Helen Sharp

daily candy

helen — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:19:15 +0000

thanks Daily Candy!

Last sale on Saturday

Holiday Sales

helen — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:44:19 +0000

come and get yer winter woollies

December 1st Bremelo Pres
Noon-5pm 1400 South Jackson Place, Seattle, WA 98144
(round the back of SHED building)

December 8 & 9 Crafty Wonderland
11am – 6pm Oregon Convention Center
777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd, Exhibit Hall C, Portland

December 15 & 16 Renegade Craft Fair
11am – 6pm Concourse Exhibition Center 635 8th St, San Francisco

December 22 Bremelo Press Seattle – SALE!
Noon-5 1400 South Jackson Place Seattle, WA 98144
(round the back of SHED building)

The Flight from the Enchanter

helen — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:09:26 +0000

it has been so long since I posted, that I couldn’t remember how to insert an image. I have recently finished this IM book. I hadn’t read it before. It had some truly wonderful Murdochian moments, one of them pictured on the cover of this book. There was a close drowning. The word ‘indubitably’ was not used once but the word ‘descry’ was used many times. I had to look it up. It means to catch sight of.

One of my favorite scenes took place in a drawing room, when one of the more mature male characters makes a lunge across the coffee table at a young female character, ripping her silk blouse off in the process. After a quick wrangle on the couch, the sound of footsteps in the hallway causes him to hide her in a closet where she stays until the visitor has left. The reader (this one, at any rate) is on the edge of one’s seat wondering of she was going to be discovered. This is not the first time IM has shut a woman up in a closet. Hmmm.

There is a gaggle of rich old ladies that appear throughout the novel, a couple of mysterious Polish brothers and a collection of precious jewels.

However, I was left a little cold by the characters. None of them were endearing. This is not unusual in her books, but I usually am at least fascinated and drawn to the main character, even if they are really awful like Charles Arrowby in “The Sea, The Sea”. I didn’t care either way for any of the characters here. I think Rainborough had the most potential, but he was kind of off to one side in the plot and was conveniently shunted off to the south of France when the $+!* hit the fan. I can’t remember the name of the main female character but she was such a selfish person and didn’t seem to care for any-one, not even her poor tortured brother.

I loved the description of the house in Italy (or Spain?) towards the end, it was an oasis of calm after the chaos of London.

The story was neatly tied up in a bow at the end, which was quite annoying because every-one had been in such a mess. We never found out what happened to the jewels.

One thumb sideways.

t

helen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:07:46 +0000

i was delighted with the ‘t’ in a recent NYTimes magazine. What a lovely piece of embroidery from Jacob Magraw

2275 pages! really?

helen — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:16:05 +0000

Here is a link to a blog I have recently started following. This last post made me laugh. I think she read 6 or 7 books in a day, mostly pretty heavy sounding Russian stuff. I agree with her about Shadow of the Wind, though. I could not get along with that book.

If I sat down and read Bleak House for an entire day, I don’t think I could get through more than 200 pages. I am almost half way though it, by the way, after about 4 weeks of reading. I am enjoying it, but blimey, he does go on!

Old Town Clothing

helen — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:38:46 +0000

love everything about this site

Molloy & Sons

helen — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:18:42 +0000

got a feeling I would like this place. Even the green paint colour is the same as on my Dubied knitting machines. From here

Bleak House

helen — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:10:30 +0000

Reading my second Dickens novel. Oi! It is a big book – 993 pages in the edition I am reading and I am a s l o w reader. I found the first two chapters almost impenetrable. At page 235, I am enjoying it very much. He creates such wonderful characters and can take you right to a place with all it’s grime and filth and suffering.

Here is one of my favorite lines so far,

“There is something decidedly keen and wan about her anatomy; and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corner of her eyes without turning her head, which could be pleasantly dispensed with – especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives”.

Love it!

Favourite (because they are so deliciously awful) characters so far – Mr Turveydrop Snr & Mrs Pardiggle

I was excited to see that our local PBS channel was showing “Great Expectations”. It was so disappointingly one-dimensional after all that pithy prose. Understandably (for tv) half the characters and 9/10th of the action was done away with, just leaving the bare bones of the story, which I might be quite happy with, if I hadn’t just read the book. And the characters didn’t look like they did in my head at all!

this weather!

helen — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:49:42 +0000

xenobia bailey

helen — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:35:20 +0000

Just down the hill from my house is this museum. Right now they have an exhibit of crochet work by the artist Xenobia Bailey. I went last week with a friend. The exhibit is call “The Aesthetics of Funk”. It was very funky indeed and kind of made your eyes swirl about in your head. Colors put together that I would never have come up with. Interlocking, overlapping and underlapping circles and stripes and zig-zags. In the corner of one room was a television screen playing footage from a ’70′s music show. Barry White was looking gorgeous in a spangled-collared tuxedo, singing “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe” in that unmistakeable gravelly, sexy voice of his while the coolest people in the world hussled around the dance floor in shiny hipsters and big hair – and that’s just the men. Children had been invited to write the definition of funk on post-its. “Funk is love!”