.

The good people at Quick Books, who brought us such genius as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, have sent me this funny little Japanese book to review. It's called Crafting with Cat Hair by Kaori Tsutaya. It arrived on Monday while I was pondering the age old debate: "why is sheep/rabbit hair fine to use but cat hair weird?" Probably because I pay a premium for the first while  spending most of my time vacuuming the second. I usually take cat hair off my crafts but I might have to start putting it on after reading this adorable book, the Japaneses really have it all figured out!

I asked Uli if he would give me a paw to write this review but he gave me his usual answer: " (yawn) I'll sleep on it (yawn)".

The book contains 10 projects that appear simple, some require no felting equipment. You will find coin purses, scarves with appliques, pin cushions, book covers and more. Bellow are two of my favorites. click on them for a larger view. The book is very affordable ($14.95) and would delight a cat lover anyday.

It also contains an educative section about cat grooming/allergies and of course an overload of cat cuteness, does it compare with Uli on that level: "not a chance! (yawn)". proof

I think this review would not be complete without a little Maru, the world most famous cat (sorry Uli!) who happens to be Japanese.

A microscopic book review

While sitting around at club med, I quickly realized that if I wanted to read anything I had to go for value, long and cheap because the magazines there were sold for over $10. I opted for a kindle copy of 'a discovery of witches' by Deborah Harkness. Having seen it at the grocery store and downloaded the free preview I felt safe in my purchase. Well, I don't like to criticize in vain, especially here but this book can be described in two words: pretentious and boring. I didn't make it through on the beach, and once back home I found the pedantic descriptions of expensive wine tastings insurmountable. I just couldn't do it any longer.

Looking for satisfying fluff elsewhere, I fumbled through a few self published kindle book with no success until settling for an Omnific publication by Jennifer DeLucy. It's called Seers of Light and as supernatural romances go it's really very good. The prose is solid and the story fleshy enough to overcome the unavoidable cliches of the genre. It makes me ponder why some author get all the love, that is published and aggressively distributed while other more deserving books have to be pretty much self promoted and suffer bad cover art (no joke):

 

love is ugly sometimes

(don't trouble yourselves, it's not soda)

Finn and I went to JoAnn today to buy a book called Let's Draw Happy People. I thought it would be great fun to try and practice together. We found the book and that atrocious batman fabric as well. Explaining to him that the lady wasn't cutting his Batman blanky was interesting, he thought the entire bolt was his (shivers down my spine). I had plans on trimming the eyesore with one equally tacky satin double fold, but back at home I scrapped the idea and went for a white serged edge that took less than one minute. The entire time Finn is jumping up and down, tripping on the cord and screaming; " I AM BATMAN!!!!!". Meanwhile I am thinking: "This is unquestionably the ugliest, most yucky feeling thing I have ever made, it will be his favorite for sure..."

So like I said, Love can be ugly sometimes, but it's so so good.

Maybe I should forgive him his bad taste, he is extremely color blind. It's a challenge at that age when everything is color coded. As I am typing this he is getting frustrated with crayons 'that are the same' or in the case of the grey/white one "doesn't work". Maybe a little nap under the Batman cape will settle things down? Dream on.

 

( getting a thank you kiss, yeah!)

 

Just a reminder that I am answering comments directly on the blog from now on, not that I get that many, except from you Lisa love!

Marie Claire idees 79

The New Marie Claire idees, number 79, is awesome. I love this magazine so much that my mom sends it to me from France. Now that it comes out every two months instead of four times a year I was worried about the content but this issue is fantastic!

This spread about decorating with maps makes me want to hunt down old AAA atlases. I really loved the garland of flags below, it would work well I think when updating a boys room past the toddler age.

Those stairs curving around a tree take my breath away. I yearn to travel back to my moms country house and convince her to do exactly that in her garden. Unfortunately I can hear her argue that we need proper indoors stairs first, sigh.

I am ending this post here with my absolute favorite project, a blue fish made of soda caps, but you can see a few more pictures on my Flickr stream. I have always like the trays made in Africa out of caps and this could be just the incentive to start obsessively collecting more garbage.

Pink Overload

I tried out the scallops again today, smaller scallops even, to fit the scale of my petite lingerie bag.

 

I did a little research and found a fashion design blog called Vain & Vapid with a post on scallops. The name of the blog made me giggle for quite a while... Thread also had a very in depth article on the subject. I must say that even after applying all and everything from the articles I still had some puckering on the apex. Just not as much puckering.

The new bag is about a quarter the size of yesterday's effort and I think this time it should be a tad larger to contain a largish soutien-gorge maybe.

The book I read about in Glamour, having checked it out from the library only today, I can so far say that it's beyond adorable and reasonably vegetarian friendly.

Book Talk

Today's mother/son activity consisted in teaching a two year old about zombies, articulating the word zombies, walking with our arms in front of us making horrible walling sounds in a effort to later put on show for dad. Pretending to eat each others brain was pretty entertaining as well.

Why you might ask? well, because of this:

Finn, keeps pointing at the cover: "What's that?".  " The undead, darling!". This book so far is as hilarious as the former Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's a prequel actually. I was a little disappointed with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters but then again the original Austen was pretty boring in my opinion. To be honest I only read her under the threat of a college class, which can't be the best of motivation (I was a Chemistry major...).  Once done with this gem, I have plans for another Austen remake in the form of Mr Darcy, Vampyre. by Amanda Grange. It looks very promising.

Last but not least, a really good Twilight fan fic I just discovered. Metaphysics by Anais March. It's all about spending graduate school in London studying obscure dead poets and finding out Edward is showing up to research the exact same thing, coincidence much? This one is really well written and I am not sure why it's rated M, don't let it scare you off.

Red Post

  I decided to try my hand at dying some white wool with Kool-Aid yesterday. The wool was meant for yet another pair of Bella Mitten's ( I am on my fourth right now), but I thought that nobody wants to wear white gloves and show off dirty paws. My first attempt looked like a blood soaked mess, and frankly it sort of turned my vegetarian stomach. After a quick moment of despair followed by a put-yourself-together-moment followed by a shopping trip I tried adding grape to the mix and bingo! This pair will be lined with super soft something, cashmere maybe, as spotted here.

To keep the red theme going I just finished this amazing book, and red is the color of my eyes. Still I would read it again and again just to find all the quotes I want to plaster on my walls. And I was wrong before, some people like to wear white gloves, if you read it you'll know what I mean.

Iron-on transfers: a failed attempt and a good book.

I was tempted last week into buying two book of iron-transfers. They were cheap enough and the designs super cute. I came home with Sukie and Iron Me On. Today I gave it a go on the back of an old t-shirt and to say that it didn't work out is putting it mildly. There are many thing that I would do differently, the first one of which would be to pin the transfer to the fabric somehow. Next time will be on white muslin too. This was pretty annoying but I decided that since the T-shirt was already ruined I should try again to see how much more ink was in the transfer, we shall never know because I lost interest and went back to the terrific book captivating my time lately. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is no contest one of the funniest thing I have ever read, a paraphrase of the original with added bloodlust. The scariest thing for me was the habit of all the character to vomit (modestly) in their cupped hands. That really put me off, other than that nothing but an incredibly ferocious heroine!

The best might be the Study Questions at the end. Here are a few to make you smile hard:

2. Is Mr. collins merely too fat and stupid to notice his wife's gradual transformation into a zombie, or could there be another explanation for his failure to acknowledge the problem? If so, what might that explanation be? How might his occupation (as a pastor) relate to his denial of the obvious, or his decision to hang himself?

7. Does Mrs Bennet have a single redeeming quality?

8. Vomit plays an important role in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Mrs Bennet frequently vomits when she is nervous, coachmen vomit in disgust when the witness zombies feasting on corpses, even the steady Elizabeth can't help but vomit at the sight of Charlotte lapping up her own bloody pus. Do the authors mean for this regurgitation to symbolize something greater, or is it a cheap device to get laughs?

I sincerely hope that Seth Grahame-Smith will not stop here. He owes it to himself to continue trashing classic literature in such way as to make me read it!