Artful Readers Club May in June!

We've had a manic couple of months so despite reading both my May and June books for the Artful Readers Club in May, I didn't manage to get the art done.  I'm slowly catching up.....

May's book was 'I left My Tent In San Francisco' by Emma Kennedy.

 

I read Emma's first travel book, 'The Tent, The Bucket and Me' a while ago. That book follows Emma's family and their disastrous attempts at camping when she was a child.  It was a book that I really enjoyed and had me laughing out loud all the way through.  When I realised that there was a follow up book, I hoped for more of the same and was not disappointed.

 

In 'I Left My Tent In San Francisco', we follow Emma and her friend Dee as they leave University and spend the summer in the USA working and then travelling.  Despite being assured at a 'Work America' meeting that there would be plenty of work, when they get to the USA, this proves not to be the case. These girls are left to rely on very little money and the kindness of strangers in order to survive their time away and to get home. Just as in the previous book, bad luck and hilarious incidents seem to be the norm.  Again, I was laughing all the way through.  Actually at one point, I was bent over double and nearly dropped the book! There were also times reading this book when I was cringing and thinking 'WHY'?!!

 

While Emma is in the USA, her parents are also travelling around Europe so we also get snippets of their continued hilarious travel adventures which also adds a lot of humour to the tale.  At times it can all seem a bit exaggerated but I don't really think that matters because it's such a laugh, and sometimes people really can have that much bad luck.

 

The book is a quick, light and very funny read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone needing a bit of light relief. It was highly entertaining :)

Here's the artwork I ended up with after a couple of false starts....

 

Hopefully I will catch up and have June's book review and art done in the next few days!

Yarn Along

What am I knitting and reading at the moment? Well I am still crocheting in pink.  I gave up on the zigzags due to my inability to follow a pattern at the moment so it's back to granny squares.  I can pick them up and down whilst seeing to the children in the evenings without having to think!

 

As for reading, I am listening to 'The Casual Vacancy' by J.K.Rowling.  I put this off for a while as I was worried I may be disappointed after loving Harry Potter so much.  This was stupid! It's an excellent book and I'm really enjoying it.  The characters are great and I'm really interested to see where it goes plot-wise.  It's the second book I've listened to as a result of reading other reviews from the Artful Readers Club.  I listened to 'Around The World In 80 Days' last month. 

 Hopefully, I will have my May book review for the ARC posted up by the end of the week after a total art fail at the weekend. 





Owl Hat ~ Sophie

 

A present for a friend's baby, due any day.  The pattern is from Repeat Crafter Me.

It was really quick to make and I'm pleased with it.  I may do more......



Artful Readers Club - April

My book for April was 'The Wood Wife' by Terri Windling.

I really loved this book.  I couldn't even put it down to make a cheese sauce I was so entranced :)

'The Wood Wife' was inspired by the artwork of Brian Froud who's work I really enjoy. I did not know this when I chose this book back in January!

The plot centres around journalist and poet, Maggie Black. Maggie has been corresponding with poet, Davis Cooper for several years and inherits his property in a remote area outside of Tucson, Arizona, after he dies in mysterious circumstances.  We follow Maggie as she gets to know the mountains and its mysteries.

There are several layers to the book and I will probably read it again at some point.  The things that stuck out for me were 'relationship to land'  (the author has lived in both Tucson, Arizona and Devon which is reflected in the novel), land and environment influencing art, and the arts influencing more art.  This made it a great choice for the Artful Readers Club although again, I didn't know that when I chose it!

It was a quick and enjoyable read and I would definitely recommend it, particularly to those who enjoy magical fiction.

For my artwork, I chose to draw one of the animal characters, whom Maggie names as 'Thumper'.  I added a border of Mesquite leaves to reflect the trees in Maggie's environment and Oak leaves to reflect the influence of Dartmoor, Devon and my own environment, Somerset. 

 

 

Yarn Along ~ Sophie

My Goodreads page says I'm currently reading 5 books.  That is not quite true.  Those are the books that I was reading before I started more books.  I wish I could just read one book at a time but I can't.  Besides there being many ordinary books to be reading at the same time, there are now kindle books and audio books.  So, the real book I'm reading is 'I Left My Tent in San Francisco' by Emma Kennedy. This is my Artful Readers Club book for May.  I am ahead! The kindle book I'm reading is 'Crazy Sexy Diet' by Kris Carr and the audiobook I just finished was 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I'm not sure what to make of that one. I started off hating it, then thought it was ok, then it just kind of ended. 

 

Here is my current knitting and audiobook...

 

 

 

...'The Universe Versus Alex Woods' by Gavin Extence. I started this today and it is hilarious so far.  I've been laughing out loud in the garden :) The knitting is my third piece for Wool Against Weapons.  The pattern is the Ten Stitch Zigzag .

 

I finished this piece last week.  A granny square with some extra rows added on at the ends to make it the correct size.

 

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along a bit late!

Artful Readers Club March ~ Sophie

 My March book for the Artful Readers Club is 'Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking, 17 Years of  Silence'  by John Francis Ph.D. 

I came across this book after following a link to a TED talk by John Francis and have been wanting to read it ever since.  Here is the summary from the back cover,

'In 1971 an oil spill in San Francisco Bay changed John Francis's life forever.  Helping to clean up wasn't enough; he sought a way to contribute to the health of our planet in a personal way.  The solution he came up with was unconventional and courageous - to give up the use of all motorised vehicles and walk everywhere. Several months later, he took a vow of silence, which elicited concern from family and friends for his sanity, but as his memoirs eloquently demonstrate, these were the first steps on a three-decade pilgrimage to wisdom.'

This book follows John's journey from the time of the oil spill until the early 90s and there is an epilogue about his walking and work since.  Along the way John plays the banjo, paints watercolours, learns to build boats and walks to the relevant places to get a degree, masters and Ph.D. What I enjoyed most about the book was John's interactions with others along his journey and how people responded, both positively and negatively to what he was doing.  I was really interested in the silence and how John communicated with others non-verbally.  Although there is a lot about human interaction in the book, there is also the opposite part which is about being on a solitary journey, literally and metaphorically, and about experiencing wilderness. 

For me, this was a great read. It cover a lot of areas of interest for me, environment, communication, nature, music, art, personal journey and human behaviour. I would definitely recommend this book as it is such an unusual and positive story.

Near the beginning of the book, when John has started painting, he discovers bamboo and paints quite a lot of it.  I loved how he suddenly noticed it was everywhere so I decided to do a simple watercolour bamboo for my artwork...

 

Rocking Your World Friday ~ Sophie



 

It's Friday again, time to think about this weeks positives. It's not been too bad a week at all :)

 

We got a night away and saw 'The Stranglers.' I'm not a massive fan but it was a good night and 'The Godfathers' supporting them were great too.  It was nice to get away despite it being freezing! We had some good food, a few drinks and just relaxed.  Also, we experienced a random act of kindness from an old friend who really understands how important these breaks are for us.

Cheers to him!

 

 

We went to another concert, midweek. Again not one of my top bands but one of Andy's favourites, 'Stiff Little Fingers'.  I've seen them with him before and they are really good live.  They were supported by 'Ed Tudor Pole' who was very entertaining.  Big thanks to the 2 carers that stayed up late in addition to working both days with our lads, enabling us to go.

 

The starling murmuration.  I posted about this a while back.  Well it's still here and now about 30 times the size it was then and they are coming right over our garden.  I took lots of photos the other day but they just don't capture the magnificence.  Here is the best of a bad lot...

 

 

Being good and sticking to 2 cups of coffee a day.  I'm trying to get off it completely, it really doesn't agree with me and I feel better for cutting it back....BUT....my sons autism means they have major sleep disturbances which have gone on for many years and I have got into bad habits with drinking it to stay awake.  I drink this 'Women's Energy' herbal tea quite a lot as a replacement.  It's not quite the same but it tastes nice!

 

 

Yesterday I was sent a photograph of a friends finished knitted baby blanket.  This is rocking my week because I helped her get started and passed on a few techniques and she has done an amazing job with it. 

 

Sitting down in the day time watching the film 'Red'.  We were tired after going out on a 'school night'! It was excellent.

 

Lemon cake.  Gaby is working hard on her school baking project most weekends and I'm making the huge sacrifice of trying out her cakes for her.  This one was perfect.

 

 

Gaby's recipes are in her blog

http://gabrielles-recipes.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Linking up with Virginia at Celtic House