Stitched Up On Tuesdays Week 2

Every Tuesday I share my progress on my current cross stitch project.

I'm currently working on Dimensions Quiet Beach Moments. The design size is 14 by 10 inches on 14 count aida fabric. Which I think is around 25000 stitches in total.

It's deceptively tricky for a beginner like me, I'd only done one bookmark prior to starting this piece, lots of back-stitching where the lines run diagonally and lots of half stitch. Also, plenty of colour changing every few stitches. I actually got a bit fed up with changing colours so much and stitched the entire white line down the left hand side. It's the point where the sand starts to change to sea.

I decided to add the back stitching in as I go along, there's not much definition in the picture without it.

In other news, I signed up for a beginners course in knitting with Citylit starting end of next month and am considering one of their novel workshops but assessing the extra workload on top of my existing degree as I'll be preparing for assessment for my current module around the same time.

What are you all up to?

Last weeks Stitched Up on Tuesdays

Stitched Up on Tuesdays

Oh wow, I've been gone for ages. Before I introduce a new feature I'll bring you up to speed, went on holiday to Norfolk recently, lovely weather, lovely coastline and whilst there I received the happy news that I'd passed my poetry module. So, I'm still studying and halfway through my second module.

I'm sure someone's hit the fast forward button on time.

As writing has been designated as serious I needed a new hobby and while away in Norfolk I decided to make my own bookmarks using a cross stitch kit by textile heritage. The lack of internet access meant there were a few cock ups as I had no access to reference sites or hints and tips but it came out ok.

I started a new kit depicting 2 deck chairs on a beach and it is slow going, loads of colour changes and all the detail on the design is brought out by back stitch so I felt like I was getting no where for ages but thankfully there are no fractionals or french knots. I took a photo and then took another photo a week later for a visual chart of progress (if only writing were so easy to track):

Last Tuesday night

Tonights progress

My stitching tip for today:

Pincushions are essential for not losing needles every time you need to put one down.

3 Horror Lunes

To make up for the lack of activity on this blog as of late I'm reprinting 3 of my short horror poems here. They originally appeared on Microcosms, June 2011.


River of Life

Flowing Southwards, intestines
meander through a decaying earth
mourning the sea.

The Tree

Wriggling roots seek
the cow barn. Hot bodies
quench its thirst.

Maniac

Blue eyes reflect
the red spillage. Laughter freezes
his victims mind.

Website updates and Blog updates

Apologies for the lack of activity on this blog, I had to shift my focus over to my learning blog and studies as I'm getting ready for my end of module assessment.

Website updates:
Issue 13 of Dark Metre now live
Writing prompts updated

Recent blog posts:
Book Review - Broadmoor Revealed by Mark Stevens
Book Review - Virgina Woolf, A Writer's Diary

Book Review - Broadmoor Revealed by Mark Stevens

Book Review - Broadmoor Revealed Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum by Mark Stevens

This was a fun book to read, it's not comprehensive and I would have liked to see more in the way of case notes or journal entries of the patients themselves. It's a good overview of the history and the life inside Broadmoor. Chapters look at 4 individual patients, escapees and babies born inside the asylum.

Rating 3/5
Challenges read for Goodreads and The 2012 Ebook Challenge.

See amazon link below for more details:

Book Review - Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

Purely on a pleasure level, I found this really slow going and tedious. It was hard to keep up with the style of writing the way one thought bled into another unrelated thought. Hard to really know who all the people Virginia writes about are as they were so personal to her daily life that they meant nothing to me as a reader.

Also I never got a sense of change in Virginia's personality as the diaries moved through the years.

From a writer's interest, I found it inspiring to keep going with my own diaries, having all that personal history documented for myself even if it is meaningless to someone else. It's also comforting to know that as writers we will always keep producing work, writing new novels as the years continue to pass.

Rating: 2/5

For further info use the amazon link below:

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 2003)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0156027917
• ISBN-13: 978-0156027915

Other Books you may be interested in:

Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson

A quick heads up - New web host

Just a quick heads up that there may be disruption to the main website over the next few days as I'm transferring to a new hosting provider. The address will remain the same.

Take care

Katy

Website Updates and Blog Updates

The following have been updated at the website:

Dark Metre issue 12 is now live.
Horror poets updated.
Writing prompts updated.

Recent blog posts you may have missed:
Book Review - Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson.
My Top 5 Favourite Horror Books of 2011.
Merry Christmas

I've also added my Goodreads reading challenge widget to the right hand side of the blog.

Happy New Year
Katy