Noll's 2016 Books and Cross-Stitch

[Anna Begins]

I'm curious how you do two colors per stitch. Not that it would be the same, but I'm struggling with using multiple colors in what I'm working on. I have so much yarn! I just love it and have a collection going on.

 

Duh! I got up early this morning . Edited- I like the giraffe and love all the colors in the bunny pattern. It amazes me, the shading, as in embroidery it's monochromatic.

Edited October 10, 2016 by Anna Begins

[Nollaig]

Aw, what a lovely giraffe. Looking forward to seeing the cute bunny !

 

Thank you! If this scene goes well, I think I'd quite like to focus on scenes, with maybe florals as shorter term projects

 

I'm curious how you do two colors per stitch. Not that it would be the same, but I'm struggling with using multiple colors in what I'm working on. I have so much yarn! I just love it and have a collection going on.

 

Duh! I got up early this morning . Edited- I like the giraffe and love all the colors in the bunny pattern. It amazes me, the shading, as in embroidery it's monochromatic.

 

You never have two colours in one stitch, unless you're deliberately blending them for a loosely multicolour effect. For each colour change, you gots to reset your needle! Which is gonna be fun on this next one hehe.

 

I love the colours too, the biggest thing that drove me cracked in the end about the buffalo was it's ALL BLUE! There's no variation and no real small successes in getting like 'the robin' done or 'the plants' done or whatever, it's just ENDLESS BLUE til it's done.

 

I got my storage box today too, whoop! Must just find a permanent marker so I can write the numbers on the bobbins as I store everything. I'm so lame But so happy! 

 

I started on Bunny, and I have a feeling that if I stay patient and focused, this cross stitch could be really nice.

[Athena]

Good luck with the cross-stitch! I like the giraffe the best and the white and blue / black one the least (the third one). The bunny one looks nice, I hope that one goes well .

 

I don't have any experience with cross-stitch myself, but my boyfriend's sister does it a lot (or at least she used to, I don't know about now), and we have one of her cross-stitch works hanging in the living room of the main house. It's a picture of a farm with animals (it was framed too). I really like it.

 

I don't think it'd be my sort of thing, but I admire your skills.

[Anna Begins]

Ah yes, it's tedious switching colors in crocheting too. I'm not sure if tedious is the right word, maybe just awkward. You have to connect the new yarn color in the current loop/ loops of your work and it's tricky. There are lots of ways, but you can screw everything up!

 

I primarily use what is called variegated yarn, where the color changes as you crochet/ knit. It makes it less boring and I don't feel like I'm just using one color

 

I love getting accessories!

[Nollaig]

Good luck with the cross-stitch! I like the giraffe the best and the white and blue / black one the least (the third one). The bunny one looks nice, I hope that one goes well .

 

I don't have any experience with cross-stitch myself, but my boyfriend's sister does it a lot (or at least she used to, I don't know about now), and we have one of her cross-stitch works hanging in the living room of the main house. It's a picture of a farm with animals (it was framed too). I really like it.

 

I don't think it'd be my sort of thing, but I admire your skills.

 

The buffalo one, in theory, is my favourite, because I love the style of it, I just think it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.

 

The picture in the living room sounds lovely, I'd like to eventually do proper scenes, but they can take months I'd say.

 

Ah yes, it's tedious switching colors in crocheting too. I'm not sure if tedious is the right word, maybe just awkward. You have to connect the new yarn color in the current loop/ loops of your work and it's tricky. There are lots of ways, but you can screw everything up!

 

I primarily use what is called variegated yarn, where the color changes as you crochet/ knit. It makes it less boring and I don't feel like I'm just using one color

 

I love getting accessories!

 

I can get variegated cross-stitch thread too, I just don't know how I would plan to use it effectively. There's also metallic and glittery threads which I really want to use - supposedly you can just swap out the corresponding matte colour with the glittery colour in any picture, but I think the placement would matter. For example, I have plans to do a Christmas town picture, which has lots of coloured houses, and I can get glittery pink and glittery brown thread, so some houses would have glittery roofs and the pink houses would be glittery, but nothing else. Not sure about it. Guess it depends how glittery it comes out!

 

Bunny is going well so far - much preferring the smaller holes in this fabric, as Bunny is coming out looking quite tightly stitched. I won't post many progress pictures but this is what I got done in about four hours yesterday, I'm very slow. For reference I've put the picture beside it again.

 

I really hope this turns out well!

 

[More reading time required]

Ah yes, it's tedious switching colors in crocheting too. I'm not sure if tedious is the right word, maybe just awkward. You have to connect the new yarn color in the current loop/ loops of your work and it's tricky. There are lots of ways, but you can screw everything up!

 

I primarily use what is called variegated yarn, where the color changes as you crochet/ knit. It makes it less boring and I don't feel like I'm just using one color

 

I love getting accessories!

I used to plan out my path of a certain colour to maximise the amount of stitches I could do before having to switch whilst trying not to have too long a line of thread underneath. It required a lot of careful counting though and if you mucked it up, the dreaded unpicking beckoned!

 

I've not done any for about 20 years. I still have a partially finished cross-stitch of some woodland animals hanging around somewhere. Perhaps I'll dig it out and try and finish it off for my daughter's room. (My son has one that my mum did for him, with his name & DoB).

[Nollaig]

Yeah I don't really mind the switching, I cut relatively short lengths of thread anyway so I don't wind up with long threads overlapping everywhere and pulling stitches out later. Takes longer but it means I have a better chance of getting it right the first time.

[bobblybear]

I must be really naive, but I didn't realise that cross stiching was done on a blank piece of cloth. I thought the picture was already on there, and you just put the stitching over it.

 

I have a cross stich somewhere in the house waiting to be done.....never done it before and I bought it a couple of years ago....clearly I didn't look at it very well or I would realise you do it on blank fabric.

[Nollaig]

There actually seem to be three types - sometimes you can get the pattern printed on fabric, that's what I initially went looking for too! Then there's counted cross stitch, which is done on plain fabric with holes, which I use, so you count the holes and stitch them relative to each other. Then there's totally blank fabric, where you don't even have holes to guide you, and you have to estimate the size of the stitches yourself. That version terrifies me, and I can't see it working for super detailed pictures honestly.

[Anna Begins]

There actually seem to be three types - sometimes you can get the pattern printed on fabric, that's what I initially went looking for too! Then there's counted cross stitch, which is done on plain fabric with holes, which I use, so you count the holes and stitch them relative to each other. Then there's totally blank fabric, where you don't even have holes to guide you, and you have to estimate the size of the stitches yourself. That version terrifies me, and I can't see it working for super detailed pictures honestly.

It still sounds really hard! I commend you for doing it!

[Nollaig]

Haha thank you. It's only hard when you realise you've counted wrong and have to unpick stitches. Otherwise, it's pretty relaxing.

 

I think this is day six of working on this stitch:

 

[Anna Begins]

It's looking nice

[Nollaig]

Yeah I'm not sure about the colours (and that's a bad photo, it looks very yellow), but we'll see. I didn't buy this pattern I found it floating round the internet so it mightn't be the best put-together one.The threads are not coming out very similar to the colours in the pattern, even though they're correct. All the same, I'll see it through!

[Little Pixie]

Aw, that bunny looks soooo sweet ! Love it !

[Athena]

The bunny looks good !

[Hayley]

Aww, the bunny and robin look really cute, I think it's going to turn out well 

 

I didn't know you could cross stitch on completely blank fabric, that sounds like it would be a nightmare!

[Nollaig]

Hahaha I thought so too, but it's just counting! I picked it up really quickly and easily. I make mistakes, but nothing so drastic yet that I've ruined a picture! I actually love how it's a commitment of a couple of weeks for even a small picture. Makes it very rewarding (hopefully) when it's done.

[Nollaig]

Some new reviews!

 

#97 Rawblood - Catriona Ward    

 

Genre: Gothic Horror
Synopsis: In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Papa told her so. Forbidden to speak to other children or the servants, denied her one friend, Iris grows up in solitude. But she reads books. And one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother’s grave, she forces the truth from her father. The disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a darker secret. The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. She is white, skeletal, covered with scars. Her origins are a mystery but her purpose is clear. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes and death follows.

*** 

Review:  I really wanted to love this book. I did, for about two thirds of it - it was a four, teetering on a five depending on the ending, and I was all set to rave about a fantastic Victorian/Gothic ghost story. I wasn't crazy about Iris as a character, but I did like her friend, her father, and her father's friend. I can't remember their names, I'm so sorry. Once it started jumping approx. 20 years into the past, to the medical experimentation of Iris's father and friend CHARLES that's it, I was absolutely riveted. The writing - as in the actual use of words, not the pacing - is genuinely great, despite the issues you'll read below.

Unfortunately, even though I wasn't at all crazy about the ending, the pacing of the final third just became tedious. The original synopsis on Goodreads, shortened above by me, exemplifies the convolution of the novel. The writing remained good, but I found myself flicking ahead to see how long each section was. Around that point, characters mentioned earlier are finally explored in detail, and one new character was added in towards the end simply for perspective. While those characters weren't uninteresting, it was all just too unwieldy to be satisfactory. I think my mood about the book had been tainted somewhat, so I wasn't as ready to accept the unusual ending as I might otherwise have been. Originally, I really didn't like it at all, though in retrospect I guess it was pretty okay.

I feel like this book might actually work better on re-read, knowing what to expect and knowing the pacing in advance. I may read it again sometime, and it may go up to four stars then. But for now, I just liked it. Fabulous writing though, really.

Rating: ★★★✰✰ (I liked it)

 

__________

 

 

#98 A Head Full of Ghosts - Paul Tremblay

 

Genre: Horror
Synopsis: The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year, the family soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events, a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

*** 

Review: I was disappointed by this book. After reading Paul's previous novel, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, and loving it, I had high, high hopes for this one. So when I say I was disappointed, I don't mean it was bad - it just really wasn't for me. I feel like it's some big meta thing for dedicated horror fans and I'm just not that. I love a good ghost story and even enjoy scary films (if I have someone to watch them with me). I understood most of the pop culture references (and there are a lot) on a surface level, but I just couldn't take anything more from it.

Basically, it overlays our modern awareness of how mentally ill people have traditionally been accused of possession, with the typical ghost story fear that maybe someone actually is possessed, blurred by the presence of TV cameras making a reality show, which allegedly aim to depict reality all while scripting something fake, which itself is overlayed with a blog deconstructing the TV show years later. Still with me? It's not a difficult concept, but it's too many layers. Knowing from the outset that Marjorie is just ill renders all of the possession stuff not even remotely creepy. The mental illness is not creepy, because it's so overridden by the possession stuff. The cameras just make the whole thing surreal, and the blog completely pulled me out of the action. If I want to read snippets of text breaking down scenes and influences in a TV show, I won't read a novel to do it. Too many layers.

Now, the writing, naturally, is fantastic. Absolutely superb. I adored child Merry, her way of thinking is so perfectly childlike, the stories and habits of both sisters as children are just so completely believeable. Marjorie was also a pretty decent character. Everyone else, however, was underdeveloped and again probably lost amongst the layers. The ending was also bizzare and didn't work for me at all. Paul is, without a doubt, a great writer. I just feel like, for me, this particular story did not work, at all. It gets starts for the writing, though.

Rating: ★★★✰✰ (I liked it)

 

________

 

 

#99 Never Alone - Elizabeth Haynes

 

Genre: Thriller
Synopsis: Sarah Carpenter lives in an isolated farmhouse in North Yorkshire and for the first time, after the death of her husband some years ago and her children, Louis and Kitty, leaving for university, she’s living alone. But she doesn’t consider herself lonely. She has two dogs, a wide network of friends and the support of her best friend, Sophie. When an old acquaintance, Aiden Beck, needs somewhere to stay for a while, Sarah’s cottage seems ideal; and renewing her relationship with Aiden gives her a reason to smile again. It’s supposed to be temporary, but not everyone is comfortable with the arrangement: her children are wary of his motives, and Will Brewer, an old friend of her son’s, seems to have taken it upon himself to check up on Sarah at every opportunity.

*** 

Review: The first 50% of this novel is basically just sex, dog walks up and down a hill, and making cups of tea. I have no problem with any of these things, but there was basically zero progression of the story for the first 50% of the book. Nothing happened. The synopsis here on Goodreads mentions characters going missing - the first one of these goes missing at the 66% mark, and the other goes missing at the 78% mark (I read the Kindle edition). The use of the second person for Aiden's character serves no purpose that I can see, other than to maybe make him sound like a madman, and its pretty obvious who the mystery narrator in italics is from less than halfway through the book. Characters were meh. I liked the dogs, and the house/cottage/location sounded lovely. But there's really nothing else to say here. Massively flawed in terms of pacing and substance. Quick and easy to read; its only redeeming feature. Cannot recommend.

Rating: ★★✰✰✰ (It was okay)

[Athena]

Some new reviews!

Yay!

 

Review: Basically, it overlays our modern awareness of how mentally ill people have traditionally been accused of possession, with the typical ghost story fear that maybe someone actually is possessed, blurred by the presence of TV cameras making a reality show, which allegedly aim to depict reality all while scripting something fake, which itself is overlayed with a blog deconstructing the TV show years later. Still with me? It's not a difficult concept, but it's too many layers. Knowing from the outset that Marjorie is just ill renders all of the possession stuff not even remotely creepy. The mental illness is not creepy, because it's so overridden by the possession stuff. The cameras just make the whole thing surreal, and the blog completely pulled me out of the action. If I want to read snippets of text breaking down scenes and influences in a TV show, I won't read a novel to do it. Too many layers.

Wait, what?! That does sound like too many layers.

 

It's a shame none of these books really stood out to you. I hope you'll read some more enjoyable books in the future!

[Madeleine]

Yes it does sound a bit over layered doesn't it!

[Nollaig]

Lots of people have loved it, though

[bobblybear]

Is that the first Elizabeth Haynes book you have read? I gave up on Behind Closed Doors recently, for the same reasons you gave.....that basically nothing happens. Some people still rated it highly though, so go figure.

 

I absolutely loved her first book - Into The Darkest Corner - but after reading 2 very mediocre ones, I'm giving up on her for good.

[Nollaig]

Yep, first one. I'd already had Into The Darkest Corner on my wishlist. I'll probably still read that, but I'll skip Behind Closed Doors

[Nollaig]

I'm not gonna write full reviews for the last two books I read, so:

 

#100 The Traveling Bag - Susan Hill

I loved the first story in this collection, but for me the other three, while beautifully written, didn't live up to the first, and none of them were particularly creepy.

Rating: 3/5

 

#101 We Eat Our Own - Kea Wilson

I expected about as much as I got from this - based mostly in a Coloumbian jungle it follows a film crew doing something like Cannibal Holocaust. There's a lot of secondary political stuff which I had no interest in, and the stuff relating to the film was pretty sporadic and didn't really go anywhere. The author can write, in the sense of constructing pretty sentences, but this novel just didn't work for me in the end.

Rating: 3/5

[Anna Begins]

Was Little Coffee Shop In Kabul one you're not reviewing? Was it good?

 

I thought I'd come in here and ask, what kind of phone you have. Because I'd be reading on it a lot. I have a flip phone from the stone age . But we did some fantasy shopping yesterday ( ) and I looked at the IPhone and Google's new phone. Both were so pretty! They also showed us Motorola.