“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 

Oh dear :/ 10! 

Although reading this list, I’ve decided to try and read all of them (well, bar the Bible…) because I’ve always wanted to and I feel it’s both something to do and will give me a sense of accomplishment.

Mum’s printing us both off a copy of the list, and we’re going to work our way through it together Some of the books we have and I’ve read but she hasn’t, or vice versa, so we’re going to do some boko swapping!

Months ago mum and I came up with a deal to both read a book a month, but we never did. But this time, we ARE going to read some bookz!

Anyway, if you would like to do this meme too, please do, and leave me a comment so I can see your list!

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Once again, I’m sorry for the lack of posts! (How often do you hear me say that?!) I’ve just not had much to write about to be honest.

However, this evening I did some gardening

Strawberries, tomatoes and herbs

Here’s the first strawberry of the year:

Looks a bit muddy because I’d just repotted and watered it

Aaaand some dinky little tomatoes, which I bought today!

These look a bit strange, but that might just be because they aren’t red yet

I’m a bit blah at the moment - Mr Y has gone to Hong Kong for three weeks so I’m feeling a little bit lonely at the moment! However, I have some more craft-related stuff to be doing (although I’m putting it off because I don’t want to do it wrong… Typical.)

I also tried to make some guitar pick earrings. I managed to make one earring up completely and thought it looked pretty nifty, but as I was hammering the hole into the second pick, it shattered. So I tried again with another matching pair of picks, and the same thing happened. So now I have four near-useless guitar picks, two of which are broken. Hrmph.

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I’ve finally done something!

VERY modified Cathode sweater WIP from Knitty

After casting this on twice and screwing it up, I gave it another go and finally did it. I pretty much gave up on the pattern during the raglan increases - I followed the pattern and it came out tiny, so I tried to do a larger size, and the numbers didn’t add up, so I just tried again, increasing until it fit. When I initially saw this on Knitty, I was less than impressed - I didn’t like the yarn, and the collar completely put me off. But I saw this modified version on Ravelry, and I immediately liked it, plus I had some Cashmerino Chunky that didn’t have a project. I’ve also modified it a bit myself - long sleeves and an applied i-cord cast off.

It’s a little bit snug, and I could have done a few rows longer, but I just wanted the body finished. I was ever so naughty, I literally knitted from 11am ’til 11pm! It’s ridiculous the lengths I will go to to avoid doing revision. Anyway, I’m going to make this with long sleeves, but I haven’t got enough yarn, so I’m going to have to try and order some more. Although I obviously didn’t check the dyelot of the yarn I’ve got, and they are diferent, so there is a band at the waist that is slightly darker than the rest. Oh well, it’s not TOO noticeable.

Two exams down, two to go. I think they went reasonably well. The two I have left I’m very nervous about. Hence why I’m putting off revision, obviously.

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I’m sorry I haven’t posted in nearly a month.

I’ve not been well over the last month, and it’s really taken it out of me - I’ve just not done anything craft-related since then. It’s extremely frustrating for me, not feeling up to doing anything, although I have done a couple of rows on my Ripple. It was my 18th birthday on Friday, so I’ve had a rather strange (but nice) weekend.

I hate feeling like this. Feeling so helpless is horrible. Hopefully I’ll be back to my myself in a couple of weeks. I don’t want that to spill onto this blog - this is the one place that I don’t talk about that.

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Surprisingly necessary. We had snow over the weekend (although only a piddly bit that didn’t settle, hmph)

Mr Y’s scarf - he loves it

This was the One Row Scarf pattern from this pattern by Yarn Harlot. I actually finished this in February (because it was a Valentine’s present for Mr Y) but I’ve only just got round to taking a photo. It’s been worn lots since then, so I’m happy

Bracelet made from clay beads and wire

I made this bracelet from the clay beads I posted about last time. I varnished the beads and made wire loops (surprisingly easy). I’m not sure about it though - I’d like to list it on Etsy but I have a few problems with it. I think I need to use different materials to get better results.

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I bought some Sculpey polymer clay a while back for a swap I did, and I’ve been meaning to have another go with it ever since. So at the weekend, whilst watching Top Gear repeats on Dave with Mr Y, we both had a play with some clay (d’ya like mah rimez?!). Anyway…

Mr Y’s:

Videogame geeks will understand the reference, for the rest of us, it’s a videogame reference.

Mine:

A heart and lightning bolts… Fairly self-explanatory

And today I had another go

Some beads

I’ve found clay is surprisingly tricky to work with - getting it to do just what you want it to it difficult! There’s all sorts of fingerprints and smudges on then, and I’m such a perfectionist, but I kind of like it. It’s supposed to look handmade, because it is handmade. I guess I need to let go a bit when I make things - I tend to throw things in the corner if they aren’t exactly how I pictured it.

Anyway… There may be some new additons to my Etsy shop in the near future

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*I hate trying to think of non-crap blog titles.

This?

A finished Azure Allure

I FINALLY finished it This has been hanging around for SIX MONTHS. How silly is that?! It only needed to have the sleeves sewn in and the neckband knitted. I’m quite happy with this - I love the colour and the pattern, but it’s a bit short (I hate having that gap between my jeans and tshirt!) so I might try and add a few more rows to the bottom, although I think it might spoil the look of the border… It also doesn’t drape like it should, because I used a merino aran as opposed to the cotton yarn that was suggested. And it’s not very flattering.

I’m not really sure if I’ll ever wear this, which is a shame because I spent so long on it and learnt so much from knitting it. Which is a sad thought. And it’s sentimental as well, because I started it when I was on holiday with Mr Y. Well, we’ll see. Maybe after a wash and block it’ll feel different.

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OK, so I’m a bit addicted to Etsy at the moment…

More hangers

I made these last weekend, which brings my current Etsy inventory to a towering two. But you’ve got to start somewhere, hey! I really want to get cracking and make some more of these but the shop where I get the hangers from is out of stock >.<

I’ve seriously been on Etsy SO much recently; posting on the forums, in chat, even in the Virtual Labs (such a cool feature!) and it’s so much fun chatting to people and seeing some of the amazing things people make. I also saw the Gocco How-To video and now I want a Gocco! Although they are seemingly very hard to get hold of in the UK, and very expensive! Plus I just don’t get how the ink doesn’t go everywhere… Anyway, yay, Etsy

I’ve come up with a pattern for crochet string bags and I want to make some for Etsy ASAP, but finding organic cotton yarn (preferably handspun) has proved hard, although I’ve found some on… Etsy I’m going to buy that next week so I can get cracking over Easter.

Sorry I’ve been neglecting my blog a bit, things have been good and not so good and busy and lethargic and not very productive! But I’ve handed in a couple of quite big pieces of college work so I feel more positive and less stressed out - I stress because I know I have work to do but I avoid it and then I feel guilty for avoiding it and in my guilt I don’t do anything.

…Yeah.

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Not much going on - the hat I was knitting was ripped out because I forgot where I was in my made-up-not-written-down-see-how-it-goes pattern. But this afternoon I made some more hangers…

Hanger set #3!

 so I’ve just put those in my Etsy shop Hopefully there’ll be another item or two in there by next weekend.

I hope you’ve all had a good weekend, we made sushi yesterday. We need to invest in a sharper knife though, it got a bit messy!

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… Honest!

 I don’t know where the time since my last post has gone! To be honest I just haven’t really had a lot to post about. I was in a Mighty Boosh swap and that’s about it really. Although for the swap, I made a tote bag with lightening bolts on it, and I liked it so much I decided to make myself one:

Very handy - it ended up very big so I can get loads in it

I’m pleased with this The fabric is nice and sturdy as it’s 100% cotton drill (not twill as I thought it was - didn’t know there was a difference to be honest!) and the straps are really easy to sew. I hate sewing bag straps so using proper bag strapping is nice! I originally tried to spray paint the lightening bolt on, which resulted in a horrible smudged mess, so I got some regular fabric paint and just stencilled it by hand, which came out much better. I’m toying with the idea of making bags like these for Etsy? You know, with cool stencilled designs. What do you guys think? I know Etsy is awash with tote bags, but its worth a shot isn’t it?

I’ve got lots of ideas for possible items to make for Etsy, I just never get round to it! I’m halfway through a hat but it somehow ended up at the bottom of my wardrobe! I’ve also got a really cool idea for shopping bags, but it’s sourcing the yarn that’s proving a bit tricky…

Anyway, I shall resolve to get something done! Half term next week and I’m in London most of it, so I shall have plenty of opportunity to visit lots of yarn shops and find that yarn! Until then, have a lol at this - it showed up in my “Most popular WordPress blogs” section of my dashboard, and I lol’ed.

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