Charity shopping haul: books! books! books! and yarn

Posted by louisa on Monday 10 October 2011 in charity shopping | 3 comments

I seem to go through splurging fazes – spending a lot of money in one particular spending category each month. Last month it was clothes, the month before it was crafts and the month before that was eating-out/take-out food. This month, it’s looking like it’ll be books.

As I’ve said before, I love books but have bought surprisingly few for me this year – and I think that’s what inspired me to buy eight books in the first eight days of October! I think, for the sake of our bookshelves & my purse, I shouldn’t keep up that rate all month!

Two were new & full price (a rarity for me), two were second-hand from Amazon and the other four were charity shop finds from Saturday. We had the good fortune of going to the charity shops in Shipley just a couple of days after someone with similar reading tastes to us had a clearout – the shelves were full of interesting non-fiction books, half of which we had and the other half spiked our interest.

I got:

“Waste” by Tristam Stuart, a book about innovative (but often long standing) solutions to food waste, a little guide to woodworking with some easy project how-tos (I have a big encyclopedia on the same topic but this looks more immediately practical) and for fun, since I’ve been reading a lot of factual stuff lately, “World War Z” by Max Brooks which was amusing filed in the non-fiction section (it’s presented as a non-fiction oral history but is about the Zombie War, which, you know, hasn’t happen [yet]. I spent yesterday afternoon reading it and so far, would definitely recommend it to post-apocalyptica fiction fans). The books are all in really good condition but the charity’s “please give this back when you’re done” stickers were really annoyingly sticky and I’ve dented the front of “Waste” and “World War Z” by trying to peel them off. Grr.

At another shop, I picked up a little book about growing fruit:

I have a couple of dedicated books about vegetables but none about fruit, just the odd reference in more general books. This one isn’t the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever but has already answered a couple of questions I had about soft fruit bushes, so I think it’ll be well worth 50p.

I also made two craft purchases while I was out:

1000g of navy Guernsey, 100% wool yarn for £5. Not sure what I’ll use it for yet but it’s such a novelty to find enough wool for an entire project in a charity shop – and at such a bargain price too. According to the British Breeds website, their 5-ply usually retails at £5.50 per 100g ball!

I also took a chance on a squished-but-otherwise-brand-new “funky cord kit” – essentially two foam circles and some cotton threads designed for making friendship bracelets and the like.

It’s a kids’ kit but I’m a big kid who like playing about with thread so I’ll have fun trying it for 20p :)

Have you been charity/thrift/op shopping recently? If so, any good finds?

Not fishing in Whitby

Posted by louisa on Thursday 18 August 2011 in goals | 8 comments

I’ve had “go sea fishing” in the North Sea on my goal list last year but faff and disorganisation meant it didn’t happen, so it was pushed onto my goal list for this year. Eight months through the year, faff and disorganisation were at risk of having their way with things again, so rather than postpone any longer, we decided to go risk going in the busy summer holiday period yesterday.

We found an afternoon “taster trip”, took the doggie to her granny & pop-pops’ house for the day (she’s their granddog) and organised our schedule with a good hour/hour-and-a-half buffer zone between getting there and needing to go to the boat, just in case we got lost, got stuck in traffic or had trouble finding a parking space. That hour/hour-and-a-half buffer zone would have covered one or two of those eventualities but, as it turned out, not all three. It took us nearly twice as long to get there as it should have done, and we missed the boat (literally) by about ten minutes. Somewhat annoying.

Lemons/lemonade – we were in Whitby, my favourite seaside town (sorry Southport, you might have birthed me but your sea is, frankly, a bit rubbish) and had already mentally committed to having an afternoon off so we played tourists: a walk on the beach, fish & chips, donuts, some casual jet jewellery window shopping and some serious seagull watching. We parked at the Abbey so got to have a distant gaze at that too.

I also indulged my craft bone with a visit to Bobbins, the mostly yarn/some antiques shop in the shopping area on the east of the harbour. I stroked various yarns before buying some King Cole Riot DK (very nice, even though it’s 70% acrylic).

It’s a shame we didn’t get to go fishing but we still had a jolly pleasant afternoon in the sunshine. We were hoping to actually go fishing next Wednesday but as the Whitby Folk Festival starts next Monday, I suspect it’ll be too busy for us – but we will get there, we will eventually, we will!

(Photo from a previous wintery trip to Whitby – we didn’t think it would be sensible to take an expensive camera out on a fishing trip so didn’t have one yesterday. Imagine the same shot with a brighter blue sky and about a hundred times as many people :) )

UK people – have you been to Whitby? What are your favourite spots there – any recommendations for places to eat/drink for when we do return to fish?

Some thoughts on my newly rediscovered love of crochet

Posted by louisa on Friday 28 January 2011 in crochet & knitting, making | 11 comments

After a break from crafts for a while, I’ve got back into crochet with a vengeance recently.

I found it hard to like crochet at first – the first tutorials I did were boring, just creating a stiff solid fabric – and it wasn’t until I made a “net” shopping bag and granny squares that I saw the value of it over knitting. If I was teaching someone how to crochet, I’d start with granny squares which I’d use for the base of a “net” shopping bag/fruit bag – I liked being able to make something actually useful very quickly.

I love the many “sense of completion” moments when making granny squares or similar patches. My first big project was a hexagon hearth rug. I got a small buzz after completing each round, then each hexagon, then each colour combination set, then all the hexagons… Great motivation to keep me going. By comparison, my current stripes project (above) is very slow going and not that rewarding – it takes about 25 mins to finish each stripe and then it’s only one more stripe in a blanket of a hundred (and it’s even more when I do the wrong colour combination and have to frog over an hour’s work). It’s a nice yarn to work with though and when it’s finished, it’ll be lovely.

My favourite stitch is a HTC (HDC in US terms) – the ease of a DC (SC) but with extra height. Is it wrong/nerdy to have a favourite crochet stitch?