Tag: books

Emergency Book Pile

Emergency Book Pile

Paul is optimistic that the removal men will be able to waltz in on Friday, finish off the packing, whisk everything into the back of a truck, and have all our belongings spirited away in no time at all.

I, as usual, am less optimistic.

I keep looking around the house (and especially in the Shed) and seeing the mountains of things still not in boxes. And the mountains of boxes without lids, or labels, and insecurely taped.

These books are deliberately not in boxes, as they’re the ones I think I’l most need while all the others are packed away.

(Yes, the coloured pencils will be going into the same bag!)

Silk Waistcoat

Scot's Silk Waistcoat

This is Simplicity 4923 again – a waistcoat to go with the pirate shirt.

It took me a whole day to hand-work fifteen buttonholes and then sew on fifteen buttons. Blimey. I know I’m quite slow at hand-sewing, but I didn’t expect it to take so long! It was worth it though. The waistcoat looks really lovely with the matching buttons, and although I had no choice about making the buttonholes by hand (stupid sewing machine), I think they look quite smart.

(I have a horrible sneaking suspicion that I’ve accidentally sewn the buttons on the “women’s” side… but there’s nothing I can do about it now.)

I only made one change to the pattern, and that was to make the pockets functional. I hate pocket-flaps without pockets underneath, and this waistcoat definitely looks better with pockets than without. I broke out my trusty Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing and learned how to make a bound pocket with a flap. It’s not the neatest sewing I’ve ever done, but the slightly wobbly corners are completely hidden by the flap, and it looks lovely from the outside. Possibly it’s not the best idea to try out a new technique for the first time on somebody else’s clothes… but hooray for functional pockets!

Handmade Shoes for Men

Paul gave this book to me for Christmas. It is simultaneously both the best and the worst book that I have ever owned!

Handmade Shoes for Men tells you pretty much everything you need to know about making men’s shoes by hand. The only automated part of the process is the carving of individually-tailored lasts. Every other part of the construction of the shoe is done by hand.

The brilliant part is that I can do this! Secrets have been revealed! I can learn how to make shoes!

The terrible part is that all of the equipment is very specialised, and sometimes expensive, and I still can’t afford to go on any of the courses that teach shoemaking properly. 

But… I’ve learned everything I know about dressmaking and corsetry from a healthy combination of reading books and making things up as I go along. Perhaps it would be possible to learn at least the basics of shoemaking the same way?

I have plans for the lasts I bought from Ebay, and I’m still working on ideas for some developments to the soft slippers that can be made without lasts.

I only wish I’d been brave enough to study Fashion when I left school. I could have had more than ten years’ experience as a shoemaker by now, and be creating beautiful work like this:

Petrol blue wingtip ankle boots by Pakerson, at Forzieri.

(I’d make mine in fuchsia pink, of course…)

Birthday Books.

Birthday books

It’s my birthday today, and thanks to the power of the Wish List I am now the extremely happy recipient of (amongst other things) a veritable mountain of books, CDs and DVDs.

I think this picture tells you more about me than you could ever wish to know!

Swinging Sixties belongs to an exhibition that I went to see at the V&A a couple of years ago. I took lots of photos while I was there, but I didn’t take any notes. Now I can use the book to remind me of all the details I’d forgotten.

Design your own knits is everything I’d hoped it would be, and more! Whereas Ann Budd gives you all of the measurements you could possibly need, Debbie Abrahams gives you the tools to work those measurements out for yourself. I’ve already come unstuck once because the gauge of the yarn I wanted to use didn’t match anything on Ann’s charts. Hopefully by the time I’ve read this one, I’ll have the confidence to use my rudimentary maths skills and work out my next design.

A Fashionable History of the Shoe turned out to be a children’s book, which I didn’t realise when I added it to my list! As it turns out, it’s really useful. It explains a great deal about ancient and modern techniques of manufacture, both by hand and machine, and has lots of pretty pictures. I’m quite tempted to add some of its companion titles to my list as well.

The Savage is a very interesting children’s book. I collect pretty much anything that’s illustrated by Dave McKean, and he’s worked on some fabulous projects. From a quick flick-through, this one seems to be about a boy who writes a book of his own, and it’s been done partly as a traditional-looking illustrated story book, and partly in the style of a graphic novel. I’m really looking forward to reading it, and finding out what’s going on. I’m also very much looking forward to watching the Keanoshow DVD.

Knitting Rules! I’ve actually read before. We went on holiday with some friends last winter, and Nicola was using the sock instructions. I snaffled the book and stayed up half the night devouring it, before I had to give it back so that Nicola could finish her sock! I’m really looking forward to taking my time over reading it again.

I read the whole of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off in one sitting this morning, while I was eating my breakfast birthday cake. I refused to get out of bed until I’d finished it, and I laughed and cried all the way through. Paul got out of bed when he became bored of me giggling and reading passages out loud to him. I keep telling him that he obviously needs to take up knitting (mostly to prevent him from fiddling with his iPhone while we watch telly), but he remains steadfastly immune.

I’ve been thinking of making a post for a long time, about how I came to learn to knit again, and how much I’ve changed in the past few years, since knitting’s sneaked its way in to become a very important part of my life. Every time I start typing, it sounds over-emotional and faintly ridiculous.

Reading Stephanie‘s book this morning has reassured me that knitters will understand.

A little light reading…

I think it might be safe to say that my bedside reading mountain is getting a little out of control!

Bedside Reading...

As you can see from this picture, I don’t tend to read a lot of fiction these days. This makes the book on the very top of the pile a bit intimidating.

I signed up to Blog a Penguin Classic, and this is the one I was assigned – Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson.

Oddly enough I had rather been hoping for a “proper” classic, rather than a “modern” one. I feel as though I could have quite enjoyed a bit of Herman Melville or Alexandre Dumas. Now that I’ve looked at the website I see that I’ve read more of the Modern Classics than I’d thought – and I’m quite grateful that I didn’t end up with Jack Kerouac. I read On The Road because I thought I ought to, and found that I hated it.

I’m trying to stay open minded about Hell’s Angels but the subject matter of drinking, violence and motorbikes really doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

I need to start reading it soon though – I only have a couple of weeks left before it’s time to submit my review for Penguin!

The Way We Wore.

I’m reading the most fantastic book at the moment – The Way We Wore, by Robert Elms. It’s about one man, and the importance of his clothes as he grows up. It’s a social history, and a sartorial autobiography.

Robert Elms is half a generation older than me, so some of the earlier parts of the book are quite difficult to understand, although I can still picture a lot of the clothes very precisely, thanks to seeing the few old photos of my Dad as a teenager, and having been pretty obsessed with the 1960s when I was a teenager myself. The 1970s seem to have been just as confusing for Elms as they were for me, although I was far too young to be thinking about clothes at that time.

It was the 1980s that really did it for me. I was eight years old in 1981, the year that Philip Oakey of the Human League appeared on Top of the Pops with eyeliner, earrings and a pierced nipple. I’m absolutely certain that I noticed none of these things at the time, and was quite shocked when I saw that footage again recently and worked out how young I must have been when I saw it first. The 1980s were for New Romantics and Soft Cell and Nick Rhodes – always Nick Rhodes – never Simon Le Bon or Roger Taylor. Nick Rhodes, always Nick Rhodes, because he was the one with the feathered hair and the eyeliner. No wonder I ended up as a goth. I’d been looking for men in make-up since I was eight years old.

Of course I was far too young to be a goth or a New Romantic at the age of eight, or even really to know what those things meant. I do remember having a Madonna phase, all leggings and hair bows, although it was never as pronounced as my sister’s, who had the lacy gloves and everything. I had braces and a too-big trilby with a turquoise band, purchased from Top Man. I can’t remember now what I attached the braces to. It can’t have been leggings, although my wardrobe was full of those, and I never had a pair of jeans so tight that they had to have a zip at the ankle or you couldn’t get your feet through. My friend Kerry broke her wrist getting into a pair.

I remember the braces and the trilby, and the elasticated belts like a nurse, with a butterfly for the buckle. I remember a neon yellow skirt, worn with the most atrocious haircut on my fourteenth birthday. I remember going all the way to Tammy Girl in Hanley, and longing for the day when my skinny frame would be old enough to fit into grown-up Etam clothes instead. I remember my beloved Falmer Kittens. Jeans with a brand name, instead of from the catalogue! Jeans in a size nine! Jeans with tiny little dots woven directly into the fabric. I loved those jeans, and I wore them until they fell apart, and because ripped denim had become fashionable by then I wore them for a bit longer. I wore them with my favourite shirt, which did come from the catalogue, and it was plain white stiff heavy cotton, with black embroidery down the placket front. Perhaps I also wore the braces, and probably an old waistcoat from a charity shop, covered in badges. I’ve never owned a shirt of such good quality since. I wore it to parties and when it got older I wore it to college. I wore it with skirts and braces and hats. (Probably not all at once, but then it was the 1980s. It’s hard to be sure.)

And shoes. Let’s not even get started on the subject of shoes. Confined to orthopaedic lace-ups during the early years, I remember very clearly being allowed my first pair of tan sandals for the summer, aged about nine. I went outside to play in them, and promptly ruined them by getting covered in tar. That summer was so hot that the road had melted, and my brand new sandals were spoiled.

This was written as a stream of consciousness this morning. (Hence the over-long sentences and too many commas.) I’m sure it’s hugely out of order chronologically, but I was just writing down odd things as they occurred to me. I didn’t even mention the giant black and blue stripy jumper, or the lace-up tan stiletto heels, or the grey pixie boots, or the haircut that made me look like a boy, or my first pair of Doc Martens, which made my Mum laugh because they looked so much like the orthopaedic shoes I’d spent so long rebelling against. I’m sure you’ll get to hear about that some other time…