The Art of Book design: Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit

Today’s book was sent in by Anne, Cranky Cat Lady and it comes from her own library. It’s a beautiful old book that’s chock full of bright needlework patterns along with the directions for making them.

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

 

The Book is available to read at The Internet Archive

 

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The past few days have been cold and damp with heavy grey skies that look full of gloom. Temperatures have been hovering around 8° during the day and a mere 3 or 4° at night and it’s been the sort of weather that works its way into your bones and keeps you feeling chilled. November has definitely arrived and so far it’s been a bit unpleasant, but I really shouldn’t complain. Overall, it’s been an enjoyable autumn this year. There’s been plenty of sunshine, lots of warm days and the changing leaves have been ablaze with brilliant colour.  Conditions were my idea of perfect right through the whole month of October. Now, if I could only find the repeat button for that…

Falter

I’ll begin with my apology to Avalus for taking so long to post this photo of a beautiful moth (falter). I received it in August and promptly misplaced it. It popped up at me today in an unexpected place, and I am happy to post it at last. You might say that I faltered in posting this falter.

Here is a black and white moth on the bark of a birch tree.

falter ©Avalus, all rights reserved

 

Tummy Thursday: Happy Halloween

It probably still is Thursday somewhere.

For the last few years we have been celebrating Halloween with our friends and yesterday we went to my BFFs city where the local shop owners and the city and the different clubs and associations organised a Halloween event where the shops would give out candy. The town centre was packed and it was a lovely evening, followed by lots of spooky food.

©Giliell, all rights reserved A haunted “Haus”. Probably to scare English teachers.

 

©Giliell, all rights reserved The little one, dressed up as Wonder Woman

©Giliell, all rights reserved #1, dressed up as Harley Quinn.

While I could simply buy a generic Wonder Woman costume for the Little One, #1’s was more complicated. She#s too tall for the kids versions and the adult versions rely more on the DC movies than the animated Super Hero Girls show she likes to watch. While we found a nice pair of red and blue leggings, we agreed that a jacket with “property of Joker” on the back was highly inappropriate. “I’m no fucking property of anyone!” Mum to the rescue, I ordered two hoodies with a ziper, cut them in half and sewed them together again. Well, I still have to do the second one…

Same money, 1 hour of time, two jackets she can actually wear outside of costume events as well. And I’m damn proud of her. You know she’s on the spectrum and one of her great difficulties is interacting with strangers. She often preferred no ice cream to telling a stranger what she wants, but yesterday she went around all evening and asked for candy. It’s those things that make you proud.

Now for the food:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

From left to right we have:

©Giliell, all rights reserved Pumpkin bread skulls

©Giliell, all rights reserved A cemetery: Pizza dip with bread tombstones

©Giliell, all rights reserved Mozzarella and olive eyes. Or as we say in German: Zahnstocher im Au’ brennt wie’n Sau (a toothpick in the eye hurts as fuck, just with a rhyme)

©Giliell, all rights reserved Bloody pumpkin and tomato soup

©Giliell, all rights reserved Spider meatballs

I made the dessert, because I’ve been baking non stop anyway…

©Giliell, all rights reserved Pumpkin almond cake with blood orange buttercream and dark chocolate ganache.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved Halloween petit fours with strawberry jam and pumpkin spice lemon curd.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

So, I hope you all had a reasonably happy Halloween (thinking of you, voyager). Now I’m baking for the little one’s birthday party tomorrow.

Jack’s Walk – A short Admin Note

Late yesterday afternoon, my mother died peacefully in the company of her best friend and myself. Mom’s been inching toward death since mid-August, and while I’m sad that her life has ended, I’m relieved to have her dying ended.
We’ll be having a short service followed by burial on Friday afternoon, so Jack and I will be taking the rest of this week off. We both hope that you have a Merry Hallowe’en, and we’ll see you again on Monday, November 4th.

 

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

It was a wet and windy weekend, and by this morning, almost all the pretty leaves had blown away. There are a few bright patches here and there, but the riot of colour is finished for another year. Jack and I set out feeling a bit blue about the bare trees, but the sun was shining, the day was warm and pleasant, and it wasn’t long before we were both feeling better. The colour may be gone looking up, but there’s still plenty of pretty here on the ground. We passed burning bushes burning scarlet and porches with pumpkins and mums in pots. We found lavender of the palest blue, golden hostas and even a red-breasted robin picking at purple berries. The fallen leaves from the weekend are still full of colour, too, and they brightly litter the ground in every direction. Jack says he can see the leaves better this way, and he thinks that’s why they fall – so the small creatures who don’t look up much can appreciate them too. I didn’t tell him otherwise.